Every three years, I lead a team at the University of St. Thomas to study the scholarly citations of thousands of tenured law professors (involving nearly half-a-million citations) to measure the scholarly impact of American law faculties, that is, whether other scholars are actually relying on their written works of scholarship. Using the basic methodology pioneered by Professor Brian Leiter at the University of Chicago, we rank approximately the top third of law schools.
With the full study available here, I am pasting the Top 50 below. Notably, five Catholic law schools appear in or near the Top 25: Georgetown, Fordham, the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota), the University of San Diego, and Notre Dame.
I am delighted that my own school, the University of St. Thomas, has remained inside the Top 25 again (at #23), far above its U.S. News ranking.
Fordham has been a remarkable success story on scholarly impact over the past decade, having debuted in our 2021 ranking at #43 and moving subsequently through #35 and #29 to arrive in the Top 25 at #23 for 2021. While not suggesting it is anything miraculous, they do seem to be changing the water into scholarly wine at Fordham Law.
The University of San Diego continues to rank considerably higher for its faculty’s scholarly impact than the questionable U.S. News ranking. For 2021, The University of San Diego places #30 in the Scholarly Impact ranking, but is remarkably under appreciated when U.S. News drops it to #86.
Over the next few days, as I do every three years, I will follow-up with a three-part series on the importance of scholarly activity and scholarly impact for Catholic legal education.
Table 1: Summary of Scholarly Impact Ranking of Law Faculties, 2021
Rank
Law School
Weighted Score
1
Yale
1345
2
Chicago
1110
3
Harvard
940
4
NYU
921
5
Columbia
814
6
Stanford
752
6
Cal-Berkeley
749
8
Pennsylvania
663
9
Virginia
646
9
Vanderbilt
644
11
UCLA
605
12
Duke
597
13
Michigan
545
14
Cal-Irvine
537
15
Northwestern
528
15
Cornell
527
17
Georgetown
514
18
George Washington
472
18
Texas
471
18
Minnesota
468
21
Washington U
440
22
Cal-Davis
435
23
George Mason
420
23
Fordham
414
23
Boston U
411
23
U. St. Thomas (MN)
410
27
Arizona
387
27
William & Mary
384
29
USC
382
30
U. San Diego
367
31
Notre Dame
346
31
Illinois
344
33
Cardozo
340
33
Brooklyn
338
33
Colorado
336
36
Case Western
325
36
Utah
326
36
North Carolina
323
36
Emory
317
40
Kansas
311
40
Hastings
305
40
Chicago-Kent
304
43
Ohio State
300
43
Alabama
293
43
Georgia
289
46
American
287
46
Florida State
278
46
Maryland
278
49
Temple
275
49
BYU
268
49
Wake Forest
265
Note: Original post updated to include discussion of the University of San Diego.
Professor Richard Garnett participated in a debate, Must Churches be Democratic?, with Chiara Cordelli. This debate was sponsored by The Research Group on Constitutional Studies at McGill University.
Ed Condon has this piece, at The Pillar, which includes some (sadly) typically obtuse comments by Cardinal Parolin. To be sure, it is not only the PRC, among political authorities, that purports to demand of Catholics that they be "good citizens" first. Some might say that the PRC and its apologists simply "say the quiet part out loud." And, it is far from obvious what the all-things-considered best way is for the Church to deal with the PRC, and best care for Catholics in China and bear witness to the faith there. I feel confident, though, that Parolin's inclinations and ruminations are not a reliable guide to finding it.
Kudos to the following distinguished legal scholars, all present or emeritus Sterling Professors of Law at Yale, who have taken a firm stand against American Bar Association proposed rules that would undermine law schools' institutional autonomy and, even more importantly, core principles of academic freeom:
Bruce A. Ackerman, John H. Langbein, Akhil R. Amar, Jerry L. Mashaw, Mirjan R. Damaska Robert C. Post, Owen M. Fiss, Roberta Romano, Anthony T. Kronman, and Alan Schwartz
Among the proposals to which they strongly object is the idea of requiring "diversity, equity, and inclusion training." This "training" is--or quickly degenerates into--indoctrination, and indoctrination has no place in serious academic institutions of any type.
Read about another strong--and courageous--stand against such indoctrination here:
At the Law and Liberty blog, there is a symposium dedicated to our own Erika Bachiochi's new book, The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision. Check it out!
Here is a short piece I did for the USCCB's "First Freedom" blog. It is meant for parishes, high schools, etc., so please feel free to share! A bit:
Religious freedom plays a significant role in the American imagination. When asked what it means to be an American, many Americans will refer to freedom and equality, which speaks to our intuitive sense of the equal dignity of all people. But how we think of religious freedom can differ from one person to the next. The ideal of religious freedom may be summarized as “separation of church and state” and “the right to follow my conscience.” Many Americans will often think primarily in terms of human rights. Religion – belief and practice, ritual and worship, and perhaps expression and profession – is considered an object of human rights laws, that is, as something that the laws protect. The leading human rights instruments confirm this entirely reasonable, if not quite complete, way of thinking. For example: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion,” the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) proclaims, and political communities should “strive ... to promote respect for [this right]” and “to secure [its] universal and effective recognition and observance.” Similarly, the European Convention on Human Rights (1950) declares that its signatories resolve to “secure [this right] to everyone within their jurisdiction.” The Constitution of the United States frames the issue in terms of constraints on government. The government may not prevent the free exercise of religion, nor may it establish a religion. In other words, religious liberty is often framed negatively, as “freedom from,” rather than as something more aspirational, as “freedom for.”
But what, exactly, is this religious liberty that needs safeguarding? Despite general agreement that religious liberty is protected by the Constitution, the extent of those protections, and what constitutes true religious liberty at its core, is disputed. . . .
I am pleased to share that The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, is seeking to hire at least four faculty members.
We are seeking two tenure track and one tenure eligible faculty member for positions to begin in Spring 2022 or Fall 2022. These positions are for candidates interested in participating in the school’s new Project on Constitutional Originalism and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, more fully described at https://communications.catholic.edu/news/2021/04/law-originalism-gift.html.
We are also seeking an entry-level candidate to serve as a member of the law school’s faculty while also contributing to the University’s Institute for Latin American and Iberian Studies (the “Institute”), described at https://ilais.catholic.edu/en/ilais-mission.
We seek candidates who can teach, in addition to the natural areas of fit with the Project (such as Constitutional and Administrative Law) or the Institute, the following subjects: Property, Family Law, and Trusts and Estates; Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and Evidence; Corporate and Securities Law; and Contracts and Commercial Law.
Candidates must be committed to teaching, producing outstanding scholarship, engaging as active members of the Law School and University communities, and making a significant contribution to the mission of the University and Catholic Law. Candidates must possess a J.D. or equivalent, superior academic credentials, and relevant professional experience, such as teaching, legal practice, or judicial clerkships.
As a Catholic institution, our mission commits us to respecting the dignity of each human person, and to welcoming scholars who will bring a diversity of “backgrounds, religious affiliations, viewpoints, and contributions” to the law school’s vibrant intellectual community. We recognize the importance of diversity in our faculty and encourage applications from those with diverse backgrounds.
The McGrath Institute for Church Life is offering an online course on how Christians around the world suffer persecution at the hands of both state and non-state actors.
I was honored to file, along with my old friend (and fellow Rehnquist clerk) Chuck Cooper and his ace team from the Cooper & Kirk firm, this amicus brief in the Dobbs case, arguing that (a) Roe was wrong, (b) Casey was wrong, and (c) both should be overrruled. The brief's theme, in a nutshell, is "Rehnquist was right."
