The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
FTC Bans Political Appointees From Being ABA Members
The ABA has been planting the seeds of its own demise for decades.
In April 2023, I wrote a column for the ABA Journal titled "The ABA needs ideological diversity to ensure its future." I concluded:
If the ABA does not arrest its progressive lurch, the organization risks its own obsolescence. Model Rules will not be adopted. Evaluations of judicial nominees will be ignored. The accreditation monopoly will cease. And so on. A decline in membership will be the least of the ABA's problems. The ABA can either adapt to a new political reality or fade away like the guilds of yore.
Over the following year, I attempted to work within the ABA to reform the organization. I joined a caucus formed to promote viewpoint diversity within the ABA. I even spoke at the Midyear Meeting, where I explained in clear terms how the ABA's fixation on leftist politics and DEI would spell its demise. My remarks were met with shock. I was called a racist and worse. People objected to my presence on the panel. One person in the audience said that she would defend the ABA's DEI efforts till the bitter end, even if she was the last member. She may yet get her wish. For reasons I will discuss more fully another time, I resigned from the Caucus. In short, I thought the ABA was beyond repair, and my time could be spent better doing other things.
Today, Andrew Ferguson, the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, hammered what may be the first nail in the ABA's coffin.
For many years, federal antitrust enforcers and the private antitrust bar have enjoyed a cozy relationship facilitated by the Antitrust Law Section of the American Bar Association (ABA). The ABA's long history of leftist advocacy and its recent attacks on the Trump-Vance Administration's governing agenda, however, have made this relationship untenable. I therefore have concluded that it does not advance the interests of the United States government for Federal Trade Commission (FTC) political appointees to hold leadership positions in the ABA or to participate in ABA events. Accordingly, I prohibit FTC political appointees from holding leadership positions in the ABA, participating in or attending ABA events, or renewing any existing ABA memberships. I further prohibit the FTC from expending any funds to facilitate any employee's membership in the ABA or participation in, or attendance at, an ABA event.
The FTC is first, but it will not be last. I suspect all federal agencies will follow suit. Whatever difficulties the ABA had with membership numbers will become far worse. And I fully expect the Department of Education to revoke the ABA's accreditation power. The ABA will be left with little reason to exist--at least not at such a large size. There will be no real influence left.
It didn't have to end this way. The ABA could have arrested its decline. Instead, it was captured by leftist groups, and tied itself to the DEI mast.
