PHILADELPHIA – The law school at Villanova University has been censured for submitting falsified admissions data for several years to the American Bar Association, allegedly at the behest of former administrators.

The action comes months after Villanova first disclosed publicly that staff members inflated the school's median grade-point averages and scores on the Law School Admissions Test. Both data sets often factor into law school rankings.

“I think this group of individuals, they were very careful to keep it secret, not to draw any sort of red flags,” law school Dean John Gotanda said Tuesday.

Villanova's average LSAT scores were padded by two to three points between 2005 and 2009, Gotanda said. The median GPA was raised by up to 0.16 points.

The law school at the Catholic university near Philadelphia could have lost its accreditation because of the scandal. But the bar association instead issued a public censure Friday because of Villanova's self-reporting and thorough remedial action. The school must post the reprimand on its website for two years.

Misrepresenting the data was “reprehensible and damaging” to prospective applicants, law students and the legal profession, said bar association legal education consultant Hulett Askew.

Gotanda, who took office at the beginning of the year, publicly acknowledged the doctored data in February but did not fully explain the situation pending a review by the bar association.

He wrote in a letter to alumni on Monday that Villanova hired outside investigators in January after an internal committee identified statistical discrepancies. The committee had been examining possible correlations between students' LSAT scores and bar passage rates.

Investigators found that the law school's former dean, ex-associate dean, ex-assistant dean and the former admissions director worked together to inflate the median scores and GPAs, according to the censure notice.

The former dean resigned in 2009 amid a prostitution investigation, though he was not charged. The other three staffers, who were not named, either resigned or were dismissed.