case western's dean tries to rally others around him in a fight against us news.

[justin gosling]

The gauntlet has been thrown down.  Dean Gary Simpson of Case Western told the National Law Journal that law schools should unite and say "enough" to US News rankings (via TaxProf Blog 1, 2, 3 and the WSJ Law Blog).

I'm glad that law schools are stepping up to talk about the rankings, and that it's not just a blogger's issue, but I'm skeptical about telling the US News off.  Simpson is not going to magically stop the US News from cashing in on their monopoly. As Mr. Morse's response highlights, a lot of the vital ranking data are public on the LSAC website, and trying to withhold already public information will not prevent the US News from creating some sort of rankings. Also, if you are successful in telling off the US News and smothering the rankings, it removes an important aspect of law school recruitment — what to deans like Simpson brag about, if not their status?

Hello Law School Deans, it looks like you have the center seat right between Mr. Rock and Ms. Hard-Place.  Enjoy.

All this talk about trying to change the ranking game reminds me of a story I read about when I was applying to law school. Now, I don't know if it is true or not, but I remember reading on various message boards about how UC Hastings' attempt to stick it to the US News resulted in the school falling from grace. The quick and dirty version is that one year an administrator did not submit vital US News data and the school dropped from 20th in 1994 all the way down to 45th the following year (data). Apparently this "important data" was not publicly available at the time. Anyway, some of the stories pass off the excluded data as absent-mindedness while other stories say it was an intentional jab at US News rankings that backfired horribly. While I don't know what really happened, the precipitous UC Hastings ranking fall story is just plausible enough to scare any administrator away from not dancing with the ranking gods.

The smart move for a school administrator is to not do anything out of the ordinary. Let other schools withhold their data and take a hit while you ride the rankings wave all the way to the top.