University of Illinois Investigating Posts of Fudged Class Profile Data

The news came this morning that the University of Illinois has withdrawn inaccurate data about the law class of 2014 that had been posted to its web site.  The information consisted of grades and test scores composing the class profile.  The report from the News-Gazette (“serving East Central Illinois”) said that the school became aware of the wrong data on August 26and pulled it.  One unnamed individual, an assistant dean, is on administrative leave as a result.  Within the same report, a University spokesman stresses that no inaccurate information was sent to the American Bar Association.  The matter doesn’t end with a correction.  The University is hiring Dunn & Phelps, an independent firm with expertise in forensic data processing, and Theodore Chung of Jones Day to review the matter.

The National Law Journal has picked up on the story and raises concern about the misrepresentation within the context of schools misrepresenting statistics to potential students or to ranking organizations.  It doesn’t appear from the University’s reaction or reports of the events that posting incorrect information was deliberate by the College of Law.  Nonetheless, the University is doing the right thing by investigating the incident.

This story harkens us back to the Villanova story, where the ABA sanctioned that school for reporting incorrect data on several years of ABA surveys.  The University of Illinois situation doesn’t seem to be the same, so far.  I can’t understand why this kind of thing happens, especially with schools such as Illinois and Villanova.  Is it vanity?  Competitiveness?  Aggressive reputation management?  It’s not as if either school is going to run out of qualified applicants or be shunned by potential faculty members.  Applications to law schools may be down due to the job market and debt, but the numbers are nowhere close to seats going empty.  There is no reason for this kind of stuff to happen. [MG]