It's the list that prospective law students anxiously await each year: U.S. News & World Report's Best Law Schools ranking. Many pre-law students place a high value on these rankings. Kaplan Test Prep recently reported that 32 percent of prospective law students say a law school's ranking is most important when choosing a school to attend.

But one Supreme Court justice says U.S. News & World Report's rankings aren't so great. In fact, he says, they cause discrimination.

On Friday, while speaking at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law, Justice Clarence Thomas criticized the popular annual rankings, saying the obsession with them is perverse and that they cause discrimination against students who attend lower-tiered law schools.

“Isn't that the antithesis of what this country is supposed to be about? Isn't that the bias that we fought about on racial terms, or on terms of sex, or on terms of religion, etc.?” Justice Thomas said. “My new bias—which I now embrace—is that I don't eliminate the Ivies in hiring, but I intentionally prefer kids from regular backgrounds and regular students.”

Justice Thomas said his new outlook is thanks to his recent clerks who graduated from schools such as Rutgers School of Law-Newark, George Mason University School of Law, The George Washington University Law School and Creighton University School of Law. The clerks educated Justice Thomas about derogatory terms such as “third-tier trash” that people use to describe their alma maters.

Justice Thomas isn't alone in his criticism of U.S. News & World Report's rankings. Recent law school graduates, citing a dismal legal job market and rising law school debt, say pre-law students should place a higher value on education affordability and job placement statistics rather than law school rankings.

For more InsideCounsel stories about law school and the post-law school job market, read:

It's the list that prospective law students anxiously await each year: U.S. News & World Report's Best Law Schools ranking. Many pre-law students place a high value on these rankings. Kaplan Test Prep recently reported that 32 percent of prospective law students say a law school's ranking is most important when choosing a school to attend.

But one Supreme Court justice says U.S. News & World Report's rankings aren't so great. In fact, he says, they cause discrimination.

On Friday, while speaking at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law, Justice Clarence Thomas criticized the popular annual rankings, saying the obsession with them is perverse and that they cause discrimination against students who attend lower-tiered law schools.

“Isn't that the antithesis of what this country is supposed to be about? Isn't that the bias that we fought about on racial terms, or on terms of sex, or on terms of religion, etc.?” Justice Thomas said. “My new bias—which I now embrace—is that I don't eliminate the Ivies in hiring, but I intentionally prefer kids from regular backgrounds and regular students.”

Justice Thomas said his new outlook is thanks to his recent clerks who graduated from schools such as Rutgers School of Law-Newark, George Mason University School of Law, The George Washington University Law School and Creighton University School of Law. The clerks educated Justice Thomas about derogatory terms such as “third-tier trash” that people use to describe their alma maters.

Justice Thomas isn't alone in his criticism of U.S. News & World Report's rankings. Recent law school graduates, citing a dismal legal job market and rising law school debt, say pre-law students should place a higher value on education affordability and job placement statistics rather than law school rankings.

For more InsideCounsel stories about law school and the post-law school job market, read: