This is much more serious than 99% of the daily provocations the left-leaning half of the US consumes daily with relish and ketchup.
tl;dr: The Florida Supreme Court just amended a rule requiring that “law school graduates will no longer need to graduate from a law school accredited by the American Bar Association” (USA Today). The ruling “create[s] the opportunity for additional entities to carry out an accrediting and gatekeeping function on behalf of the Court.”
USAT helpfully notes in its dek (i.e., subheadline) that “[t]he Sunshine State isn’t the first to move away from the American Bar Association.” True, it’s the second — after Texas, a bastion of liberty whose legal system is led by that gangster Ken Paxton, which did the same thing last week (following a “tentative opinion” in September). Ohio and Tennessee are also known to be considering the same rule change. Notice any patterns? It’s safe to assume that other states, maybe many other states, are now or will soon be considering similar rule changes now too.
How could citizens know? It’s not easy. The Florida case was issued “per curiam, on its own motion,” meaning there was no real plaintiff or defendant. Bloomberg News reported that Tennessee “issued an order soliciting comments from the legal community and the public” last (wait for it…) in September. In Florida, the process was led by an SC-appointed “workgroup,” which was appointed last March after Trump’s DoJ (led by the Floridian lawyer Pam Bondi, of course) attacked the ABA for “subject[ing] law faculties and law students to unlawful race and sex discrimination under the guise of ‘diversity’ mandates,” and demanding that “that policy must be repealed immediately.” The ABA refused, which led the forces behind this to shift their focus to the state level. And the more states that do it, the more it’ll become ‘normal.’
The Florida “case” (which isn’t a real case) means that, from now now, the Florida SC will require nothing more than “(1) a programmatic accrediting agency recognized by the United States Department of Education to accredit programs in legal education…or (2) an institutional accrediting agency recognized by the United States Department of Education to accredit institutions of higher education, provided the institutional accrediting agency is also approved by the Court.”
Even that potpourri of legalese and academese can’t mask the underlying smell, though. Trump & Co have mostly demolished the federal DoE, utterly politicized what remains, and made clear that they plan to terminate it. Just not before its authority to “recognize” entities — a low bar, which can mean nothing more than acknowledging the existence of something — has been transferred to some other agency.
Now, I happen to love this kind of byzantine bureaucratic stuff, but most people don’t, so let me explain in clear terms what this all means. The fascists are trying to sideline the ABA’s from having any role in supervising legal education — and create “the opportunity for additional entities” to do it. The intended result would be to flood the zone with bullshit, except that in this case the zone is our judicial system. As anyone who’s driven across the country knows from the failing business of billboards, the US is already the Land of Better Call Saul. If this movement succeeds, it’ll become far, far worse: a country overrun by legally empowered microfascists — armed with AIs, botnets, and the other affordance our Broligarchy has given us.
So… Boring? AF, as the kids say. And yet it matters, vitally. Like all professional organizations, the ABA is structurally conservative, so it’s no great shakes. But it’s far, far better than a world where digital diploma mills are handing out JDs “certified” by a witches’ brew of MAGA spoor (think # Lindsey Halligan), Christian Dominionists, assorted influencers and cryptobros, and miskellaneous krackpot konspiracy types.
Links:
FL: [SC ruling](https: //www.documentcloud.org/documents/26484103-opinion-sc2025-2064/), [Tallahassee Democrat](https: //www.tallahassee.com/story/news/state/2026/01/15/florida-supreme-court-ends-aba-gatekeeper-role-for-law-schools/88197039007/), [Inside Higher Ed](https: //www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2026/01/16/following-texas-florida-drops-aba-oversight-lawyers)
TN: [TN Bar Assoc](ttps: //www.tba.org/?pg=Articles&blAction=showEntry&blogEntry=131441)