Supreme Court Declines To Hear Former Temple Business Dean's Appeal, Concluding Rankings Fraud Case
Former Temple Fox School of Business Dean M. Moshe Porat has lost his final appeal in the biggest B-school ranking fraud scandal in history
The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review the fraud conviction of Moshe Porat, the former dean of Temple University's Fox School of Business, effectively ending his legal efforts to overturn the case that exposed one of the most significant academic rankings scandals in history.
Porat, who served as dean from 1996 to 2018, was convicted in 2021 on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The convictions stemmed from a scheme in which Porat and two co-conspirators — statistics professor Isaac Gottlieb and administrator Marjorie O'Neill — submitted false data to U.S. News & World Report to artificially boost the school's rankings.
The fraudulent data included inflated figures on standardized test scores, student GPAs, and work experience.
Read more of Poets&Quants' coverage of the Porat scandal and trial:
U.S. News Kicks Temple Out Of Its Online MBA Ranking
Temple Dean Sacked Over Ranking Scandal
Anatomy Of A Business School Rankings Fraud
B-School Dean Found Guilty Of MBA Rankings Fraud
Still Free: U.S. Supreme Court Throws Disgraced Former Temple Fox Dean A Lifeline
John Byrne, founder and editor-in-chief of Poets&Quants, played a role in spotlighting the scandal — and in securing Porat's conviction. In January 2018, P&Q published an article by Byrne bringing attention to the discrepancies in Temple's data reporting, which played a significant role in the subsequent investigations and legal proceedings involving the former dean. The article questioned how Temple's online MBA program achieved a 100% submission rate for GMAT or GRE scores, despite the school's policy of waiving such tests — suspicions that were confirmed when it was later revealed that only 42 of 255 students had actually submitted scores.
As a result, Byrne was the first witness called by the prosecution in Porat's trial. On the stand, he testified about the significance of rankings in higher education, stating, 'A good ranking gets you more applications … makes alumni happy, and therefore they contribute more money to the school.'
As a result of the fraudulent data, the Fox School's online MBA program was ranked No. 1 nationally for four consecutive years, and its part-time MBA program climbed from No. 53 to No. 7.
The inflated rankings led to increased enrollment and tuition revenue, with the school collecting nearly $40 million from additional enrollments between the 2014-2015 and 2017-2018 academic years.
In March 2022, Porat was sentenced to 14 months in federal prison for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and fined $250,000. He began serving his sentence but continued to maintain his innocence, arguing that students received the education they paid for and thus suffered no economic harm.
Porat remained free for a period while appealing his conviction. After being sentenced, he was initially ordered to report to prison on May 9, 2022. However, on that same day, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals granted his request to stay both his prison sentence and the payment of his $250,000 fine pending the outcome of his appeal. Porat remained free during the appeals process until the Third Circuit Court upheld his conviction on August 7, 2023. He served his sentence and was released from federal prison in August 2024.
He subsequently petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a review, but the Court declined to hear his case on June 2, 2025, effectively ending his legal avenues for overturning the conviction.
The post Supreme Court Declines To Hear Former Temple Business Dean's Appeal, Concluding Rankings Fraud Case appeared first on Poets&Quants.
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