(RNS) — A California Christian college is vowing to stay open despite a state judge’s ruling that bars the school from enrolling new students and requires current students to be sent to other schools.
California is the second state to bar Olivet University, a small school with ties to South Korean minister David Jang, from operating a campus. In 2022, officials in New York state decided not to renew Olivet’s license to run a campus in Dover, New York, citing alleged financial mismanagement.
In 2020, the school agreed to pay more than half a million dollars in fines for improperly removing asbestos from its Dover campus, also home to the World Olivet Assembly, which claims to be a “global gathering of evangelical churches and para-church organizations.”
Olivet’s remaining campus in Anza, California, in the desert southeast of Los Angeles, says it has applied for a religious exemption to remain open, despite a ruling from California’s Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education revoking the school’s license to operate.
In a decision that takes effect in early January, Judge Debra Nye-Perkins of the Office of Administrative Hearings found that the school failed to educate to students properly and that it has not maintained adequate educational records, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“The only degree of discipline that would protect the public is the revocation of respondent’s approval to operate,” wrote Nye-Perkins, after hearings prompted by a complaint filed by California’s Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education.
In a statement posted on its website, the school said it would appeal the decision to revoke its license.
“In addition to pursuing the appeal, Olivet University has made the decision as of December 11 to operate under religious exemption in California, and submitted its application same day,” according to the statement. “This step reflects the University’s commitment to continuing its mission and activities while upholding its core values and principles as a Christian institution.”
Jang has been a controversial figure in evangelical circles, with ex-members claiming his sect teaches that the Korean minister is the “Second Coming Messiah,” which the sect denies. Along with running the church and Olivet, sect members have started a number of online business, and for a time owned Newsweek magazine. The group also had close ties to the World Evangelical Alliance before the WEA reportedly severed the relationship last summer.
In 2020, the college and former publishers of Newsweek and The Christian Post, which also has ties to Jang, pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining $35 million in loans. The loans were supposed to be used to purchase computers but were used for other purposes. The chair of the board of Olivet pled guilty and served no jail time but was banned from the school’s board. The school also agreed to repay $1.25 million.
More recently former students of Olivet, many of them from countries in Asia, sued the college, accusing school leaders of forcing them to perform unpaid labor and controlling their movements.
“At all times while Plaintiffs lived at Olivet’s Anza campus, they were not permitted to come and go from campus unless they first received permission from an Olivet employee,” a complaint in the lawsuit alleges, the LA Times reported.
Olivet leaders did not reply to a request for comment, but have denied any wronging in the past. The school blames its current woes on a long-running feud with the current owners of Newsweek magazine, who have also had ties to Jang in the past. Though a lawsuit over the management of the magazine was settled in 2023, a spokesperson for Olivet has accused Newsweek’s owners of colluding with California’s post-secondary private education bureau to harm the college, according to the Gospel Herald, a Christian news site whose editor is an Olivet professor.
The Gospel Herald also published a redacted image of a Bureau for Private Post-Secondary Education investigative form purportedly showing that a writer from Newsweek made an initial complaint against Olivet.
“Since 2022, Newsweek has published more than 20 maliciously negative reports targeting Olivet University due to ownership disputes, even collaborating via email with BPPE to attack and manipulate the school,” the spokesperson told the Gospel Herald.
Olivet also claims to remain in good standing with the Association for Biblical Higher Education, its accreditor, though the college was placed on probation by the ABHE from 2021-22 and was on warning from the group at the time California officials were investigating Olivet.
“Respondent continues to show a cavalier attitude toward compliance with the BPPE’s statutes and regulations,” Nye-Perkins said in her decision.
