Abstract

Rankings increasingly dominate our world. We use them to choose just about everything—from which pizza or ice cream to buy, to which doctors to trust with our health, to which universities to trust with our intellectual growth and flourishing. But should we trust them? Taking popular academic rankings as an example, such as the U.S. News rankings, this article contends not necessarily, for several reasons. First, because as this article argues, the U.S. News rankings may mislead rather than inform consumers. Second, by fueling a prestige battle between universities, the U.S. News rankings incentivize universities to harm cultural and economic diversity—important facets of educational quality. These conclusions, critical in their own right, raise additional important but underexplored questions for antitrust law. Should universities be allowed to boycott the U.S. News rankings so that they can free themselves of the prestige battle in which they participate? Can an “antirankings boycott” be justified by antitrust law on the basis that it may allow universities to promote diversity and increase access to the underserved? Although these questions are not easy to address, they are at the heart of this article.

中文翻译：

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机会平等与反垄断：大学排名的奇特案例

摘要

排名越来越主宰我们的世界。我们用它们来选择几乎所有的东西——从购买比萨饼或冰淇淋，到信任我们的健康的医生，信任我们的智力成长和繁荣的大学。但是我们应该相信他们吗？以流行的学术排名为例，比如US News的排名，这篇文章不一定要反驳，原因有几个。首先，因为正如本文所述，美国新闻排名可能会误导而不是告知消费者。其次，通过助长大学之间的声望之争，美国新闻排名激励大学损害文化和经济多样性——教育质量的重要方面。这些就其本身而言至关重要的结论，为反垄断法提出了更多重要但未充分探讨的问题。大学是否应该被允许抵制美国新闻排名，以便他们可以从他们参与的声望之战中解脱出来？“反排名抵制”是否可以通过反垄断法证明其可能允许大学促进多样性并增加对服务不足的人的访问？尽管这些问题不容易解决，但它们是本文的核心。