New College Independent Alumni/ae Association

As a connoisseur of social conflict, one of the patterns I’ve repeatedly observed is the expectation by aggrieved parties to put their faith in public authorities to look out for the interests of the innocent. Unfortunately, benevolent law enforcement only happens on TV.

Trusting people often find themselves taken advantage of because they are, well, trusting. They fall for the lofty rhetoric of con men like Peter Gabel because they want to believe. Only after they’ve been betrayed many times do they realize they’ve been conned.

Sadly, after realizing they were gullible, the innocent frequently transfer this unwarranted trust in con men toward what they believe will be the arduous pursuit of justice by government agents on their behalf. This, however, never happens.

What does sometimes happen, is that when the aggrieved parties document their grievances and the misfeasance of perpetrators — and organize themselves to bring their case before authorities and media effectively — some degree of justice often results. Government bureaucrats, on the other hand, almost never move a muscle beforehand.

All this is to say that what my mother told me as a child about the lord helping those who help themselves was probably good advice. I only wish she’d used a more terrestrial application of the concept.

As recent faculty correspondence from the Labor Department wage claims hearings shows, New College trustees continue to bargain in bad faith, blaming everyone but themselves, and pursuing vengeance against those whom they have harmed most. While it appears that the culprits of this tragedy are now making their getaway with the school’s assets while leaving creditors in the lurch, it’s still possible that the trustee looting and asset conversions may yet be undone by the feds.

In the absence of a class action suit, wage claimants might want to individually file liens on the remaining real properties of the school, as well as on the real properties of the trustees themselves. Eventually, this mess is going to end up in a court of law; when that happens it will be advantageous to have the now-verified claims on file at the courthouse.

Judges and lawyers can sort out the rest.

Today’s the last day of the wage claim hearings. Trustee Colleen O’Neal and former business manager Carol Small, representing New College, are asking claimants to waive the penalties at $145 a day for each day they don’t pay back wages. People who want their severances are not being granted settlements as the Labor Department’s jurisdiction only extends to back wages.

From what I was told, that doesn’t preclude anyone from filing a separate claim. There are about 200 claimants all told. Settlements are to be paid by August 22nd in full.

The clincher is this, Trustee O’Neal already told claimants New College does not intend to make that payment deadline, and when asked where the money will come from to pay the claims, she said, “From collectibles.” (Outstanding student loans and continued pressure on the US Department of Education for release of funds.) There was also a response from O’Neal handed to each claimant chronicling the administration’s struggle with DOE. It said a small group was working to try to release those funds.

I’m told the Casa Loma and Creamery have been sold. Peter Gabel and Rod Holt, together, have a million dollar lien on the Casa Loma, and Peter has another half a million on the Creamery, along with others.

As our shop steward, Kush has been leading the charge for severance and grievances, so they’ve been after him. So far, not yet a peep from union attorneys. I’m hopeful that a thorough criminal investigation will yield financial malfeasance.

–faculty correspondent

Dear colleagues,

I know that many of you have wage claims against New College pending before the Department of Labor Standards Enforcement. I know that many of you may have already had your claims heard, but for those of you who haven’t, I thought I would share my experience today.

New College is not disputing the wage claims themselves (though in a written statement Colleen O’Neal said that there are some cases where they are disputing amounts). They are, however, disputing the 30-day penalties incurred under the relevant labor law for failure to meet payroll. The basis for this argument is that failure to pay was not “willful”; i.e., they wanted to pay, but couldn’t. This argument has no legal basis because New College admits to owing wages (to see the legal definition of “willful”, click on http://www.dir.ca.gov/t8/13520.html).

The DLSE representative explained that each claim would be considered individually, and that we had the option of expediting our claims by asking only for salary owed instead of salary plus penalty. The initial hearings would happen quickly if there was no dispute, but if there was disagreement about the amount owed or if the employee asked for the penalty, the employee would have to wait for a hearing later that day. There was no pressure to settle for less than what was owed except for the exigencies of waiting several hours for a hearing.

There is concern among faculty and staff that New College doesn’t have the necessary assets to pay everyone what is owed, and many people believe that if they don’t settle for less money, they will have to settle for none. Therefore many faculty have chosen to ask only for salary owed. This is a personal choice, and I understand and support everyone in their individual decision-making calculus. However, I wanted to let folks know that as an adjunct teaching independent study (claiming $548 in back pay plus the 30-day penalty) the representatives from New College at first tried to refuse to pay the penalty, and then offered to pay half. When I asked for the full amount, the DLSE rep told them that if it came to a hearing, they would have to pay the full penalty. Due to the small nature of my claim and therefore the small penalty, the reps from New College then decided to pay me the full amount owed including the penalty without making me wait for a hearing.

New College has 30 days to pay claims in full. If they fail to do so, DLSE will contact the plaintiff with information on how to proceed with the claim.

Since, as adjuncts, many of you are likely to be making small claims, I wanted to share information that might help you make your decision. Please pass this along to anyone you know — faculty, staff, or students owed work study wages — who has a claim pending later this week.

I wish all of you the best of luck.

–faculty correspondent

As our consumer culture unravels, we will need places to converge in meeting our social responsibilities. Our alma mater once played host to such convergent responders, but with its passing a void exists, despite the changes in mainstream academia to accommodate alternative views. It will be interesting to see what if anything transpires to fill that cultural void; maybe some of us will be involved.

Center for the American University notes the passing of New College. I respond.

Career San Francisco housing activist Randy Shaw offers up the latest lame apology in defense of the indefensible Peter Gabel. Maybe Shaw should read the documents here before perpetuating the bogus myths generated by Gabel’s cult. Even if Shaw was half as savvy and ethical as he promotes himself to be, as a crusading alternative media editor you wouldn’t think he’d rush to the defense of a criminal cabal with a long track record of preying on innocent, idealistic youth.

Update:

Shaw has posted my response in the letters to the editor, and assures me he will look into the matter further.

Next week marks the one year anniversary of breaking the silence about New College and the mobilization of alumni to end the corruption plaguing the school. With that mostly behind us, we hope that those of you who were involved in bringing public accountability to our alma mater are doing well. If you feel so inclined, we’d welcome your thoughts and reflections.

With For Sale signs going up on New College buildings while payroll debts and other creditors remain unpaid, some have asked why the trustees didn’t file for bankruptcy protection. The short answer is that the school’s real assets would then have come under the control of a United States Bankruptcy Court trustee, thus foreclosing the ongoing looting of the school by Peter Gabel, Matthew Wilkes, et al.

Should the State of California or other aggrieved party choose to force the now paper entity into bankruptcy proceedings, the asset conversions can still be undone retroactively. This would in turn perhaps free up funds from property sales to remedy some of the harms to school employees and students in the form of medical bills and consumer debt incurred as a result of the trustees’ negligence.

At this point in time, it doesn’t appear anyone is pursuing this avenue to restitution.

Even law enforcement can sometimes use help with the guiding narrative. New College trustees may have been grossly incompetent college administrators, but they were perfectly competent con men. After all, half of them were lawyers.

Closed down for defrauding the Western Association of Schools and Colleges and the US Department of Education, one of the perpetrators of the fraud at New College of California is now attempting to convert assets of the school through a specious claim in San Francisco Superior Court.

Although the California Department of Justice has opened a file on New College and its parent corporation the Arlene Francis Foundation, I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for them or the San Francisco District Attorney to pursue a case against the trustees or their accomplices. For one thing, the San Francisco DA is an elected position in a Democratic Party stronghold, and New College trustee Agar Jaicks (Peter Gabel’s father-in-law) was Democratic National Committeeman.

This doesn’t mean the DA or AG would participate in a cover-up, but they might decide not to investigate or prosecute crimes of highly-connected politicos. It’s been known to happen. Nancy Pelosi’s half million dollar pork shoveled New College’s way a few years back is an indication of Jaicks’ clout.

Well, it doesn’t get any better than this. Matthew Wilkes, board member of Peter Gabel’s private Arlene Francis Foundation (New College’s landlord) and master mind of the 3-year WASC con job that landed New College in hot water with both WASC and the US Department of Education, filed suit on May 9, 2008 against New College for breach of contract. The referenced contract for consulting services in dealing with WASC between August 2007 and May 2008 was signed by acting New College president Luis Molina on March 12, 2008. Wilkes claims he had an oral contract covering the previous seven months.

Wilkes claim, at the rate of $500/day plus expenses, amounts to $71,817. Wilkes’ expenses include lodging, food, and monthly travel to Brooklyn, New York.

The California Superior Court case management conference is set for October 10, 2008 at 9am, Department 212, 400 McAllister St., San Francisco.

This seems like a good time to pay respects to former faculty who set a good example for their students and advisees. For myself, three stand out: Robert Chrisman, Carol Silverman, and Ani Mander. There are, of course, others, but these three were the ones who went out of their way to help me. Dr. Chrisman, editor of The Black Scholar magazine, was my assigned advisor when I first arrived at the school. He asked me what I proposed to do with my time there, and when I told him I wanted to develop a curriculum for applied research, he convinced Dr. Silverman, Director of Research at the USF College of Professional Studies, to add me to her list of advisees. Carol Silverman guided me in my academic development with such care and thoughtfulness, that the work I was able to produce garnered national attention. Ani Mander, who passed away before I could get to know her well, took the trouble to remind me of the value and worth of philosophers, of which she expressly included myself.

As I look back on my two years there, these three, and my library work-study supervisor Karen Prescher, enabled me to take advantage of that window of opportunity to make the most of the lessons I had learned from a decade of intensive civic involvement. Lessons, thanks in part to them all, that I was in turn able to pass on.

What is done with those lessons becomes part of the legacy of the people who represented what was best about the school.

New College of California is now history. For documentation of the school’s demise, see Stop Systems of Silence in the sidebar.

Would any other students like to file a class action lawsuit against the school for their egregious misconduct of funds and being a mockery of higher education, in turn losing their accreditation? Would any other alumnae/students affected by New College’s mismanagement like to file a class action lawsuit with me?

As reported previously, KPFA ran a fund raiser for New College on the air back in March.  A website run by New College board members and hangers-on used the link to the streaming radio show to raise additional funds.  After receiving many complaints from outraged members of the public, KPFA responded appropriately.  Recently, we had a brief conversation with a KPFA board member in Berkeley.

According to KPFA board member PhoeBe ANNE (sorgen), KPFA has strict rules regarding raising funds on the air.  Francisco Herrera, the host of “La Onda Bajita”, did not have permission to raise funds for New College.  He was punished by being removed from the air for a week (”La Onda Bajita” airs weekly).  Supporters of the show were outraged and felt that the host’s free speech rights were violated.  PhoeBe assures us that KPFA takes financial guidelines very seriously.

The Office of the Attorney General has opened a file on New College of California and its landlord the Arlene Francis Foundation. They do not, however, discuss pending investigations. If you wish to file a complaint about charitable abuses by either of these corporations, the form is downloadable at http://ag.ca.gov/charities/forms/charitable/ct9.pdf

If you wish to contact the Attorney General’s office regarding this file, you may write to:

Kerry Burrows

Supervising Investigative Auditor

Charitable Trusts Section

California Department of Justice

1300 I St, Ste 125

Sacramento CA 94244-2550

(916) 445-2021

Information about criminal conduct by these corporations should be brought to the attention of the San Francisco District Attorney:

SFDA

850 Bryant St, Rm 325

San Francisco CA 94103

districtattorney@sfgov.org

(415) 553-1751

New College law student Marco Marcella has persuaded Daniel Stern of the Wasserman Stern Law Firm to meet with those damaged by New College’s loss of WASC accreditation in order to determine whether to proceed with a class action lawsuit.

In a class action, the plaintiffs are represented collectively on a contingent basis; that is, they pay no attorney’s fees unless there is a recovery. And then, the attorney’s fee is paid out of that recovery. Costs for such things as filings and depositions, however, must be paid by the plaintiffs.

There must be a minimum of 35 class members before an action can be filed.

Anyone who is interested in meeting with Mr. Stern as a group to discuss a class action suit against New College of California should contact him directly.

e-mail: dstern@wassermanstern.com

As we were first
engaging the field of battle

After receiving numerous complaints about its March 21 special live broadcast from New College, KPFA has deleted the program from its audio archive. Perhaps our official complaint with the California Attorney General had something to do with it, maybe not. Whatever the case, we’re pleased the management at KPFA has chosen in hindsight not to support the corrupt former New College trustees and officers in their ongoing attempt to deceive the public and alumni into supporting the defunct school with yet more unaccountable funds.

I recently had occasion to be a guest speaker at California Institute for Integral Studies, a small private college near San Francisco Civic Center that is about the same size as New College was at its peak enrollment. As an alternative school, CIIS is similar in some respects to what New College was before the severe decline of the last five years.

What I found shocking, though, was the contrast in management quality, campus security, and alumni services. Apparently, CIIS (unlike New College) appreciates the fact that their students and alumni expect more in return for their high tuition than a diploma–things like orderly records, personal safety, and ongoing recognition and involvement with the institution after graduation.

Sadly, this loss is not something those of us with New College degrees can replace, but it’s still nice to know there are alternatives where students and alumni are not treated with contempt. For the Writing and Consciousness students doing their teach-out at CIIS, that’s some consolation.

Evidently, ex-trustee Peter Gabel’s grand illusion to rise from the ashes of the havoc he personally wreaked is just more of the little rich boy’s endless supply of hubris. I’ve lost count now of how many preposterous five-point, ten-point, and now thirteen-point plans he’s proposed since the New College financial scandal hit the front page last July, but I expect that despite his enormous inherited wealth, his latest scheme is also doomed to failure. Indeed, psychologists might have a hay day making sense of his recent comments on KPFA about inhabiting a parallel universe. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn this is where he has resided for some time.

The interesting aspect of the KPFA special broadcast
from New College, was the values expressed by Michael
McAvoy and Peter Gabel. Promoting and consuming
spectacle at the expense of disciplined learning for
effective activism. Identification with style over
substance, emotion over intelligence, counter-cultural
feelings over political literacy. Pseudo scholarship
to soothe and seduce rather than prepare and protect.

As a long time listener and guest poet on many of your broadcast 

programs, including ‘In Your Ear’ and the program, ‘La Onda Bajita,’ 

which recently aired a one-sided, testimonial fundraiser for the
beleaguered New College, I am appalled by the shocking lack of 

journalistic integrity and unabashed propaganda and lies presented 

on that program. 

I am one of over 100 employees who have been screwed by the 

financial mismanagement and incompetent leadership of Peter Gabel, 

Martin Hamilton and their Board of Trustees, to the tune of five 

months back wages, lapsed healthcare and loss of severance. The 

program, housed in New College property, for several years has 

enjoyed the sponsorship of the college and its host, a former 

student, and personal friend of its ousted president, Martin Hamilton, 

overstepped, in my opinion, journalistic ethics, by promoting and
soliciting for a misleading and outright deceptive cause. 

New College’s accreditation was pulled by WASC and the Dept. of Ed. 

terminated its eligibility for TItle IV funds due to discrepancies
over the disbursement of federal funds last fall, when many students 

never received their financial aid and faculty and staff payroll went 

unmet. The leadership has failed to disclose any and all records 

leading to the financial collapse of the college and have, in fact, 

recently placed personal liens on all the properties housing the 

school on Valencia Street, so that our back pay will likely never be 

recovered. Meanwhile they are restructuring the school behind our backs 

and planning to launch a morphed version of the college with whatever 

assets they’ve hidden from us, without ever paying a cent to us workers 

who have been left holding the bag.

We have among us, faculty who have suffered a stroke and other health 

crises due to lapsed coverage and impoverished faculty, who were never
even accorded the decency of a formal layoff so that we could file for 

unemployment and back wages in a timely, orderly, and humane manner. 

KPFA urgently needs to rectify its lack of a responsible, balanced 

presentation of the facts behind the New College disaster by broadcasting 

the other side. La Onda Bajita did a real disservice to the cause of
exploited workers and to the progressive cause of social justice. 

Sincerely, Genny Lim
Poet, former Core Faculty of New College of California  

One of the things you can always count on with the Bay Area moral theatrics industry, is that when faced with exposure, they stick together. On Friday March 21st, KPFA radio’s program La Onda Bajita (produced by Miguel Molina and hosted by Francisco Herrera) aired a one-hour live New College special broadcast. According to Herrera, the program was not intended to be informational, or to address the “lies in the [San Francisco] Chronicle and [SF] Weekly”, but was to serve as a testimonial and fundraiser for the school.

While we have no grudge with KPFA per se, Herrera’s on-air admission of extreme bias should give listeners pause. By choosing to side with the corrupt New College administration in opposition to the independent alumni, Herrera continued a long tradition of deceptive propaganda by Bay Area career activists posing for dollars. As a member of the Fourth Estate, he should be asked to surrender his credentials.

Self-promotion by pious poseurs is nothing new, but when they commit fraud as trustees and officers of an institution of higher learning, all their smoke-blowing about a “beloved community” should be ridiculed, not celebrated by local media. Were Herrera not compromised by his New College-affiliated celebrity, he might have had the integrity to look into the documented charges referenced in the Chronicle and Weekly, but that would require honesty—an attribute often missing in those who view activism as a career rather than a civic duty.