A rule aimed at curbing discriminatory behavior by lawyers is inciting heated debate in the legal industry, echoing pushback against antidiscrimination legislation playing out in the rest of the country.

The proposal, drafted by an American Bar Association committee, would deem it “professional misconduct” for a lawyer to harass or discriminate based on factors such as race, sex, religion or socioeconomic status. Under the model rule, engaging in such conduct, if “related to the practice of law,” would carry the risk of disciplinary action, including losing one’s law license.

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“Lawyers are pathologically opposed to any interference with their own professional regulation,” said Deborah Rhode, a legal ethics scholar at Stanford Law School. “And the banner of personal liberty is unfurled every time someone proposes to subject lawyers to what’s forbidden in every other occupational context.”