Boycotts, Race, Rankings, and Howard Law School's Peculiar Position
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Novel research was conducted in 2020 to measure disparities between the U.S. News & World Report overall rankings and the peer rankings of law schools. The research uncovered a stark outlierHoward University School of Lawwhose peer rank was consistently twenty to forty spots higher than its overall rank. Another article was published in 2023 using updated rankings data from 2022 and 2023. This update found that the disparity has been growing in severity in recent years. The present Article updates the research with the most recent 2024 data released in May 2023. With Howards overall ranking of 125 and peer ranking of forty-nine, the trend of increasingly disparate overallpeer rankings continues.Because the overall rankings are largely based on objective factors, such as Law School Admission Test (LSAT) scores, bar passage rates, and after-graduation employment, and the peer ranking is purely subjective, the overallpeer deviation provides valuable insight into potential bias in how law schools are viewed. Howards increasingly pronounced disparity between how it is viewed by its peers and its objective performance measures strengthens the original explanation in the 2020 paper: As racial salience increases in society, so does the unique standing of Howardthe most prestigious historically Black college or university (HBCU) law school. This Article investigates potential non-racial explanations that could result in peer rankings that are seventy-six spots above the overall rankings. These include an exceptional law review, use of promotional materials, location, political ideology, notable alumni, professor quality, unwillingness to game the system, and statistical noise. All of these non-racial explanations come up short.This research provides a valuable framework for examining a confluence of events at this critical juncture in time. The upcoming Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action in higher education will likely change how race is viewed in admissions. The American Bar Associations (ABAs) removal of the LSAT requirement sparked debate about race and standardized testing. The recent explosion of artificial intelligence technologies calls into question the future of legal education and the legal profession. The expected law school enrollment cliff of 2025 will profoundly affect law schools. The Varsity Blues admissions scandal calls into question the ability of the well connected to game the system. The new rankings methodology drastically decreased the significance of grade point average (GPA) and LSAT scores as well as the significance of the peer score as a contributor to the overall score. The decision of top law schools to boycott the rankings immediately after Supreme Court oral arguments in the affirmative action cases illuminates how race was likely a driver behind the decision. Additionally, there is an overall increase in racial salience in society and a movement toward replacing more objective measures with more diversity-focused measures, such as environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) investing. Consequently, this Article is also highly informative regarding larger questions, such as what role law school rankings should play, how law schools alter their behavior based on the rankings, and the role of race in legal education and the practice of law.
