New College Independent Alumni/ae Association

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