Yale Law School has for many years ranked #1 in the highly respected categorization of the U.S. News and World Report. Yet, they have spear-headed an effort, subsequently taken up by numerous other prestigious law schools, to no longer cooperate with this organization. Yale refuses to continue to supply USN with information about its organization, which supports this rating system.
Why? Several hypotheses might explain this decision of theirs.
One is that this university was about to lose its #1 ranking. This stems from the fact that the Yale Law School administration was bullying one of their conservative students for the use of the phrase “trap house”; who knew that this was now verboten by the wokesters? As a result, over a dozen federal judges announced they would no longer seek Yale grads as their legal assistants. But a part of a law school’s USN rank is based upon just this sort of consideration. This reaction by the judges, presumably, heavily tarnished Yale’s reputation and thus threatened its ranking.
Another hypothesis, put forth by Yale itself, is that they wish to opt-out (they may well not succeed; the USN rating agency will likely continue their survey based upon publicly available information) due to improprieties in the ranking system. To wit, departure from the program, to the extent possible, would be a protest against the USN practice of deprecating the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs widely implemented at Yale and on campuses throughout the country. This would be appropriate for the involved universities since some ethnic and racial groups cannot as easily avail themselves of expensive LSAT preparation courses. But these are, or at least were (many have been canceled for precisely this reason), available to poor students for free. Thus, we may properly look askance at this explanation.
Yet another possibility is that the administrators at Yale Law School and these other universities (and, more recently, medical schools) do not relish being graded by a private enterprise such as USN. Rather, they think this is a role only for government and quasi-government agencies such as the Association of Colleges and Schools of Business. AACSB
Is there any evidence for this hypothesis? There is some. Admittedly, it is far stronger for medical schools, which have also been infected with the virus of wokism, than for law schools. Their entire existence, let alone ratings of the former, is predicated upon government control. Let them allow the entry of one additional freshman student over and above their allotted intake; their entire operation can be closed down. Starting up a new medical school without permission, unlike law schools, is simply not legally permitted. Yet, nary a peep of protest ever emanates from this quarter. Were a new medical school to open up without a government license, those responsible would not have a lower ranking; they would be incarcerated. Yet, these medical schools have the audacity to protest against USN rankings while remaining utterly silent about this rights violation.
There is a reason for this, of course, a good reason. Licensure of doctors is part and parcel of what economists call restricted entry. Too many doctors and their remuneration falls. Limit the number of such competitors, and, other things equal, their salaries rise. They do not protest this situation since they are largely responsible for it in the first place.
Yale and U.S. News and World Report
- by: Walter E. Block
- 01/22/2024
- Source:
UncoverDC
- 01/22/2024
