LEGAL EDUCATION UPDATE: Political Ideology And The U.S. News Law School Rankings: Measuring The Conservative Penalty And Liberal Bonus. “This study produced strong evidence for the existence of a conservative penalty and liberal bonus in law school peer rankings. Because these rankings are the leading factor in the overall rankings, this results in a similar conservative penalty and liberal bonus there as well. This finding is consistent with other research on ideological bias in legal academia. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to the problem of ideological bias in law school rankings. Removing the peer score from the overall ranking calculation will better inform prospective law students, reduce inefficiencies in the hiring market, and contribute to greater ideological diversity in law schools and legal scholarship.”

Given that the peer score is also subject to a lot of “strategic voting” by schools against their competitors, that’s a good idea for other reasons, too.