Kevin R. Johnson of UC Davis, dean and Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law, School of Law, and professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, issued the following letter today (November 28).
Dear UC Davis Law School Community,
Starting today (November 28), UC Davis Law School will no longer provide data to US News & World Report to compile its law school rankings. This decision was made after receiving guidance from the law school, campus leadership, students, alumni, and others.
The major flaws in the US News rankings are well documented. Although the law schools have worked in good faith with the journal on improvements, US News has failed to significantly change the ranking methodology. Survey techniques, accuracy, and fairness of rankings remain problematic, resulting in misleading law school rankings. Even small changes in a variable can cause a drastic reorganization of the classifications. The regular “corrections” of the US News rankings show their volatility and undermine their legitimacy.
The flaws in the classification methodology are too many to mention here, but include: (1) the failure to treat public service scholarships that generate public service careers as full employment; (2) the lack of full accounting of the resources available in public law schools; and (3) overemphasis on standardized test scores to assess student selectivity. In addition, the US News grading system discourages schools from devoting resources to helping students pursue careers in the public interest or helping low-income students obtain a legal education.
There is a more fundamental flaw in US News’ law school rankings. As I wrote years ago (here, here, here), US News rankings discourage law schools from enrolling more diverse student bodies and in no way value more diverse law schools. The significant weight given to students’ law school admissions test scores in rankings serves to chill individual review of applications, gives undue weight to test scores in rankings, and effectively discourages admission of African Americans, Latin Americans, Native Americans and Asians. US applicants in a country where less than 20 percent of all attorneys are people of color.
Although the law schools have worked in good faith with the journal on improvements, US News has failed to significantly change the ranking methodology. Survey techniques, accuracy, and fairness of rankings remain problematic, resulting in misleading law school rankings.
Despite discussions over many years, the diversity of the law school and student body (as well as teaching effectiveness and student satisfaction) are not considered in US News law school rankings. In announcing a diversity index last year, US News, to its embarrassment, proposed treating Asian-Americans and multiracial students as the equivalent of whites. Understandably, an uproar followed. Asian Americans, who have seen a shocking increase in hate crimes during the pandemic, have been added to the non-white group. In the end, US News abandoned its plan to measure diversity in law schools.
As a public law school at a land-grant university, housed in a building named for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., our approach is very different from that promoted by US News rankings. More fundamentally, we continue to consider how we can actively promote diversity, equity and inclusion. Through our words and deeds, we emphasize public service, racial and social justice, and global engagement. We strive to promote the upward mobility of first-generation students and those underrepresented in the legal profession. At a time when the nation combats systemic racism and law schools have attempted to embrace anti-racist practices, all institutions must challenge structures that reproduce racial hierarchy in legal education and the legal profession.
To be honest,
kevin r johnson
Dean and Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law
UC Davis School of Law
Professor, Department of Chicano and Chicano Studies
University of California at Davis
