Yale Law School is withdrawing from the U.S. News & World Report law-school ranking, a ranking it has topped for years, due to what the school describes as“flawed” methodology.
According to a statement issued by the law school, a “misguided formula” that disincentivizes support of public interest careers and “discourages law schools from doing what is best for legal education” are the main reasons for the decision to leave.
“We have reached a point where the rankings process is undermining the core commitments of the legal profession,” said Yale Law School Dean Heather K. Gerken. “As a result, we will no longer participate.”
While acknowledging that Yale Law School has taken US News ranking’s top spot since the ranking began, Gerken said the university never used that position to advertise the program nor base direction.
In ranking 192 law schools with a fixed set of metrics, U.S. News “faces a nearly impossible task” of trying to provide an accurate picture of such varied institutions, Gerken noted. “Its approach not only fails to advance the legal profession, but stands squarely in the ways of progress.”
Specifically, the U.S. News ranking discourages law schools from supporting students seeking public interest careers and devalues graduates pursuing advanced degrees. The magazine appears to essentially classify students who receive public interest fellowships, as well as those pursuing PhD and master’s degrees, as unemployed, the dean said.
In addition, the ranking excludes loan forgiveness programs when calculating student debt loads, Gerken said. “When law schools devote resources to encouraging students to pursue public interest careers, U.S. News mischaracterizes them as low-employment schools with high debt loads,” the dean said. “That backward approach discourages law schools throughout the country from supporting students who dream of a service career.”
Among notable Yale Law School alumni are Bill and Hillary Clinton and Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor and Brett Kavanaugh.
The Yale Law School news follows other high-profile developments that could diminish the power and influence of higher education institution rankings. In September, Columbia University said it has submitted inaccurate information to the U.S. News ranking.
While previously tied with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the second-best national university, Columbia is currently ranked 18th.
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