ABA and AALS Accreditation: What’s ‘Religious Diversity’ Got To Do With It?

The subject of this essay is whether, and under what circumstances, the religious commitment of an institution should become an issue in the law school accreditation process. Originally presented at the March 1994, Marquette University Conference on Religiously Affiliated Law Schools, this essay begins with the commonly shared assumption that some tensions do exist between religiously affiliated law schools and their accrediting agencies, the American Bar Association (ABA), and the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). For present purposes, the task will be to differentiate those tensions that arise from the accreditation process itself, and those that arise from the religious identity or mission of the institution