Olivet University Faces Accreditor Ultimatum as Probes, Violations Pile Up

How many students are enrolled at Olivet University? If administrators at the Christian college—now at the center of a federal trafficking and money laundering investigation—know, they're not saying.

Education regulators in New York and California said they didn't get a straight answer when they asked for student enrollment data. According to one senior academic who worked at Olivet University, that is because the numbers are manipulated and bear no relationship to academic programs. The senior academic's description, documents reviewed by Newsweek and the accounts of several former students raise questions over the extent to which Olivet functions as a learning institution at all.

Olivet is under scrutiny or has been shut down in at least 10 states and territories as regulators put increasing pressure on the university, founded by controversial cleric David Jang, who together with some of his followers, is embroiled in legal proceedings with Newsweek.

Regulators are demanding answers from the college over accusations of unlicensed campuses, incomplete disclosures, precarious finances, possible criminal connections and seemingly improbable enrollment math.

Now Olivet's sole accreditor has decided to step in, giving the college an ultimatum to show; "honest and open communication regarding compliance with agencies such as accrediting, licensing, and governing bodies; Integrity in all financial matters and in compliance with applicable legal and government regulations."

In a November 9th letter to Olivet President Matthias Gebhardt, the Association For Biblical Higher Education (ABHE) gave him until the first quarter of next year to prepare a report showing improvement in these areas before regulators visit the college in the spring.

"Olivet University has not falsified any student data or credentials," the university said in a statement to Newsweek. "Each state agency and accreditor has its own requirements and definitions for reporting which we keep strictly and clarify our questions about use of these rules with their offices whenever possible and needed," Olivet said.

The college did not respond to Newsweek's request for any enrollment figures and repeated its allegation that the newsroom's reporting on the university was effectively a weapon being wielded by the publication's CEO, Dev Pragad, in a battle to oust his business partner Johnathan Davis. Pragad, a former member of the Olivet sect, owns half of Newsweek; Davis, who remains a follower of Jang, owns the rest. Newsweek rejected the allegation.

Not optimistic

A senior academic who worked for Olivet and was familiar with Gebhardt's efforts to navigate accreditation in New York State, was not optimistic the ultimatum from ABHE would make a difference. The university was operating with "egregious disregard and disrespect" for formal processes while bringing in hundreds of foreign students to the United States, especially from China, the academic said, speaking to Newsweek on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by Jang's disciples.

It was questions over foreign students that prompted agents from the Homeland Security Department to search the Olivet campus in Anza, California in April last year looking for evidence of visa fraud, labor trafficking and money laundering. One group of foreign students complained they had been trafficked by Olivet. Another former student was charged in a counterfeit goods plot in North Carolina and skipped bail, fleeing to China.

The presence of such students bore almost no relationship to academic programs, the academic said. Jang's senior disciples who occupy all the top positions at Olivet would "fudge the numbers" to fit accreditation requirements, often creating overlapping or conflicting records, the senior academic said.

"A graduate student doing a Master of Divinity program is now magically a double major, also getting an MBA," the senior academic said, describing some of the changes that Olivet made to its records in April 2021 as it fought to keep its New York accreditation. "They would backfill whatever courses he should have taken up to now. All those kinds of things are happening all the time, which is, of course, really fraudulent."

Surojit Chatterjee, also known as Jacob, was Dean of the Olivet Business school and supervised the MBA program at the time of the incident described by the academic. Chatterjee remains a professor and a prominent follower of Jang and he did not respond to a request for comment.

Unlike many Olivet-educated alumni who dominate Jang's inner circle, the academic who spoke to Newsweek graduated from a prestigious American university and held executive positions at several international institutions. The academic spent more than two decades in Jang's orbit, from the earliest days of Olivet University, and was asked to help the college renew accreditation in New York state. Electronic messages shared with Newsweek appeared to show that the academic complained that Olivet was responding to regulators in bad faith. The academic told Newsweek that he subsequently stepped away from the accreditation process. Other electronic messages show the academic was present when New York state shut down operations in June.

The academic's account is consistent with those from former members of the Olivet sect. Three showed Newsweek reporters the Olivet degrees for which they said they did not do the required course work.

"All Fake"

One student who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Theology said she was required to take 4 online courses in one semester. She took one and received grades for the others as well. "The rest was all fake. All our grades. It was all made up," the former student told Newsweek on condition of anonymity because she had gone on to become an employee of Olivet and signed a confidentiality agreement.

Newsweek contacted Dr. William Wagner, former Dean of the Olivet Theological Seminary and College, whose signature appears on the student's degree, for comment via his website and email. Wagner is now Director of Olivet Institute for Global Strategic Studies at the Seminary and Sarah LaFleur is the Dean. LaFleur was also contacted by email. Neither responded to the requests for comment.

Discrepancies in student records were among the problems encountered by New York's Deputy Education Commissioner William P. Murphy, who cited a pattern of "non-compliance with law, rules and regulations" when he closed down Olivet's operations in the state with a stinging letter on June 30. "The record reveals to me a larger pattern of coming into compliance only when forced to do so," Murphy wrote.

One New York state form between Murphy's department and Olivet, obtained through a Freedom of Information request and reviewed by Newsweek, shows that the university reported having 61.66667 full- and part-time students; the following year the university gave the same 61.66667 response—but the form now requested the headcount of full-time students only.

In one exchange, New York education authorities point out that the number of students retained at the end of the academic year was greater than the number who enrolled in the first place. "The number of retained new students on the NY Enrollment tab exceeds the number of new students indicated on the same tab," the department wrote. "The retained new students constitute a subset of the new students."

As Murphy and his team began a two-year process of scouring Olivet's records in New York, the university was also under fire from regulators in California, the state that has licensed Olivet's main campus in Anza. Again, student data were at the heart of the dispute and California authorities were worried enough about the gaps in the data to conduct an "unannounced compliance inspection," according to documents obtained from the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE) by Newsweek under a Freedom of Information request.

"The data was incomplete and did not contain all required data points," BPPE wrote in a notice to comply sent to Olivet in 2019.

The notice stated the data did not contain student identification numbers, email addresses, home addresses, signed date enrollment agreements, and financial information.

Paid the Fine

Instead of shutting down Olivet, as New York did, California fined the university and demanded it comply with a range of regulations covering everything from presentation of reports to inexplicable discrepancies between completion rates and placement rates, similar to the contradictions discovered in New York. Olivet eventually paid the fine, which was ordered in January 2020 just as a separate criminal money laundering case brought by the Manhattan District Attorney was winding down. Olivet pleaded guilty to a felony in that case along with several senior disciples of David Jang and companies they ran.

Olivet has been dogged by legal and financial trouble for much of its history which stretches back to 2000, according to its various websites. That was the year that Jang founded the Olivet Theological College and Seminary, later incorporated as Olivet University. Olivet Assembly USA and Olivet Assembly Europe both say they began in 2000 as associations of churches planted by alumni of the seminary.

Davis and Pragad became co-owners of Newsweek in 2018 after the Manhattan DA's long-running investigation into Jang's followers became public. Among the defendants pleading guilty was IBT Media, Newsweek's corporate parent at the time, which spun off the magazine into a company owned by Pragad and Davis just before the indictments were announced.

Olivet survived the 2020 felony conviction. Instead of withdrawing accreditation, ABHE placed Olivet on probation. It then restored the college to good standing last year despite growing evidence of fresh legal trouble, including New York's decision to shut down Olivet's operations in the state in June, a North Carolina trial linking a fugitive Olivet alumnus from China to a counterfeit goods trafficking plot, and Newsweek's reporting this year that showed the federal raid in California in April 2021 followed a 911 call from a female student who said she was being held captive on Olivet's campus. Monica Vargas, a spokesperson for California's Department of Consumer Affairs, told Newsweek that they are aware of the recent ABHE action. "Should an institution approved by means of accreditation lose its accreditation, the approval to operate granted by the Bureau would be subsequently lost as well," she said.

Jang disciple

ABHE, which "comprises a network of more than 150 institutions of biblical higher education [and] enrolls more than 63,000+ students," has long had a close relationship with Olivet. David Jang's university served as a "premier sponsor" of its 75th anniversary annual meeting in February of this year, and Walker Tzeng, a Jang disciple who was Olivet's chief operating officer throughout the period of the criminal activity uncovered by the Manhattan DA, served on ABHE's board even after the college was placed on probation.

Tzeng did not respond to Newsweek's request for comment. Asked for comment, ABHE pointed to the letter sent to Olivet and a July 7th email to Newsweek saying they had taken note of media coverage around Olivet.

Unlike ABHE, education authorities across the United States appear to have lost patience with Olivet in the wake of New York state's decision to shut down the university and reports of a federal investigation involving the Department of Homeland Security.

Newsweek reporters uncovered the following developments in states where Olivet operates what ABHE has approved as "off-campus locations".

ILLINOIS

Olivet and ABHE listed a Chicago location as a satellite campus of David Jang's college on their websites. The Illinois Board of Higher Education told Newsweek that Olivet had never completed an application to operate in the state. "Olivet University does not have and has not sought authority to operate in the state of Illinois," spokesperson José Garcia told Newsweek.

The Department later confirmed that it had instructed Olivet to stop promoting Illinois as a satellite campus and Olivet removed its Chicago location from its website.

WASHINGTON, DC

The DC Higher Education Licensure Commission told Newsweek Olivet had failed to meet its obligations under the charter to inform authorities in the District of Columbia of New York's decision to shut down the campus in that state.

Months later, the DC authorities called a special meeting to discuss Olivet; David Jang's university could become an issue at a public meeting of the accreditation body on December 8th.

"The Higher Education Licensure Commission (HELC) was not aware of actions in other states related to Olivet University," spokesperson Fred Lewis told Newsweek. "Institutions are required to notify the Commission of any adverse actions taken against their institution."

Olivet has since removed the DC locations from its website.

COLORADO

Colorado Department of Higher Education authorities granted Olivet a permission to operate without knowing New York had closed its Dutchess County campus. Spokeswoman Megan McDermott told Newsweek that "had the removal of authorization been in place at the time of application, CO would have denied the application for authorization. If we merely had knowledge of the depth of information, statute might not have permitted a denial but we could have requested more information and perhaps delayed the vote."

In October, Olivet withdrew its Religious Training Institution Authorization application, and the institution no longer has operational authorization in the state, McDermott told Newsweek.

TENNESSEE

The Tennessee Higher Education Commission, where Olivet operates via its affiliate The Jubilee School, told Newsweek the college is under investigation but declined to comment further. While the school continues to operate its own website, Olivet has removed mention of the Tennessee site from its locations page.

INDIANA

The Indiana Commission for Higher Education told Newsweek via email that it was reviewing the religious exemption given to Olivet affiliate Great Commission University in light of New York state's closure of the Olivet operation there and news of the federal investigation.

Olivet does not currently list Great Commission University on its locations page, but ABHE continues to classify it as an Olivet extension site on its website.

GEORGIA

Georgia was listed as a satellite campus of Olivet by both the university and ABHE as recently as this month. However, the state's Nonpublic Postsecondary Education Commission told Newsweek it had closed down Olivet in the state in 2016 after discovering that the college was teaching courses in violation of its charter.

"In February of 2016, it came to the attention of the staff that Olivet University was offering non-religious programming, thus making the institution ineligible for the religious exemption," an unnamed spokesperson told Newsweek.

Olivet has since removed the location from its website, yet the Atlanta extension site remains on ABHE's page.

QUEBEC

ABHE continued to list an Olivet extension site in Saint-Andre-d'Argenteuil, Quebec though the university does not promote this location on its website. Bryan St-Louis of the Quebec Ministry of Education and Higher Education told Newsweek. "No permit was issued to them to operate an educational institution in Quebec."

St.-Louis said that Olivet was registered under two names in the Quebec Business Register but that these two entities no longer exist, according to the register. The two entities were deregistered in December 2020.

FLORIDA

Florida's Department of Education told Newsweek that the school "operate(s) as a religious institution without government oversight." Spokeswoman Cassie Palelis said the state's Commission for Independent Education "will evaluate Olivet's continued eligibility." The Orlando location remains listed on Olivet's website. Olivet's website previously stated the location offered a Bachelor in Business, but that information has since been removed.

Olivet also runs operations in Missouri and Texas. Both states told Newsweek David Jang's college was granted a religious exemption of oversight by state authorities.

Asked about the latest challenges to Olivet, the university responded by pointing to the boardroom battle between Newsweek's co-owners and said a recent court order capping Pragad's compensation as CEO was a sign that Davis' legal strategy was succeeding.

"Regarding Olivet University and its programs, we shall continue to defend our reputation with nothing but the truth, both in the court of law and elsewhere, and with the knowledge that the heart of Olivet University continues to be for the benefit of our precious students," Olivet said.

Newsweek rejected the accusation from Olivet that Pragad was using the newsroom in his dispute with Davis. Spokeswoman Laura Goldberg said: "Newsweek is committed to editorial integrity and independence and has been working with the Poynter Institute since 2018 to uphold these values."

Update: 12/1, 8:30 p.m. This story originally said Olivet has been shut down in at least three states; it is under scrutiny or has been shut down in at least 10 states and territories.