Many accrediting organizations have embraced the DEI ideology, and like good progressives, insist that schools build it into their programs. The American Bar Association has recently decided to drop DEI requirements from its law school standards, but quite a few other accreditors maintain DEI requirements in some form.
That is the topic of today’s Martin Center article by Alejandro Ramos.
He provides several examples.
One of them is social work, where the Council on Social Work Education holds authority. Ramos writes:
CSWE also makes clear that programs retain discretion over how they teach it and leaves specific theories, such as Critical Race Theory, to program discretion. That caveat is useful, but the underlying question remains: What exactly constitutes competence in “anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion,” and how does an accreditor measure it consistently across institutions? This is particularly important given that the CSWE has used their influence to promote DEI ideology before.
Medical education is another instance. Ramos points to one standard in particular: “Element 3.3 moves accreditation beyond what an individual future physician knows or can do. It reaches into how a medical school recruits, retains, and organizes parts of its academic community. At that point, accreditation is doing more than checking whether graduates are prepared to practice medicine.”