Moshe Porat, 74, was dean of Temple University’s Fox School of Business and Management from 1996 to 2018. His federal trial began November 10, and jurors returned the charges. guilty verdict on Monday.
According to a
April 2021 indictment, Porat conspired with Isaac Gottlieb, a professor of statistics at Fox, and Marjorie O’Neill, Fox’s chief financial officer, to misinform US News about its online MBA (OMBA) and MBA programs part-time (PMBA) of Fox. In particular, they perjured the number of students who took the GMAT, their average work experience and the percentage of students enrolled part-time, the indictment states.
Gottlieb and O’Neill have both pleaded guilty to conspiracy and have yet to be convicted, according to court records.
“Today, a jury reaffirms that electronic fraud is a federal crime even when committed within the higher education system in the United States,” said U.S. Attorney
Jennifer Arbittier Williams said in a statement Monday. “Moshe Porat misrepresented information about Fox’s application and acceptance process, and therefore about the student body itself, to mislead the rating system, potential students, and sponsors.
“This case is certainly unusual, but on its basis it is just a case of fraud and underlying greed,” she added.
Attorneys for Porat did not respond to a request for comment.
The trial comes just a few years after prosecutors arrested dozens of
Parents, college coaches, and administrators in college admissions scams called “Operation Varsity Blues.”
In addition, this case highlights the enduring power of US News and World Report university rankings, which transform the complex experience of higher education into hard and fast rankings. Over the years, these rankings have played an important role in people deciding where to apply, and the schools themselves have adjusted accordingly.
The Best Colleges rankings have long been criticized by higher education experts. Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, former president of George Washington University,
called them “rackets” and said Schools feel pressure to game ratings.
“Just like the steroid and gambling athletes that happen at Rick’s, colleges and universities succumb to their own pressures, including the desire to be at the top of the charts,” he wrote in a 2012 article for CNN.
For example, in 2019, US News & World Report said
University of Oklahoma released data “inflated” on rates for its alumni for two decades, boosting its spot in several of their rankings. The university said it discovered the “misreporting of donations” in 2018 and provided an update to US News shortly thereafter.
How the program works
The plan devised by Porat, Gottlieb and O’Neill was, for a time, remarkably successful.
Using compelling numbers, US News ranked Fox’s OMBA program as the best show in the country from 2015 to 2018, and Fox’s PMBA program has risen in the US News rankings from 53rd in 2014. to 7th in 2017. Porat used these rankings in the school’s marketing. documents, and enrollment in programs increased dramatically, the indictment states.
And then it all fell apart. On January 8, 2018,
Poets & Quants website published One MBA rankings article dubiously noted that Fox had claimed all of its OMBA students had taken the GMAT. Fox administrators and officials viewed the article and, in a meeting with Porat and others, became concerned because they knew the data was inaccurate, the indictment states.
Despite that meeting, Porat toasted the school’s latest #1 ranking, and hours later sent a marketing email boasting about the latest top ranking, the indictment states.
Two weeks later,
US News announces it will remove Fox Business School from the OMBA rankings due to data problems.
Temple hires outside law firm Jones Day to investigate the incident, and Porat, Gottlieb and O’Neill gave “false or misleading” statements to investigators, the indictment states.
The Jones Day review shows that
Fox misreported data for its OMBA program since at least 2014, sometimes intentionally, and there have been similar false reports in several other graduate programs. In 2019, Temple and the
The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office has agreed to a settlement created $250,000 in new scholarships for students.
On its website, Temple University has set up a
A dedicated FAQ section explaining the scandal and how the school responded. University spokesman Stephen Orbanek also released a statement on the guilty verdict.
“We respect the justice system and the jury’s decision in this matter. The evidence presented at trial speaks for itself but is not representative of Temple or the vast majority of the population. thousands of education professionals are serving our students,” Orbanek said. “This is an unhappy moment for our students and alumni, but our focus remains on delivering the best possible outcomes for our students.”
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