‘PROFOUNDLY FLAWED’

Harvard and Yale Law Schools Pull Out of U.S. News School Ranking System

The schools announced in separate letters their decision, along with reasons why they could no longer participate.

After decades of criticism of the system, two of the country’s biggest law schools have pulled out of the U.S. News & World Report rankings in what The New York Times described as “perhaps the biggest challenge yet to the school rankings industry.” The rankings have been criticized for a number of flaws in their calculations, with Yale and Harvard each announcing in separate letters that that they would no longer participate. Despite consistently earning the top spot, Yale Law School Dean Heather K. Gerken said the U.S. News rankings are “profoundly flawed—they disincentivize programs that support public interest careers, champion need-based aid, and welcome working-class students into the profession. We have reached a point where the rankings process is undermining the core commitments of the legal profession.” Harvard Law School Dean John Manning said that over several years “a number of schools” had taken their “concerns about aspects of the U.S. News ranking methodology” to U.S. News but did not elaborate on its response.