For more than 70 years, the American Bar Association (ABA) has occupied an extraordinarily powerful position in American legal education. That position may now be in jeopardy.

On August 21, 2026, the U.S. Department of Education initiated proceedings to withdraw federal recognition from the ABA’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar — the body that accredits most American law schools. Department staff reportedly concluded that the accrediting council failed to satisfy federal requirements, including the requirement that it remain “separate and independent” from the larger ABA organization.

The Department’s action is not yet final. A federal advisory committee is expected to consider the recommendation before a final decision is made. Nevertheless, the move raises a much larger question: If the federal government is willing to reconsider the special status granted to the ABA, will it also examine the government-enabled power of organizations that influence America’s schools?

The ABA Is Not Being ‘Abolished’

The distinction is important. The Department of Education is not attempting to abolish the American Bar Association or prevent attorneys from joining it. The ABA is a private membership organization, and its members retain their constitutional right to associate.

What the government may withdraw is the ABA accrediting council’s federal recognition.

Under the Higher Education Act, the Secretary of Education recognizes accrediting agencies considered “reliable authorities” concerning educational quality. Accreditation can determine whether an institution or program participates in federal student-aid programs. In other words, government recognition can transform a private organization into an enormously influential gatekeeper.

Federal law expressly authorizes the secretary of Education to establish procedures for recognizing accrediting agencies, and for reviewing and appealing recognition decisions. The corresponding regulations appear in 34 C.F.R. Part 602. The statutory authority appears in 20 U.S.C. § 1099b.

The Department’s reported conclusion is that the ABA accrediting council no longer satisfies all the conditions attached to that governmental recognition. The issue, therefore, is not whether the ABA is allowed to exist. The issue is whether the federal government must continue treating it as an officially recognized gatekeeper.

That distinction provides a possible roadmap for education reform.

Could the Same Principle Apply to the NEA and AFT?

The National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are different from the ABA’s accrediting council. The NEA and AFT are private membership organizations and labor unions. They do not operate under the same federal accreditor-recognition system, so the secretary of Education cannot use the ABA process to abolish or derecognize them.

Furthermore, most public school employees are state or local government employees. According to the National Labor Relations Board, public-sector employees are excluded from coverage under the federal National Labor Relations Act. Their collective bargaining arrangements are therefore largely governed by state constitutions, statutes, and labor boards, not directly by the U.S. Department of Education.

That does not mean the NEA’s or AFT’s institutional power is beyond examination.

Federal and state officials could investigate the ways government policies provide teachers’ unions with privileged access or influence. States could reconsider exclusive representation, collective bargaining privileges, access to employee orientations, payroll deduction arrangements, release time, union access to school communication systems, and the incorporation of union-backed policies into public school operations.

The Supreme Court has already ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that public employees cannot be forced to subsidize union speech through mandatory agency fees. The court held that extracting such fees from nonconsenting public employees violated the First Amendment. That decision did not abolish public-sector unions, but it removed one form of government-backed financial support.

The same principle should guide future reform: private organizations may continue to exist and advocate for their beliefs, but government should not compel citizens to support them or automatically grant them policymaking power.

The NEA  and AFT both acknowledge that they work to influence Congress, federal agencies, and allied national organizations through their respective legislative programs. They also adopt policy statements addressing matters beyond salaries and classroom working conditions, including artificial intelligence, equity, discipline, charter schools, and broader social policy. They both raise massive amounts of funding for political campaigns, legislation, regulations, and court cases.

The relevant question is not whether the NEA and AFT have a right to express those positions. They do. The question is why a private labor organization should enjoy special governmental access to shape policies governing children and families, particularly when parents have no comparable seat at the bargaining table.

What about the School Counseling Associations?

The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) presents another kind of institutional influence.

ASCA is a private professional membership association. It is not a labor union, and it is not the federally recognized accreditor of school counseling programs. Therefore, the Department of Education cannot “abolish” ASCA by withdrawing the type of recognition at issue in the ABA case.

Nevertheless, ASCA has developed standards, ethical guidance, position statements, and a “National Model” that influence school counseling programs throughout the country.

ASCA states that its mission includes equipping school counselors to create “equitable opportunities and inclusive environments.” Its goals include using data to identify student needs, addressing equity issues, implementing social emotional development standards, and creating “systemic change.” Its National Model calls for school counseling programs to be delivered systematically to all students and to include curriculum focused on specified student “mindsets and behaviors.”

These documents do not automatically carry the force of federal law. Their authority often comes from adoption by states, school districts, universities, credentialing bodies, and administrators. Once incorporated into state standards, employment evaluations, counselor-training programs, or district policies, however, the recommendations of a private association can begin functioning like public requirements.

That is precisely where policymakers should focus.

States and local school boards should identify every instance in which ASCA standards, ethical positions, or its National Model have been incorporated into:

• counselor-certification requirements;
• university preparation programs;
• district counseling plans;
• employee evaluations;
• student surveys and universal screening;
• social emotional learning programs;
• confidentiality and parental notification policies;
• data collection systems; and
• contracts for counseling or mental health services.

A similar examination should include the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP), which accredits many university counseling programs. ASCA and CACREP are separate organizations, but their standards can contribute to the professional pipeline through which counselors are trained and then placed in schools.

The question is not merely whether these organizations exist. The question is whether governments have delegated public authority to private organizations without sufficient legislative oversight, parental representation, or public accountability.

A Model for Breaking Institutional Control

The U.S. Department of Education’s action against the ABA could become significant far beyond legal education — not because it authorizes the president or education secretary to abolish private associations, but because it challenges elitism and the companion assumption that longstanding institutional power must continue indefinitely.

For decades, professional associations, accrediting organizations, labor unions, and nonprofit policy groups have developed standards that governments subsequently adopted. Once embedded in licensing, accreditation, collective bargaining agreements, grants, and administrative regulations, private ideology can acquire the practical force of law without ever being approved directly by voters or their elected lawmakers.

A serious reform effort should apply several principles across government:

1. No private organization should possess permanent gatekeeping authority.
2. Government recognition should be regularly reviewed rather than automatically renewed.
3. Organizations exercising delegated public authority should be structurally and financially independent, transparent, and accountable.
4. Professional recommendations should not become binding public policy without legislative or elected-board approval.
5. Parents should not be displaced by professional associations in decisions involving a child’s beliefs, behavior, mental health, or personal information.
6. Taxpayer money should not subsidize political advocacy disguised as professional development or educational programming.
7. Special interest groups (unions, professional associations, etc.,) should not have any dark money connection with political processes of political campaigns, public/private partnerships, departmental appointments, third-party contracts for technical or AI-related services, consultants for services, supplies, or equipment directly related to consultants’ area(s) of ‘expertise.’
8. Alternative accrediting bodies and professional standards should be permitted so that one ideological organization cannot control an entire profession.

This approach does not violate freedom of association. It restores it. The ABA, NEA, AFT, and ASCA would remain free to organize, recruit members, publish standards, and advocate for their positions. Government institutions, however, would no longer be required to treat any one private organization as the unquestioned authority over a profession or public institution.

The Larger Opportunity

The Department of Education’s action against the ABA is not, by itself, a legal pathway for abolishing teachers’ unions or school counseling associations. Any claim that it automatically grants such authority would overstate the announcement.

But it may signal something equally consequential: a willingness to examine how private organizations acquire and perpetuate public power.

If federal recognition of the ABA’s accrediting council can be reconsidered after decades of institutional dominance, then states and school districts can also reconsider the authority they have granted to teachers’ unions, credentialing bodies, and professional counseling organizations. They can reconsider and stop before setting up new ones.

The goal should not be to outlaw private associations. It should be to end their ability to operate as unelected governments within government, write standards, control professional pipelines, and shape public policy without meaningful accountability to parents or taxpayers.

Removing official privilege is not the same as abolishing an organization. But without government-granted privilege, these organizations would have to persuade the public rather than exercise authority.

That could mark the beginning of a profound shift, not only in legal education, but throughout America’s education establishment.

Rhonda Thomas is the founder and president of Truth In Education, a volunteer Christian nonprofit that exposes harmful ideologies and Marxist globalist agendas in America’s schools. A national speaker and advocate for parental rights, she works to equip families to reclaim their biblical role in their children’s education.