On July 8, 2026, Defending Education (DE) submitted a letter to the Ohio Supreme Court responding to its call for comments on proposed changes to the rules for admission to the Ohio Bar. The changes include creating “opportunities for graduates of non-ABA-accredited law schools to sit for the Ohio Bar.” Ohio is now the fifth state to consider such a measure.
The American Bar Association (ABA) should have no role in accrediting law schools. Though it says it speaks for the whole legal profession, the ABA is an ideologically driven activist group that represents a small fraction of practicing lawyers and regularly backs divisive political causes. That activism shapes its accreditation standards. By threatening to pull accreditation, the ABA has pushed law schools to adopt discriminatory admissions and hiring practices and to parrot its views on diversity and “bias” in the legal profession.
Ohio does not need the ABA to make sure law students are ready for the bar exam and the practice of law. As changes in Texas, Florida, and Alabama show, there is more than one path to reform. DE urges the Ohio Supreme Court to adopt other ways of accrediting law schools that do not force schools to discriminate or violate academic freedom.
Read the full letter below: