American nightmare: Cao (left) and wife Zhou from China thought they would receive a tuition-free education at Olivet University, but were forced to work instead. — Los Angeles Times/TNS
California Bible college students claim they were confined and made to do unpaid labour.
IN 2018, emergency dispatchers received a strange call from a remote valley in Riverside County, California. The caller was a 22-year-old student who said that she had been unable to leave her rural college campus for months while she was forced to work without compensation. She said she lived there with 300 others, dispatch records show, and that barbed wire surrounded the school.
The location she called from matched the address of Olivet University, a Christian Bible school set against the San Jacinto Mountains near the high desert town of Anza. Its entrance is marked by a grove of olive trees, but the more than 364ha gated campus isn’t visible from the street; visitors must make an appointment to enter.
For years, the university and the teachings of its founder have drawn students from around the world, mostly from east Asia, seeking an academic experience rooted in Christianity. The promise of a United States student visa and a scholarship combined to make an unbeatable opportunity. But instead of feeling the sense of freedom they hoped to encounter in America, students described an environment where they were under near-constant surveillance and stripped of their independence.
In interviews with The Los Angeles Times, and in a lawsuit filed this year against the university, its founder, former president, and others, several former students and employees from Olivet University and its business described a big brother-like atmosphere on multiple campuses where administrators prevented adults from leaving, they said, and forced them to work, sometimes for free.
The university has faced multiple law enforcement inquiries, and the US Department of Homeland Security Investigations confirmed that an investigation into the university continues. No one has been charged in the probe. Olivet has denied all allegations.
“These allegations continue to be completely false,” Olivet president Jonathan Park said in a statement.
“Every government entity that has looked into these claims of human trafficking hasn’t found anything substantiating their veracity.”
When asked to clarify, Park said “the university has received no indication from any state or federal investigators that the school is even being investigated for human trafficking, let alone finding anything that has substantiated the veracity of these false human trafficking claims”.
He did not respond to specific claims that students were forced to work for little or no pay or that they could not leave campus without permission.
‘Slave labour’
The suit filed in California by four students, including the one who made the emergency call, said they were forced to work at least 40 hours a week doing tasks that included manual labour and gardening, and that their only outing was a weekly shopping trip to a grocery store – chaperoned by school employees. Any other plans to leave the campus required written permission, the suit said.
“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,” the suit alleges.
“Plaintiffs were required to have a form signed by an Olivet employee authorising them to leave the campus. Plaintiffs were required to explain where they intend to go, why they were leaving, with whom, and for how long.”
The isolation added to their sense of being trapped. The university sits in a small valley of desert scrub 6km from the two-lane highway that runs to the nearest city, Temecula, which is another 40km away.
Some in the Anza community, who spoke to The Los Angeles Times said they were unfamiliar with the university, beyond allegations they’ve read about; others who grew up in the area said they were wary of the mysterious campus just 16km from the town’s main drag.
Former students and employees from Olivet University described a big brother-like atmosphere where administrators prevented adults from leaving. — Los Angeles Times/TNS
Darren Harris, an attorney representing some former students, said the lawsuit is on hold for a federal investigation.
Harris said that his clients fear Olivet’s power and that one client pulled out from the lawsuit over fear and intimidation. Their hope is that their case is fully investigated.
“They were promised to attend school, basically for free, under the guise of a fully paid scholarship, fully paid tuition, books, etc. And when they arrived there, they were told that they needed to be put to work to pay for school,” Harris said. “They never got paid for those jobs. They were working under duress and if they did not agree to do so, they would have been dismissed by the university.
“Meanwhile the university set up their visas, set up their arrangements to come there, and obviously set up their schooling and living conditions.”
Warning signs
Olivet was founded in 2000 by Korean American pastor David Jang. Aside from its main campus in Anza, the university system includes extension campuses in Mill Valley north of San Francisco; Washington DC; Nashville; St Ann, Missouri; outside St Louis; and Sanford, Florida, near Orlando. A campus in New York lost permission to operate in 2022 after the university failed to meet state requirements for curriculum, administrative policies, and working conditions.
In 2018, the Manhattan district attorney’s office charged the university and several of its executives with fraud and money laundering. Olivet University pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and to falsification of business records, court documents show. The university said it has never pleaded guilty or been convicted of fraud or money laundering.
The university system reported US$17.5mil (RM77mil) in revenue and US$80.5mil (RM363.25mil) in total assets on its 2022 tax return. Those familiar with the Olivet network said it encompasses e-commerce businesses that include Amazon storefronts and has had connections to media.
The university system’s accreditor, the Association for Biblical Higher Education, put Olivet on probation for less than two years in 2020 and then placed the university under warning in 2022 until earlier this year. Neither the investigations nor the accreditation status appear to have affected university operations as records show that some campus branches were approved during that time, including the school in Florida – a move that troubled residents.
The lawsuit’s claims that students were unable to come and go and were forced to work without pay matched stories from others once connected to the university.
Former students Tingbo Cao, 41, and Qilian Zhou, 35, arrived in the United States from China in 2011 to join the Olivet University community. For years the couple lived on the San Francisco campus – the school’s former headquarters – before moving to the Mill Valley location when it opened.
Although they were promised scholarship money, they said that most of their time was eaten up by work that university leaders required them to perform to pay for their education. With monetary help from their families, they said they loaned hundreds of thousands of dollars to the university in 2019. Years later, they awaited reimbursement, but said they received pushback from the university and didn’t get repaid until this year.
Cao said the university still owes thousands of dollars in interest accruing on the loan. The husband and wife said they have spoken to law enforcement about their experience.
Park said that the university has not received loans from students. “This is simply not true,” he said.
The couple left the university this year with their young daughters. Zhou said that she and her husband decided to come forward because they believe they “will be safe” from possible intimidation or retaliation from the Olivet community if their story is made public.
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Seeking help
Others who spoke with The Los Angeles Times anonymously voiced a similar fear.
Zhou said that as a graphic design student at Olivet, she often spent more than 50 hours a week creating graphics and selling products such as crystals and T-shirts via online storefronts on Amazon and Etsy. She said she typically purchased the materials from China, but never saw money from the sales and was never fully compensated for her hours of work, which she had to do in addition to classes and a mandatory 5am daily prayer service. She said that her parents sent money, clothes, and other resources the family couldn’t afford.
Money she did receive from Olivet typically went back to the university amid near-constant pressure to donate, she said.
Cao did similar work while studying for his degree. During the Covid-19 pandemic, for example, he said he spent 70 hours a week selling masks on Etsy on top of school work. He had only a few hours to sleep.
Olivet University's network includes extension campuses in Mill Valley, California and other US cities. — Los Angeles Times/TNS
He said his stress was compounded by a growing concern that money he lent to the school in 2019, pulled from funds he received from his parents, wouldn’t be paid back. In 2022, he said that he had a stroke due in part to stress. “I was overwhelmed,” he said.
Another former student said she spent most of her time selling products like toenail fungus cream on Amazon storefronts, but wasn’t paid in full for the hours she worked. When her family raised concerns, she researched the legality of what she had been tasked with and started to ask questions. After bringing her frustrations to a university leader, she said community students and faculty isolated her and that university leaders called her family and told them she had been “brainwashed” by outsiders.
“Suddenly, they were really aggressive,” she said. “I [thought] ‘I’m not safe’.”
She left this year after nearly a year at the Northern California campus. She said she continues to fear retaliation.
Another community member told The Los Angeles Times that while she was never physically trapped in the way that former students have described, other practices made it difficult to leave the community.
She said that she and her husband were wedded in an arranged marriage. She said the practice was a common way to reinforce a member’s bond to Jang’s “Community” and make it difficult for members to leave, knowing that if they did, they would likely be separated from their loved ones.
The woman, who asked to remain anonymous for safety concerns, said that she and her now ex-husband left the community years ago. She said that some of her family members were also connected with Olivet and that she didn’t reunite with them until they left.
Congressman Ken Calvert, whose district includes Anza, recently called for an investigation into the university system.
“All colleges and institutions of higher learning must be safe environments for students, including those coming to America from abroad.
“In any situation where there are accusations of wrongdoing and mistreatment of students our local, state and federal law enforcement agencies must fully investigate,” said Calvert. — Los Angeles Times/Tribune News Service
