Bar Association Comes Under Fire at NACIQI; NAICU Submits Accreditation Comments

The National Advisory Committee for Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) declined to make a recommendation on the American Bar Association’s (ABA) application to renew federal recognition of its accrediting arm. The decision was a compromise after committee members split along partisan lines over whether to recommend denying recognition or renewing it with conditions.

Despite the lack of a recommendation from NACIQI, the ABA’s federal recognition remains in jeopardy because the Department of Education has recommended that the organization should lose its federal recognition to accredit legal programs.

During the contentious meeting, the ABA primarily came under attack based on allegations that it is insufficiently “separate and independent” from its related trade association and had maintained unlawful diversity, equity, and inclusion standards.

The ABA vote appears to mark a new era of NACIQI, signified by greater scrutiny of accreditors and heightened partisan divides on the advisory committee. Shortly after the committee concluded its review of the ABA, members divided once again along political lines in a vote that recommended that the federal recognition of the American Psychological Association’s accrediting arm be suspended for one year based on allegations of antisemitism. The Department has recommended conditional renewal for the accrediting agency.

Due to the lengthy debate over the two programmatic accreditors, NACIQI appeared unlikely to complete review of all six agencies on its agenda this week.

In other accreditation news, NAICU submitted comments this week on the proposed accreditation regulations that emerged from the Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization (AIM) negotiated rulemaking committee. NAICU’s comments focused primarily on issues of central importance to the private, nonprofit sector, particularly the new transfer of credit provisions.

For more information, please contact:
Jody Feder