Judge orders California Bible college to cease operations after state hearing

LOS ANGELES — A Christian Bible school in Riverside County was ordered to cease operations after a recent state hearing into multiple allegations over failures to properly educate and maintain records.

Amid student accusations of forced and unpaid labor at Olivet University, which is headquartered in the high-desert town of Anza, California, school leaders tried to protect the university's fate against state regulators' attempts to revoke its license.

Presiding Judge Debra Nye-Perkins, who presided over the Office of Administrative Hearings, ordered the school to halt the enrollment of new students and help current students figure out a plan to finish their degrees elsewhere. The decision was finalized on Dec. 10 and goes into effect on Jan. 10.

"The only degree of discipline that would protect the public is the revocation of respondent's approval to operate," she wrote in her decision, ordering the school to pay more than $64,000 for violations. Nye-Perkins had 30 days to issue her ruling after the three-day hearing in early November,

Olivet said in a statement that it will appeal the judge's order and has submitted an application to continue operating in California under "religious exemption."

A state investigation was launched into the private university in 2022 by the Bureau of Private and Post-Secondary Education — a unit of the California Department of Consumer Affairs — over concerns for student safety and quality of education, officers testified in November.

Olivet President Jonathan Park and Vice President Walker Tzeng said that the probe was racially and religiously prejudiced and was prompted by news reports from Newsweek, which university leaders claimed to be inaccurate. The media outlet is owned by former Olivet members.

During two unannounced visits to Olivet's campuses outside of Riverside and San Francisco, Bureau of Private and Post-Secondary Education officers testified that few students and faculty were viewed in living quarters and in classrooms. Most classes that were observed, officers said, were attended by a handful students — sometimes five or seven — and taught via a live-stream.

Administrative representatives at the university's main campus in Anza and a branch campus in Mill Valley, Calif., did not have documents readily available related to student and faculty rosters and class syllabi, officers said. Some documents lacked detail, such as how many hours quantified "full-time work" for a student and several faculty contracts were either missing or expired.

Joanna Murray, a senior specialist at the bureau, said that one graduate class she observed was not rigorous enough for that level of education and that there was a lack of engagement between teacher and student.

"It's not what I expected from a Master class," she said.

Tzeng and Park accused the bureau of playing "gotcha" with its unannounced visits and said that a true review of the university would examine graduates' impact on ministry — the focus of the school's training and mission. School leaders continued to argue that the bureau's assessment was prejudiced.

In one tense exchange, Tzeng said that BPPE officer Ashley Cornejo's note that he "spoke good English" during her visit reflected a racial bias against Olivet, which has a majority of students from East Asia. The officer said the note was in keeping with other documented observations she wrote when she had trouble understanding a person she interviewed.

"When you look at people with a different skin color, do you assume they don't speak English well?" Tzeng asked.

"No, because I know what that feels like," Cornejo, a person of color, responded.

Throughout the testimony, Park and Tzeng said that the university was in good standing with its accreditor, the Assn. for Biblical Higher Education. Nye-Perkins and Deputy Atty. Gen. Dionne Mochon, who represented the bureau, said that accreditation was irrelevant to the case at hand. The BPPE is responsible for giving Olivet authority to grant degrees in California.

"Respondent continues to show a cavalier attitude toward compliance with the BPPE's statutes and regulations," Nye-Perkins said in her decision.

The Olivet university system, which has multiple campuses across the country, has faced ongoing scrutiny over its ability to educate. The accreditor previously put Olivet on probation in 2020 and placed the university under warning in 2022 until earlier this year. The university also previously lost permission to operate its New York campus after it failed to meet state requirements for curriculum, administrative policies and working conditions.

The Bible college system is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that is connected with World Olivet Assembly Inc. — a nonprofit connected to ministry work. Both have reported tens of millions of dollars in revenue and assets on tax returns.

The university is also under federal investigation.

Several former students and employees from Olivet University have alleged that administrators prevented adults from leaving campus without permission and forced them to work, sometimes for free. These claims were made in interviews with The Times, and in a lawsuit filed this year against the university and school leaders, including, Korean American pastor and founder David Jang and former president Matthias Gebherdt.

Those allegations were not the central focus of the state hearing.

Some who spoke with The Times anonymously said they feared retaliation. Two former students who spoke on record, Tingbo Cao, 41, and Qilian Zhou, 35, were present at the hearing. They previously told The Times that they had been promised scholarship money, but that their time was eaten by work that was forced on them to pay for their education. They made loans to the school, they said, and received pushback when they asked for repayment.

The university has denied all allegations.

Cao and Zhou left the university earlier this year with their young daughters.

"As a former student who experienced firsthand the lies, manipulation, and abuse at Olivet University, I am relieved by California's decision to revoke the institution's accreditation," Cao said in a statement. "This action validates the concerns I — and many others — have raised over the years and helps ensure that future students will not suffer the same injustices that I did."

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