ACalifornia tribunal began hearings Monday on the fate of Olivet University, a college founded by the leader of a religious sect that is beset by criminal probes and lawsuits and is under growing media scrutiny.
California’s Board of Private Postsecondary Education has accused Olivet of 14 violations of education regulations and moved to shut down the college, which has its main campus in the High Desert town of Anza.
California’s attorney general, acting on behalf of the Board of Private Postsecondary Education, has petitioned the state’s Department of Consumer Affairs to close Olivet University — or revoke its permission to operate — over the alleged violations of education regulations. Judge Debra Nye-Perkins is presiding over the hearing, which is expected to end on Wednesday. Deputy Attorney General Dionne Mochon represented the regulators.
“We are fighting to keep our school open,” said Walker Zheng, one of two Jang disciples who represented Olivet at the hearing. Olivet was not represented by an attorney.
This effort to close the university began when California education investigators made an unannounced visit to the Anza campus on November 15, 2022. Investigators say they found evidence that Olivet was teaching substandard courses with unqualified teachers to a student body that matched neither academic records reported to regulators nor the university’s own financial data. Similar allegations have already led regulators in eight states and territories to shutter Olivet campuses or begin reviews of the college.
California is by far Olivet’s most important state regulator: it is the only one in the United States to confer degree-granting authority on the college founded in 2000 by David Jang, a Korean-American cleric whose organizations and disciples have faced a series of legal cases over the past decade. The rest of Olivet’s 10 campuses in seven states and the District of Columbia function as satellites of the university.
Olivet University is also at the center of a criminal investigation that became public in 2021 when agents of the Homeland Security Department searched the Anza campus looking for evidence of labor trafficking, money laundering and visa fraud.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in California’s Central District is investigating the case against Olivet University and any charges would need to be filed “soon” before the statute of limitations run out, a document filed in a civil suit against Olivet showed in April.
Newsweek is owned by two former members of the Olivet sect. Their departure from Jang’s church triggered a flurry of lawsuits, a few of which are still working their way through courts. Olivet did not respond to a request for comment on this article.
In his opening statement, Olivet University President Jonathan Park, who represented Olivet along with Zheng, said he did not believe the hearing was merited, claiming the entire proceeding was a result of a conspiracy by Newsweek’s co-owner and CEO Dev Pragad and the magazine’s journalists.
“I believe we’re here because some people here at the bureau were tainted by Newsweek.” Park said.
Park and Zheng struggled to cross-examine the state’s witnesses including education inspectors who had searched Olivet’s campuses.
“We are inexperienced at this,” said Zheng, asking the judge for permission to intervene in Park’s cross-examination of education investigator Robert Dawkins. The request was denied. At one point Olivet asked to have a third Jang disciple, former Olivet President Matthias Gephardt, added to its team of representatives. That request was also denied.
The Los Angeles Times published a story on September 20th, echoing most of Newsweek’s reporting on Olivet, including of the mistreatment of students. The Times story included a previously unreported account of two former Olivet University students, Tingbo Cao, 41, and Qilian Zhou, 35, who arrived in the U.S. from China in 2011.
The two students were forced to work, had little time for study, never received the scholarships they were promised and were financially exploited by Olivet University, the Times reported.
“Zhou said that as a graphic design student at Olivet, she often spent more than 50 hours a week creating graphics and selling products such as crystals and T-shirts via online storefronts on Amazon and Etsy,” the L.A. Times reported. “She said she typically purchased the materials from China, but never saw money from the sales and was never fully compensated for her hours of work, which she had to do in addition to classes and a mandatory 5 a.m. daily prayer service.”
Money she did receive from Olivet typically went back to the university amid near- constant pressure to donate, she said, according to the paper.
In a statement to the Times, Olivet said the allegations were untrue.
The e-commerce businesses that Olivet operates have been at the center of the legal controversy as a well as reporting on the mistreatment of students.
A 2023 lawsuit filed by Texas-based 8fig accuses the World Olivet Assembly, the church founded by David Jang, of using a network of online storefronts and other companies to defraud it of more than $6.5 million. One of the defendants in that case, Park, was named this year as president of Olivet University. The parties to the suit are in settlement talks.
If Olivet is shut down in California, Jang could potentially maintain his foothold in religious education via the sect’s other colleges. One of those schools, Jubilee University, billed as a Christian music college, was the subject of an investigative report published last week by Missouri-based television affiliate Fox4.
“The school opened four years ago, but if you take a walk on its campus, it’s eerily quiet. There are no students,” Fox4 said of the property in Lexington, Missouri.
The station interviewed President Marcus Lundin, who said the Lexington campus has 30 online students who are not paying tuition.
“We are in it for the long haul,” said Lundin, according to Fox4. “We are not planning to go anywhere. We are not going to abandon the place. We are making improvements and our long-term goal is to have hundreds of students on campus.”
The digital version of the Fox4 report linked to a detailed response from Olivet University President Park who denied any connection between his college and Jubilee University, beyond a shared religious affiliation.
