Ex Temple Business School Dean Charged In Ranking Scheme: Feds

Philadelphia PA

16 April, 2021

3:49 PM

Description

PHILADELPHIA — The former dean of Temple University's Fox Business School has been charged with federal crimes for his alleged role in scheming to bolster the school's rankings in U.S. News and World Report. Acting United States Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams Friday said Moshe Porat, the former Dean of Temple University's Richard J. Fox School of Business and Management, has been indicted on charges that he conspired and schemed to deceive the school's applicants, students, and donors into believing that the school offered top-ranked business degree programs, so they would pay tuition and make donations to Temple. Porat, 74, of Bala Cynwyd, was dean of the Fox Business School from 1996 until 2018. He also was the dean of Temple's School of Sports, Tourism & Hospitality Management from 1998 until 2018. The Indictment charges Porat with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of wire fraud. "We are disappointed that, after cooperating with the government in its investigation, the United States Attorney's Office decided to bring these charges, which Dr. Porat vigorously denies," Porat's defense attorney Michael A. Schwartz said in a statement. "Dr. Porat dedicated forty years of his life to serving Temple University, first as a faculty member, and ultimately as Dean of the Fox Business School, and he did so with distinction. He looks forward to defending himself against these charges and to clearing his name." According to the indictment, from at least 2014 until at least 2018, Porat conspired with Fox professor Isaac Gottlieb and Fox employee Marjorie O'Neill to submit false information about the school's online MBA and part-time MBA programs to U.S. News & World Report in order to inflate Fox's rankings in the annual U.S. News surveys of top online and part-time MBA programs. Among other things, the three are accused of agreeing to provide false information to U.S. News about the number of Fox's online and part-time MBA students who had taken the Graduate Management Admission Test; the average work experience of Fox's part-time MBA students; and the percentage of Fox students who were enrolled part-time because it was believed that better numbers for these metrics would result in better rankings for the programs. The indictment charges that the scheme was successful. Relying on the false information it had received from Fox, U.S. News ranked Fox's online MBA program No. 1 in the country in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. U.S. News also moved Fox's PMBA program up its rankings from No. 53 in 2014 to No. 20 in 2015, to No. 16 in 2016, and to No. 7 in 2017, according to the indictment. Porat is accused of boasting about the rankings in marketing materials directed at potential Fox students and donors, the indictment says. Subsequently, Fox's online and part-time MBC enrollment grew dramatically in a few short years, which led to millions of dollars a year in increased tuition revenues, according to the indictment. Gottlieb and O'Neill were charged separately from Porat with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. If convicted, Porat faces up to 25 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $500,000 fine.