Amid Boycott, U.S. News to Continue to Rank Harvard, Other Top Law Schools Using New Methodology

U.S. News & World Report said Monday it will include Harvard and other top law schools in their 2023-2024 rankings using a revamped methodology, even though the schools stopped cooperating with the magazine last fall.

Harvard Law School made the historic decision to withdraw from the rankings in November, just hours after Yale Law School first announced it would stop participating. At least 16 of the country’s top law schools are staging a boycott of the U.S. News rankings, citing concerns around student debt metrics, need-based aid, and diversity.

When producing its upcoming rankings of top law schools, U.S. News will now rely on publicly available data that the American Bar Association requires schools to disclose, one of several changes to the rankings the magazine announced in a Monday letter to law school deans.

Robert Morse, chief data strategist at U.S. News, wrote in an emailed statement to The Crimson on Wednesday that all law schools accredited with the American Bar Association will be ranked using the public data, “regardless of whether they submit the survey to U.S. News.”

“So yes, schools such as Harvard Law and Yale Law will appear in the upcoming rankings,” Morse wrote.

HLS spokesperson Jeff Neal declined to comment when asked if the school intends to reconsider its participation with the U.S. News rankings.

Yale Law School Dean Heather K. Gerken said in a statement Monday that the school will not reconsider its decision to stop cooperating with the U.S. News rankings following the changes announced by the magazine.

“Having a window into the operations and decision-making process at U.S. News in recent weeks has only cemented our decision to stop participating in the rankings,” Gerken wrote.

U.S. News also announced Monday it will place more weight on school-funded fellowships and the number of graduates who go on to pursue advanced degrees in the upcoming rankings.

“Indebtedness will not be used in the upcoming ranking as it is not a publicly available figure,” Morse wrote. “However, it may be displayed on the school profile or in a tool, as we believe this is useful student information.”

In a November email to HLS affiliates announcing the school’s decision to withdraw from the rankings, HLS Dean John F. Manning ’82 criticized the magazine’s consideration of student debt at graduation and added that its methodology creates perverse incentives for law schools to favor academic credentials without considering financial need when calculating financial aid.

“For these and other reasons, we will no longer participate in the U.S. News process,” Manning wrote in the email. “It does not advance the best ideals of legal education or the profession we serve, and it contradicts the deeply held commitments of Harvard Law School.”

Harvard ranked fourth in the 2022-2023 U.S. News rankings, behind Yale, Stanford, and the University of Chicago.

While no law schools have publicly reversed their decision to stop cooperating with the rankings, Kate O’Donnell, vice president of communications at U.S. News wrote in an emailed statement Thursday that changes to the methodology were well received by schools.

“Our data journalists are currently at the Association of American Law Schools annual conference and are meeting with deans to answer questions on the announced changes,” O’Donnell wrote.

“I can’t comment at this time if they’ve heard from HLS specifically, but know they have received a great deal of positive feedback from institutions as to the changes that were announced,” she added.

—Staff writer Ryan H. Doan-Nguyen can be reached at ryan.doannguyen@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @ryandoannguyen.

—Staff writer Miles J. Herszenhorn can be reached at miles.herszenhorn@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @MHerszenhorn.