Columbia’s recent data scandal undermines the pretense of objectivity at “U.S. News.”
Last month U.S. News & World Report released its 2023 college rankings. The most notable move belonged to Columbia University, which for decades had been steadily rising in the ranks toward the very top of the list. This year it tumbled from No. 2 to No. 18.
That’s better than might have been expected. After a blog post in February by Michael Thaddeus, a math professor at the university, showed that Columbia had provided fraudulent data to the magazine, U.S. News summarily unrankedit. When the university was able to update only some of the data in time for the latest rankings, the editors “
