Thursday, July 12, 2018
After Temple Admitted That Its Business School Misreported Data To Goose Its Ranking, U.S. News Demands Certification Of Other Schools' Data (Including Law School)
Following up on Tuesday's post, Temple Business School Dean Fired For Knowingly Submitting False Data To Inflate U.S. News Ranking Over Several Years: U.S. News has sent a letter to Temple asking it to certify the accuracy of data submitted by its other schools and programs (including the law school) because "the scope and duration of the misreporting at Fox calls into question all of Temple University’s submissions to U.S. News."
In addition, Inside Higher Education reports that Temple business school's two accreditors (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business and Middle States Commission on Higher Education) are actively investigating the school's compliance with accreditation standards.
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/07/after-temple-admitted-that-its-business-school-misreported-data-over-several-years-to-goose-its-rank.html
Comments
@Anon,
Beyond the cost to USNWR of auditing or having a third party audit data, the magazine may likely be wary of their legal exposure if the data and rankings they hold out as authoritative, accurate, and methodologically sound are not - and they know that they are not. Better to play the continual rube who is shocked there is gambling in this establishment rather than to possibly fall afoul of wire and mail fraud as outlined in Emory Law professors Cloud and Shepherd's 2012 classic law review article "Law Deans in Jail," which outlines a case against USNWR in addition to law deans.
Posted by: Unemployed Northeastern | Jul 13, 2018 7:28:07 AM
@Dale,
That's known as Campbell's Law: "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."
Posted by: Unemployed Northeastern | Jul 14, 2018 8:01:48 AM