The ABA received a flood of comments regarding a series of proposed changes to the Standards. The proposals involve professional identity formation and, broadly, the topic of diversity and inclusion. I added my two cents, suggesting areas where the proposals got it right and where they could use improvement. I noted an overarching concern about the ABA Standards being used to advance particular views of legal education that are better left to individual schools to decide whether to adopt. As I wrote, I can understand fully why schools may wish to specialize or distinguish themselves through professional identity formation or, for that matter, law and economics, public interest law, or international perspectives. That does not mean those views should be imposed on the other roughly 200 schools governed by the Standards as a matter of accreditation.

In any event, one of the proposals would required all law schools to provide training in “bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism” at two points in a student’s education: once at the beginning and at least once before graduation. If a student takes a clinic or externship, the second training must take place before (or concurrent with) enrollment in the clinic or externship. This proposal would add the requirement to Standard 303, the same Standard that requires (a) three broad course sequences (professional responsibility, legal writing, and the 6-credit experiential requirement) and (b) substantial opportunities for clinics, externships, and pro bono work.

In my comment, I suggested a different approach: adding cross-cultural competency to Standard 302.