The letter from the UNC BLSA leadership team calls on U.S. News & World Report to revise its law school ranking methodology to include measures of racial diversity. It argues that the current methodology, which focuses on student selectivity metrics like LSAT scores and GPAs as well as expenditures per student, disadvantages minority applicants and law schools that promote inclusiveness. The letter states this perpetuates racial inequities and hinders diversity in legal education and the profession. It asks U.S. News to consider revising the methodology to value diversity as an important measure of excellence.

1. From the UNC BLSA leadership team
To
Mortimer B. Zuckerman
U.S. News & World Report, L.P.
Dear Mr. Zuckerman,
The suffocation of George Floyd under color of authority calls us all to look inward, reflect, and take
action. The leadership of every major institution is compelled to assess whether subtly, perhaps
unknowingly, it plays a role in preserving and perpetuating injustice.
We are writing to you today because we see a chain of causation that traces our nation’s current racial
maladies to our laws, our law schools, and, not peripherally, to the U.S. News law school ranking
methodology. In profound contradiction to the U.S. News brand of service journalism and tradition of
providing information for important life decisions, elements of the U.S. News law school ranking
methodology perpetuate fundamental inequities. Specifically,
· the student selectivity metrics handicap applicants from less privileged backgrounds and
hinder institutions from promoting inclusiveness;
· the expenditures per student metric leads to escalating law school operating costs, tuition
increases, cost opaqueness, student debt, and inaccessibility;
· no metric captures what our generation most values: diversity in its broadest sense;
inclusiveness and affirmation; service; mental health. These are the real-world qualities that
define a 21st
century law school experience.
We ask you to revise the U.S. News law school ranking methodology to include criteria that measure
racial diversity in law schools. We see no contradiction between excellence and inclusiveness.
Inclusiveness is a quality of excellence. We offer suggested solutions below, mindful of the complexities,
but with the utmost confidence in U.S. News' ingenuity and executive capability. Writing from the
nation’s oldest public university, we credit U.S. News for aspiring to operate in the public interest. These
changes would advance social justice along with the publication’s credibility and authority, building trust
in the eyes of the current and rising generations.
The events of this summer have sparked a national conversation that can only be followed by action. We
urge U.S. News to engage in the necessary introspection that has inspired many institutions to implement
meaningful reforms. We invite you to participate in the conversation by meeting with us and other Black
law student leaders from around the country. We ask that you render a response to this invitation by
October 1, 2020 so that, together, we may create lasting change. Moving forward, we intend to use
relevant media sources to include other interested, invested, and affected parties.
Our country is on fire. We need to dismantle harmful structures now. We address you, the Chairman and
Editor in Chief of U.S. News, not in condemnation, but in partnership to lift a knee that suffocates social
progress.
* * *

2. 2
The murders of George Floyd, Amaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Rayshard Brooks,
Elijah McClain, and so many other Black Americans have become the catalyst in a call for attention and
care for Black lives across the world. As Black law students, we have been inundated with live images of
Black death, police violence, and counter-protests that call Black lives, and our very existence, into
question. As our nation reckons with its history of racism and race-based conflict, we must address how
the tendrils of racism have captured our campus communities and the pipelines that feed them. As
individuals, as law school communities, and as constituent parts of American society, we must be held
accountable for disenfranchising, minimizing, and remaining hostile to Black and Brown people.
We must also acknowledge the role that U.S. News has played in perpetuating this
disfranchisement, minimization, and hostility. We ask U.S. News to address and remedy its complicity in
systemic racial bias by reconsidering its decision not to add any measure of diversity in its law school
ranking methodology.
U.S. News is the recognized source of rankings for prospective students looking to attend the
“best” college, graduate, or professional school. Prospective students turn to these rankings when
deciding which school will equip them with the education necessary to launch a successful career.
Prospective law students, in particular, rely on U.S. News as the preeminent ranking authority for
American law schools. While prospective business students can compare seven different widely
recognized rankings sources, prospective law students must depend on U.S. News to inform their decision
on which schools offer them a quality legal education.1
Law schools are acutely aware of this fact and U.S. News’s ability to help—or hurt—them.
Schools report that a rise or fall in their U.S. News rank affects everything from the size of their applicant
pool, to their ability to raise alumni dollars, to the support they receive from central university
administration.2
It is hardly surprising, then, that law schools feel intense pressure to prioritize metrics
that would help them improve their placement in the rankings.3
Some schools have even gone to
extraordinary lengths to inflate their U.S. News ranking.4
Thus, it seems fair to say that U.S. News
exercises a powerful hold over law schools.
As a result, U.S. News considerably influences the trajectory of the legal profession. “We train
law students . . . to be ‘social architects’ – to serve as ministers of justice among the nation’s very diverse
communities. Unsurprisingly then, an awareness of and comfort with the diversity of races, ethnicities
and backgrounds that make up our society – and that are dependent upon our legal system – help law
students become better and more effective lawyers.”5
In short, racial diversity6
in law schools is essential
1
Karen Sloan, Law School Rankings Complicate Diversity Efforts, Research Suggests, NAT’L L. J.,
https://www.law.com/almID/1202445313688/.
2
Alfred Brophy, African American Student Enrollment and Law School Ranking, 27 J. CIV. RTS. & ECON. DEV. 15,
17 (2013).
3
Sloan, supra note 1; Brophy, supra note 2, at 17; Tony Varona, Diversity and Disgrace – How the U.S. News Law
School Rankings Hurt Everyone, 38 N.Y.U Rev. L. & SOC. CHANGE BLOG (Apr. 3, 2014).
4
See Verona, supra note 3 (“It is no secret that law schools have gone as far as admitting much smaller and
significantly more homogenous first-year classes, and then letting many more students in through the 2L transfer
“back door” (where U.S. News’s methodology does not look), thereby hiding the true credentials of their students
from the magazine and artificially inflating their U.S. News ranks.”). See also Brophy, supra note 2, at 17 (“The
New York Times reported in July 2005, for instance, that the University of Illinois tried to manipulate its ranking by
reporting the market value of Lexis and Westlaw services it provided to its students, even though it paid for those
services at a deeply discounted rate.”).
5
Verona, supra note 3.
6
Hereinafter referred to simply as “diversity.”

3. 3
to the functioning of an equitable and just society. This alone should be reason enough to prioritize
diversity in law school admissions and, by extension, U.S. News rankings.7
Yet measures of diversity are notably absent from the U.S. News ranking methodology.8
Law
schools must therefore choose between their interest in having a diverse student body and their desire to
receive a favorable ranking.9
This tension between competing objectives creates a negative feedback loop,
wherein scholars—and U.S. News itself10
—regularly tout the importance of diversity. But it is often the
less diverse law schools that are rewarded by rankings validation.11
This, in turn, incentivizes law schools
to devalue the benefit of diversity efforts in legal education and all-together disregard the positive social
impact of diversity in the legal field. That is to say, in failing to acknowledge the value of diversity in
legal education, U.S. News reinforces the idea that diversity is an afterthought, rather than a vital part of
the fabric of a just society.
This line of thinking is dangerous in that it normalizes indifference to the plight of minority
students and the communities from which they come. As a direct consequence of the U.S. News rankings
system, law schools often reject minority applicants with tremendous potential in favor of applicants with
“rankings-friendly” credentials, resulting in a homogenous student body composed primarily of White
students.12
By creating a system in which diversity efforts must be approached cautiously to avoid
upsetting the delicate equilibrium of law school rankings, U.S. News implicitly encourages law schools to
view accepting minority applicants with “rankings-unfriendly” credentials as a risky undertaking that
must be balanced against the chief goal of maintaining “academic excellence.”
This is deeply problematic for several reasons.
First, it operates under the incorrect assumption that diversity, however desirable, is inherently at
odds with academic excellence and poses a threat to an institution’s pristine standing in the U.S. News
rankings. This assumption not only minimizes the value that minority candidates bring to a law school
classroom, but it also reduces them to mere data points in a standard risk analysis. Students from diverse
backgrounds bring with them varied experiences, viewpoints, and understanding—qualities that have
been shown to enrich and elevate the legal education of all of the students in their law school classes.13
7
Scholarly discourse is replete with anecdotal and empirical evidence of the benefits of diversity on legal education,
as well as the profession. For additional evidence, see Symposium, Does Race Matter in Educational Diversity? A
Legal and Empirical Analysis, 13 Rutgers Race & L. Rev. 75 (2012); Kevin Johnson, The Importance of Student
and Faculty Diversity at Law Schools: One Dean’s Perspective, 96 IOWA L. REV. 1549 (2011); Verona, supra note
3. See also Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978); Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003).
8
It is, however, included in its own separate index called the “Diversity Index.” In its current form, the U.S. News
diversity index does not do the work needed to address the issues raised herein.
9
Verona, supra note 3; Brophy, supra note 2, at 17.
10
See Gabriel Kuris, Advice for Aspiring Lawyers About Diversity in Law School, U.S. NEWS (May 18, 2020),
https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/law-admissions-lowdown/articles/advice-for-aspiring-lawyers-about-
diversity-in-law-school.
11
See Verona, supra note 3 (“U.S. News actually rewards less diverse schools for admitting less diverse classes, and
altogether ignores the clear learning advantages at the more diverse schools.”).
12
Id.
13
Id. For a discussion of the robust impacts of law student diversity on both law school cohorts and society as a
whole, see Symposium, Does Race Matter in Educational Diversity? A Legal and Empirical Analysis, 13 Rutgers
Race & L. Rev. 75 (2012) (“Educational diversity is needed to further our highest national interests to educate
workers for an increasingly diverse domestic workforce, to prepare qualified professionals for an increasingly
diverse domestic society, to compete effectively in a global business world, to enable our military to carry out its
mission of national security, to sustain our political and cultural heritage and thereby maintain our society, and to
work toward achieving our highest aspiration - our ‘dream of one Nation, indivisible.’”).

4. 4
Minority students are more than just a “risk” that law schools need to take on to foster diversity in their
classrooms. They are leaders, critical thinkers, and trail-blazers—qualities that are not easily captured by
the metrics assessed in U.S. News’s rankings methodology. Their contributions should not be minimized.
By telling the world that diversity matters, U.S. News could be a leader in ending institutional norms that
treat diversity as, at best, a subsidiary measure of excellence.
Second, it normalizes widespread indifference to the abysmal lack of minority representation in
the legal field. Although the glaring absence of minority students in a law school cohort typically is felt
only by the few minority students fortunate enough to matriculate into that program, the dearth of
minority lawyers is a major shortcoming of our profession and harms society as a whole. When lack of
diversity in law schools is treated as an unfortunate byproduct of differences in education quality, we fail
to recognize the gravity of the issue. More importantly, we fail to understand that there is a human and
societal cost of our collective indifference. Not just individual minority students, but entire communities,
are foreclosed from the legal profession. It is no coincidence that minorities make up just 30.8% of law
school matriculants, 7.8% of which are Black law students;14
nor is it happenstance that there are so few
minorities in positions of power. Only 9.55% of partners at big law firms are people of color, with
virtually no representation of Black professionals—1.97%, to be exact.15
In sum, minority political and
economic empowerment in America is hindered by minority under-representation in the legal field.
Centuries of racist practices and rampant complacency have resulted in a legal landscape that is not much
different than it was generations ago.
Third, it overlooks a very critical point: the primary criteria that law schools have been
prioritizing to improve their U.S. News rank are better indicators of access to resources than they are
prospective student intellect or ability to excel in law school. Law schools have been using standardized
tests and undergraduate Grade Point Averages to predict bar passage since before U.S. News’ inception.
However, as the U.S. News rankings cemented their place in popular culture, law schools realized that
they can improve their placement in the rankings by increasing the average LSAT and GPA score of their
incoming class while simultaneously keeping their acceptance rates low. These same student selectivity
metrics eliminate most minority applicants from consideration, because minority applicants tend to have
lower LSAT and GPA scores than the average white applicant.16
From this vantage point, it appears as if
minority applicants are simply not measuring up to their White counterparts, so it is only fair that they are
passed up for more qualified candidates. But what is not captured in those scores is just as important as
the scores themselves. When one considers the larger context, the situation ceases to look as objective and
even-handed as it does at first glance.
To broach the topic of low LSAT and GPA scores among minority applicants without accounting
for the structural problems underlying them is to presuppose that all applicants have the same
opportunities and access to resources. Yet, the incontrovertible truth is that the student selectivity metrics
do not reflect the myriad of factors that lead to lower LSAT and GPA scores among minorities. Unlike
most White applicants, most minority applicants deal with a host of systemic barriers that skew the odds
against them. For instance, while it is uncommon for White applicants to be first generation college-or-
14
Gabriel Kuris, What Underrepresented Law School Applicants Should Know, U.S. NEWS (June 8, 2020),
https://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/law-admissions-lowdown/articles/what-underrepresented-law-school-
applicants-should-know; Kylie Thomas, ABA Data Reveals Minority Students Are Disproportionately Represented
in Attrition Figures, ACESSLEX (Sept. 18, 2018), https://www.accesslex.org/xblog/aba-data-reveals-minority-
students-are-disproportionately-represented-in-attrition-figures.
15
NAT’L ASS’N L. PLACEMENT, 2019 REPORT ON DIVERSITY IN U.S. LAW FIRMS 5-6 (Dec. 2019).
16
Verona, supra note 3.

5. 5
law students, it is more common among minority applicants. This gives White applicants an advantage
over minority applicants. In addition, minority applicants often come from families of low socioeconomic
class, meaning that they likely attended under-funded and under-resourced public schools, did not have
access to quality tutoring services, had to balance full- or part-time jobs while completing their studies,
and struggled with the financial aspects of the law school applications process (e.g., LSAT preparation
activities, applications, traveling for school visits, etc.). Thus, the student selectivity metrics handicap
applicants from less privileged backgrounds and hinder institutions from promoting inclusiveness. Taking
diversity into account in the rankings, or excluding the scores of diversity applicants with demonstrated
resource challenges, would in part offset the skewing that occurs by reliance on the LSAT and GPA
scores as if they were objective measures of relative student quality.
Furthermore, the expenditures-per-student metric leads to escalating law school operating costs,
tuition increases, cost opaqueness, student debt, and inaccessibility.17
Rising costs negatively affect
students from all backgrounds, but it is undeniable that the weight of inflated educational expenses falls
heaviest on students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, of which minority students make up
a considerable number. Coupled with existing systemic barriers, exorbitant costs heighten the already
difficult burden that these students have to face, making it exceptionally challenging to obtain a legal
education. And, if minority students are able to overcome this substantial hurdle, they are often saddled
with crippling debt that will forever shape the trajectory of their careers. It therefore follows that the ever-
increasing cost of law school, driven by schools’ shared desires to score favorably on the expenditures per
student metric, disparately impacts minority students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
As things currently stand, no metric of the U.S. News law school ranking methodology captures
key elements of student life valued by our generation, such as diversity, inclusiveness, service, mental
health, and other real-world qualities that define a law school experience.18
We believe that the U.S. News
can, and should, include criteria in its methodology that reflect these broad societal values because they
are critical to a quality legal education. Of top priority should be metrics that promote principles of equity
and accessibility, as it is not only important that students of all backgrounds have access to a quality legal
education, it’s imperative. U.S. News should strive through its rankings system to describe and quantify
what makes a great law school. The hallmark of a great law school is arguably how well its actions align
with the values of the legal profession. Justice, fairness, equality, and equity are understood to be the
pillars of our justice system; but they are nothing more than hollow words if entire communities are being
foreclosed from the legal profession.
Given the immense influence U.S. News’s law school rankings has on the legal profession, we
urge U.S. News to accept that its power should be wielded responsibly. Institutions like U.S. News have
an obligation to exercise their power in ways that do not perpetuate fundamental inequalities. If U.S.
News’s law school ranking methodology maintains an artificial tension between diversity efforts and
“academic excellence,” U.S. News will continue to undermine social progress and hinder the legal
profession from positively influencing social change.
17
Although on the surface expenditures per student, a subset of the 15%-weighted faculty resources factor, would
seem to be a relatively lightly weighted component of the rankings, the Z-score effect of this element is significant.
In simple terms. schools tend to be closely bunched on many criteria, so expenditures-per-student becomes a tie-
breaking differentiator.
18
For more information on the U.S. News methodology, see Morse et al., Methodology: 2021 Best Law Schools
Rankings, U.S. NEWS (Mar. 16, 2020), https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/law-
schools-methodology.

6. 6
In 2013, Robert Morse, the Director of Data Research in charge of the U.S. News rankings,
published a statement addressing U.S. News’s decision to exclude its Diversity Index from the law school
ranking methodology.19
Distilled to its essence, the article lays out two primary reasons why U.S. News
does not wish to incorporate a diversity measure in its methodology: (1) it would be too complicated and
difficult, and (2) U.S. News does not want to get involved in the “political debate.”20
In response to Mr.
Morse’s first concern, we say simply this: “Too hard” is not an answer, nor is it an adequate excuse.
Jurisprudence is hard, and yet we have capable lawyers willing to take it on. Lawmaking is hard, and yet
we have built a fully-functioning—albeit flawed—legal system. Adjudication is hard, and yet we have
recruited some of the sharpest minds to serve as judges. Many things in life are hard, but that has never
been reason enough to avoid them.
We concede that, like the U.S. justice system, the U.S. News Diversity Index is flawed. We also
acknowledge that it will be no easy feat to design a widely-accepted diversity measure that would
accurately quantify something as variable as diversity. However, we suspect that it was not an easy task to
establish one of the most popular ranking authorities in the United States, but that did not stop U.S. News
from creating its rankings regime. So we are tempted to ask: is it truly that difficult for U.S. News to
incorporate some measure of diversity into its law school rankings methodology, or has U.S. News
merely chosen to view it as such?21
If so, what message does that send to the Black law school applicant,
a descendant of people who dealt with two hundred fifty years of slavery, ninety years of Jim Crow, sixty
years of separate but equal, and thirty-five years of racist housing policies?
With respect to the “political debate” of adding a diversity measure to the law school rankings
methodology, Mr. Morse stated that “[b]ased on all the commentary over the years about how some law
schools react to and target U.S. News ranking variables, if diversity was added to the Best Law Schools
ranking formula it would seem likely it would change law school behavior, and we would arguably be
social engineering. If diversity is added into the law school ranking model, it would likely set a precedent
for all the other U.S. News education rankings.”22
Again, our response is simple: equitable representation
19
See generally Robert Morse, U.S. News' Views on Including Diversity in Our Best Law Schools Ranking, 27 J.
CIV. RTS. & ECON. DEV. 217 (2013).
20
See id. at 219-20. Brophy, supra note 2, at 16; Verona, supra note 3.
21
Would it not be possible, for example, simply to exclude the LSAT and GPAs of diversity students with
demonstrated resource disadvantages? This change would immediately ease the tension between rankings and
diversity. It would present a truer measure of “student selectivity” by partially adjusting for the resource bias
inherent in LSAT and GPA scores. Alternatively, U.S. News could reduce the relative weight of the student
selectivity measures to facilitate the addition of a criterion in its law school ranking methodology that accounts for
diversity in law schools.
U.S. News could perhaps leverage from the factors examined in the National Assessment of Collegiate
Campus Climates (NACCC), sponsored by the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center. The
NACCC considers factors relevant to a U.S. News reader and prospective law applicant, such as institutional
commitment to racial diversity and inclusion, racial learning and literacy, encounters with racial stress, and cross-
racial engagement.
Also, in the same way that U.S. News surveys academics and practitioners for its 40% weighted Quality
Assessment, U.S. News could survey current and former students on how the school creates, maintains, and fosters a
diverse educational experience. Vault.com does this for law firm diversity rankings. U.S. News has the power to
police accurate reporting by not publishing rankings for schools that do not present a true and complete picture, for
example.
22
Morse, supra note 21, at 220.

7. 7
should not be a political issue. Instead, it should be an expectation of any institution operating in a society
made up of diverse people. In fact, we would argue that equitable representation in law schools is
essential to having an unbiased and just legal system. If certain groups are not adequately represented at
the institutions where law-makers are trained, how can we expect our laws to adequately represent their
interests? In addition, we find it puzzling and ironic that the decision to include some measure of
equitable representation in the law school rankings would be “social engineering,” but it is not social
engineering to construct an entire rankings system that drives the behavior of hundreds of law schools.
Now more than ever, the words of legendary civil rights lawyer Charles Hamilton Houston ring
true: “A lawyer is either a social engineer, or he is a parasite on society.” We believe the phrase also
applies to the systems and institutions in which lawyers are molded. Much like Mr. Houston, we are of
the opinion that the world could use a little social engineering. If not for social engineering, slavery would
not have been abolished, separate but equal would still be the prevailing state of affairs, and Jim Crow
would not be a thing of the past. As such, we believe it is incumbent upon us, as a society, to continue
dismantling the racist systems and barriers that were intentionally created to keep minorities in check—in
other words, to continue social engineering. We realize this idea might have seemed radical when Mr.
Morse contemplated the issue seven years ago, given the political landscape and our nation’s refusal to
acknowledge racism at the time; however, since then we have progressed as a society, and we believe it is
reasonable to request the same of our institutions. The responsibility should not be on minority students
and lawyers to drive this change, but on powerful institutions like U.S. News, who can easily address and
remedy their complicity in systemic racial bias.
As our nation comes to terms with its racist past and acknowledges the ways in which it has
subjugated minorities, particularly African Americans, we urge you to take up the difficult work of
looking inward—at yourself and at the institutions that you represent—to reflect on the ways you may
have contributed to a system that has relegated minorities to a lesser class. Just as it has become an
undeniable truth that racism permeates every aspect of our social fabric, it has also become unacceptable
for those in power to feign ignorance (or impotence or limitation of mission) and cling to outdated
practices that exacerbate the already stark racial inequities. At this critical juncture of our nation’s history,
we must collectively take stock of the ways in which we have perpetuated the unjust systems that we too
quickly renounce and disavow (all while doing little, or nothing, to mitigate their harm).
We urge U.S. News to challenge itself to do its part in dismantling those systems, not just in
name but through concrete actions. Gone are the days when it was acceptable for institutions to stand on
the sidelines of social progress for fear of being “too political.” Now is the time for action.