这一决定在法律界乃至整个高等教育界都引发了高度关注。
Yale’s law school made the stunning announcement that it would no longer participate in the influential rankings published annually by US News & World Report.
Since last week, nine of the 14 top-ranked US News law schools — known as the T-14 — have said they will no longer provide internal data for the rankings.
从排名靠前的学校毕业，就意味着有机会获得大型律师事务所的高薪助理工作、司法助理或其他高竞争力的职位。
Colleges and universities have been critical of the US News ranking system for decades, saying that it was unreliable and skewed educational priorities.
"The US News rankings are profoundly flawed - they disincentivize programs that support public interest careers, champion need-based aid, and welcome working-class students into the profession," Yale Law School Dean Heather K. Gerken wrote in a blog post announcing the decision Wednesday. "We have reached a point where the rankings process is undermining the core commitments of the legal profession."
One of the most troubling aspects of the US News rankings is that it devalues graduates pursuing advanced degrees. US News appears to discount these invaluable opportunities to such an extent that these graduates are effectively classified as unemployed.
The US News rankings also discourage law schools from admitting and providing aid to students with enormous promise who may come from modest means. Today, 20% of a law school’s overall ranking is median LSAT/GRE scores and GPAs. This heavily weighted metric imposes tremendous pressure on schools to overlook promising students, especially those who cannot afford expensive test preparation courses.
“We will continue to fulfill our journalistic mission of ensuring that students can rely on the best and most accurate information in making that decision,” Gertler said in a written statement. “As part of our mission, we must continue to ensure that law schools are held accountable for the education they will provide to these students and that mission does not change with these recent announcements.”
Schools like Princeton that have the advantage of long histories and consistent success therefore inevitably benefit from higher rankings in the peer assessment category. When administrators rank their peers, they don’t have any objective measure by which to assess them. Rather, the people ranking might gravitate to well-known "name brands".
Smaller schools that lack the same history of prestige will underperform in peer assessment surveys even if they possess great specialization and teaching in particular fields of study. The very fact that these schools are not "name brands" pushes them downwards in the rankings.
“因此，有些学校没法承担不参与排名的风险。但对于那些处于排名顶端的学校来说，风险可能更小。所以，也许正如耶鲁大学法学院院长希瑟·格肯所说，“现在是时候迈出这一步了。”
"So it’s a lot harder for those schools to take the risks of not participating." For those at the top, however, the risks are perhaps less. And perhaps, as Gerken said, 'Now is the time to take a step.'"
编辑：左卓
实习生：胡湛滢
综合：澎湃新闻 凤凰网 纽约时报 US News The Princetonian The Chronicle of Higher Education
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