Law Deans Hate Rankings, but Help Perpetuate Them, Article Says
An article by two sociology professors contends that law schools’ efforts to influence rankings published by U.S. News & World Report end up perpetuating the system.
Most law schools have adopted strategies to manipulate their place in the rankings and many spend heavily to improve their rank in a kinds of “arms race,” according to the article (PDF) by professors Michael Sauder of the University of Iowa and Wendy Nelson Espeland of Northwestern University. The professors interviewed 137 law school administrators and faculty members as part of their research.
The “arbitrary yardstick” of rankings becomes a key element in decision-making, forcing changes in decisions about even trivial matters, says the article published in the February 2009 American Sociological Review. “Efforts to control rankings, whether through strategic manipulation or resistance, propel the institutionalization of rankings and extend their power,” the authors write.
The article quotes one law school dean who said that until she took on the job, “I didn’t really understand … the integral nature of the rankings to everything about the law school’s reputation, its admissions policies, how it allocates money, how it budgets.”
Details that were previously ignored become important, as schools develop intricate rules about how to conform to the U.S. News criteria, the article explains.
An example is a career service official’s new focus on tracking down former students to develop placement statistics. “I track them down any way I can,” the official said. “I call old boyfriends. I call parents. I am not ashamed to do that. I go on the Internet and look up whatever I can. … I do it all. I hunt them down.”
The article concludes the rankings become a form of discipline over law schools, producing “status anxiety” and concealing important differences in schools by creating a single norm for excellence. “Difference is now value laden, a shortcoming rather than a viable alternative,” the article says.
One law dean used vermin to explain her anxiety. “I have to be frank,” the dean told the researchers. “When the USN comes out, it reminds me of when I used to live in an apartment that had roaches. I developed this protective instinct, which is that I would close my eyes before I turned on the light to give them time to run away so that I didn’t really have to see them. The last time the USN came out, I just closed my eyes and I looked in the fourth tier just to make sure that we weren’t there.”
Morse Code: Inside the College Rankings by Bob Morse, U.S. News’ director of data research, notes the article but defends the rankings: “The main purpose of the rankings is to provide prospective law school students with much-needed—and clearly desired—comparative information to help them make decisions on where to apply and enroll.”
