The UConn School of Law has joined a growing list of law schools nationwide to withdraw from the annual U.S. News & World Report rankings of the country’s best law schools.
To date, according to Reuters, 21 law schools – including Yale and Harvard – have said they will boycott participating in the survey.
In a Jan. 30 letter to staff, faculty and students, UConn School of Law Dean Eboni Nelson wrote that U.S. News’ annual survey and rankings “do not appropriately measure or adequately capture UConn Law’s strengths and values or the life-transformative educational experience we offer to our students. … But, our concerns run deeper. The rankings’ methodology and outsized influence impede progress in providing equitable educational opportunities for students with the greatest financial need and for those whose backgrounds and identities are historically underrepresented in law schools and the legal profession.”
Reuters also reports that – due to the outcry from law schools – U.S. News & World Report will modify its rankings, including eliminating criteria like expenditures-per-student, average student debt at graduation or employment at graduation. That information had been collected by U.S. News and taken into consideration in past rankings.
In her letter to the UConn law community, Nelson also wrote that the publication’s “methodology ignores the diversity of law schools’ missions and goals and the wide range of approaches taken to achieve them.”
