The University of Austin, which welcomed its inaugural class of undergraduate students in the fall of 2024, was founded five years ago by a group of prominent academics and public intellectuals, including Bari Weiss, the Editor-in-Chief of The Free Press and former New York Times columnist. From its inception, the university has marketed itself as a "fearless" alternative to the perceived ideological orthodoxy of established elite universities, promising a curriculum rooted in the "pursuit of truth" rather than social or political activism.
This latest announcement regarding its legal program was detailed in a comprehensive and pointed Substack post published on Thursday by Adam Biggs, the General Counsel for UATX. In the post, titled with the provocative headline "Save the Constitution, Ditch the ABA," Biggs laid out a blistering critique of the American Bar Association’s Accreditation Council, characterizing it as a restrictive "private trade association" that has maintained a stranglehold on legal education for seventy years.
According to Biggs, the ABA’s influence has resulted in a homogenized system that forces every law school in the country to conform to a singular, rigid vision. "The model it enforces is expensive and outdated, and it stifles anyone who tries to build something different," Biggs wrote. He argued that the current accreditation standards act as a barrier to entry, preventing the emergence of innovative teaching methods and keeping the cost of legal education prohibitively high for the average student.
The university’s decision to bypass the ABA comes at a time when the accrediting body is facing unprecedented pressure from both federal regulators and state-level officials. Last month, the U.S. Department of Education issued a recommendation that the ABA Council lose its federal recognition to accredit law schools. If such a recommendation were fully implemented, it would have seismic consequences for the legal education industry, as ABA accreditation is currently the primary mechanism that unlocks federal student aid for law students. Without that federal recognition, the traditional financial model of many law schools could collapse.
Simultaneously, the ABA has found itself in the crosshairs of Republican-led states and conservative legal groups who have criticized the council’s historical support for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Critics argue that these standards have prioritized ideological alignment over academic rigor. Earlier this year, in a move that provided the necessary legal opening for UATX’s current strategy, the Texas Supreme Court amended its rules to allow graduates from non-ABA-accredited law schools to practice law within the state. This regulatory shift in Texas effectively broke the ABA’s monopoly on the "pathway to the bar" in one of the nation’s largest legal markets.
In his critique, Biggs took particular aim at the financial and structural requirements imposed by the ABA, which he claims drive up tuition and limit the diversity of thought among faculty. He specifically pointed to the ABA’s requirements for tenured positions and the mandate for legal clinics as primary drivers of unnecessary costs.
