DISCUSSION OF INFORMATION IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST. PUBLIC COMMENTARY WELCOME.
QUICK RECAP: THE STORY SO FAR
90 days ago Mills College President Beth Hillman announced "the Board of Trustees has decided that Mills College should no longer grant degrees, it must close and become the Mills Institute".
Congresswoman Barbara Lee was "heartbroken and outraged" and asked the Board to reconsider. Students, alumnae and staff galvanized for a big fight to Save Mills. So far the "big fight" has been holding a rally and writing to Attorney General Rob Bonta.
The faculty passed a vote of No Confidence in the Administration and Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees.
On March 26 Beth Hillman announced "UC Berkeley will be sending 200 co-ed undergraduates to live at Mills College as part of their UC Changemakers Program".
President Hillman, Chair Katie Sanborn, outgoing Provost Julia Sudbury (alias "Chinyere Oprah"), and trustee Marilyn Schuster participated in Town Hall meetings presenting their vision for the future of Mills.
Essentially:
- we've been in a financial emergency since Hillman started at Mills.
- it's so terrible that we sold 1 item from our archives for $10 million.
- we need either $3 million or $25 million or $500 million or a billion to survive.
- this would have happened no matter who was in charge, because COVID and other small colleges closed.
- the financial crisis was made worse by the $2.4 million profit the College made last year - which was actually a $6.4 million profit, whoops!
- the endowment grew at least $10 million from $190 million to above $200 million, and the Board of Trustees voted to increase the payout rate from 5% (where the Hillman team had previously set it, thus starving the College of cash) to 7% (the effects of which will add many more millions to the College's cashflow in the years to come).
- every idea has already been tried and didn't work.
- the only thing that can save the Mills legacy is called the Mills Institute. We have been designing it for years, but we don't know what it is. We know it is about advancing Mills' mission of gender and racial equity and social justice.
Many with a vested interest in the long-term success of Mills College were understandably concerned. If expenses are now more than revenues, is that not the result of President Hillman deciding to reduce tuition by 40%? Did they not realize this before COVID? It is Business 101, but perhaps they don't teach such things at Yale Law School. President Hillman's lack of commercial acumen is now on display for all to see. How much more of it would we see with the full transparency we deserve?
WHITE KNIGHT ON A SHINING STEED, OR WOLF AT THE BARNYARD DOOR?
Now, suddenly, Hillman announces that the last 3 months were all a bad dream. Mills doesn't have to close. Northeastern University is rich, and desires the prize of Mills College. They would be happy to "absorb" the College, even in its Financial Emergency, in order to get billions of dollars of assets. They deserve to have everything because they are competent at running a University (tuition at market rates, high academic standards), and recently absorbed a 200-student college in London - founded by professors with ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Sadly, Northeastern's problems with sexual violence are not contained to a few creepy-but-famous professors at an offshore satellite campus.
IT GETS WORSE
Northeastern University made the news in April 2021 for a sex scandal involving an employee stalking students:
Forcing Mills College to go co-ed, then bringing this to the campus as the New Owner is how President Hillman proposes to advance gender equity?
SCANDALS GALORE
Sexual violence scandals are not the only ones troubling Northeastern University.
Remember "CollegeGate", where Hollywood celebrities and others were indicted for paying bribes to get their kids into elite universities with fake SAT scores? One of those who went to jail was a former Northeastern Board member, another was from a family that paid $50 million to Northeastern.
The College denied any involvement:
There was also a plagiarism scandal a year ago:
GAMING THE RANKINGS SYSTEM
The story How Northeastern Gamed the College Rankings is a fascinating read, and gives insight into the way these people think and act.
It's not hard to see how Mill's College's multiple #1 rankings in the only list they care about might be attractive to Northeastern - or indeed, many other suitors.
Is #1 being absorbed by #102 truly a better path for Mills College than just replacing the failed leadership with people who can copy Northeastern? Make tuition the same as theirs. Make admissions as strict as theirs - just as Mills has been for almost its entire existence. Engage in collaborative research partnerships that give students career opportunities like they do. Mills can learn from Northeastern without having to give itself up to them. Why not date before marriage?
GAME THEORY ANALYSIS
So: what should Mills College do with this latest opportunity? Put yourself in the shoes of the long-term trustees who have been on the Board for decades, who recruited President Hillman, who voted to slash revenues and sell assets and fire tenured faculty and reduce admissions efforts.
Do they...
a) take responsibility for Mills College being in its current financial situation as a direct result of the actions they collectively took, and resign so that Mills can continue as it was always meant to be, a private women's college (now expanded to non-binary, with co-ed post-grad) being run competently and professionally...
or
b) sell/give Mills College away to literally anyone that will take it over, and as a result no questions will be asked about what they've done. Do this in an environment of secrecy, misinformation, haste, and confusion, so no-one will ever really know what actually went down or who got paid what for which.
Game theory suggests we should consider such choices from the point of view of the participants. What do they have to gain and lose from each option?
If they pick option a) they risk their reputations and future Board engagement opportunities. They also risk the ire of a thousand or so current students and staff, over 26,000 alums, all their friends and families, and the various intersecting community groups whose future leaders are represented at Mills College. What do they gain? Absolutely nothing, they get fired. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, and don't hurry back to Oakland any time soon.
If they pick option b), they can throw press conferences to pat themselves on the back for being so clever as to "save" Mills College from the "financial emergency" that they themselves declared. What do they gain? Trips around the world on the Northeastern jet? Work at the "Mills Institute"? Continued control of their juicy endowment, now re-purposed to fund said Institute? Treasures from the 12,000 objects in the Mills College Art Museum collection that conveniently "slipped through the cracks" while no-one was looking? Payoffs from Northeastern, either above or below the table? All we have is speculation...so far. Using the lens of game theory helps understand what the Board are actually voting on, and why. "Cover Your Ass" may be motivation enough for the long-term trustees who are the most to blame for getting the College into this situation.
"Who cares if Mills College is making millions in profits every year from operations and its endowment is making tens of millions? We're broke, because we say so! Don't worry your pretty little head about it. It's complicated and you wouldn't understand if we told you. We'd rather kill the College and hand it to someone else than answer your questions or listen to your ideas." The sacrifice of Mills is a small price to pay for the preservation of the Board's egos.
Is there a way to get the Board to vote in the best interests of Mills College, instead of their own self-interests? This has happened in the past, but it took pressure. More than just one rally. There's a reason they're fighting so hard against transparency, communicating with the media before stakeholders, and seemingly moving at haste.
TWO CHOICES: DEAD OR CO-ED
In November 2018 Beth Hillman wrote a piece titled "Womens Colleges Hold the Key to our Future" for the American Council Of Education. It is a tragic irony that she and her fellow white East Coasters are now destroying the last Women's College in the West.
STRAIGHT OUTTA THE PENTAGON: HOMELAND SECURITY CENTER OF EXCELLENCE
President Hillman has a long history with the miltary. She earned her engineering degree at Duke through the ROTC program, became a captain in the Air Force, and in 2013 was appointed by the House Armed Services Committee to a panel examining the military's sexual assault problem.
“Some of the generals were so condescending,” said Hillman, who is now the president of Mills College in Oakland. “On this particular issue, there is only one side to be on. Everyone should want to end sexual assault. I struggled with the dismissiveness I saw in some of them. They were going to protect their military autocracy.” [Source: Calvetconnect]
Northeastern is big in Homeland Security, one of the 9 national Centers of Excellence and DHS's lead partner in Explosives training for First Responders and Customs and Border Patrol.
Their Master of Arts in Strategic Intelligence and Analysis offers direct training from the former Director of Intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and CIA analysts and case officers.
Their well-funded George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security features an Army Research Lab studying drones and nano-technology.
A 2015 VICE review of the 100 Most Militarized Schools in America rated Northeastern the #58 spook school in the country.
Quite why the Deep State wants to take over a majority minority LGBTQ+ friendly College is somewhat of a mystery. Maybe the (like Mills) almost entirely white Board is genuinely concerned about helping out a few hundred multiracial students from underserved backgrounds on financial aid. Or perhaps billions of dollars of assets could be a factor for the Northeastern Board which contains 8 venture capitalists/investment bankers.
Possibly the latest CIA recruitment video "Unapologetically Me" starring a self-described "cisgender colored intersectional Millenial" is a clue:
"Networks That Inspire Us To Be Fully Human"
Here's where Northeastern is going in 2025. Don't ask us why the video is unlisted.
Welcome to the future! Is this the Mills you envisioned for racial justice and gender equity?
Northeastern University's vision of people kissing robots, drones and sensors everywhere linked to artificial intelligence and constantly watching everyone is a good fit for their strong base in Homeland Security. It's harder to see why their idea of letting machines "think for us" is compatible with the traditional Mills College education to think for ourselves.
Teaching Critical Race Theory to A.I.'s - is that why Mills has to lose its independence and identity and go co-ed?
SEND IN THE SHILLS
It is easy to spot the planted shills in the social media groups, simply by their breathlessly supportive narrative and how much effort they put into repeating it in every single thread. A real person might post a comment here or there; someone who is commenting dozens of times in every discussion of every post, always calling for others to support President Hillman's plans, quite clearly has an agenda.
It's also easy to spot the genuine supporters of Mills College by the consistency of their cries: give us transparency and inclusion, don't tell us that you're doing that but deliver the complete opposite. That is a technique of mental manipulation and sophistry commonly known as gaslighting. Nobody in their right mind could look at the last 3 months as the acts of a professional team at the top of their game. They have been flailing wildly and desperately, the ugly girl scorned at the dance who will sleep with the next person who makes a pass at her, because the long-term courtship she'd set her heart on didn't work out.
When in reality Mills College is a shining jewel of prestige and beauty, a place that takes raw talent and transforms it into future world leaders. A global brand that is needed more now than ever before. Something worth standing up for, and fighting for.
What due diligence was done on Northeastern? Why does Mills need to be "absorbed"? Has anyone on the Board ever said "hey, Hillman, you did this to us. Your plans didn't work out. Explain yourself?"
90 days ago, at the beginning of this increasingly sordid tale, there may have been some trust and respect for President Hillman and her team amongst the different stakeholder groups. Actions speak louder than words, and these actions reek of desperation, incompetence, and maybe even corruption. Who gets what out of a deal like this? Is there something in it for Beth, some sort of sweetener if she can rush a transaction through?
INSISTING ON AN INSTITUTE
Why are they so obsessed with this "Mills Institute"? Mills already had an Institute for Women's Leadership, it was "abruptly canceled...due to lack of funds for the costly program"
Since Mills is a liberal arts College, let's talk Logic. Occam's Razor suggests the simplest explanation is most likely to be true.
Without an Institute, what happens to the Endowment? The articles of incorporation say that Mills College is to "maintain an institution of learning of the college or University grade for the education of young women". Is that why they must have an Institute, that one word there "institution"? Why must Mills cease to be a private women's College, yet it will keep going and still issue degrees...but they still have to spend money on this Institute too during a financial emergency?
COMMUNITY OUTRAGE
Here's a sampling of the comments from around the community. Nobody's buying it.
DISCLAIMER
DISCUSSION OF INFORMATION IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST. PUBLIC COMMENTARY WELCOME. WE PROVIDE CITATIONS TO PRIMARY SOURCES, FOLLOW THE HYPERLINKS. ANY PERSON MENTIONED HERE IS INVITED TO SHARE THEIR SIDE OF THE STORY IN THE COMMENT SECTION. ALL IMAGES USED FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES UNDER FAIR USE PROVISIONS OF THE COPYRIGHT ACT. WE ARE NOT AFFILIATED WITH ANY ORGANIZED MILLS COLLEGE GROUP, BUT WE JOIN THEM ALL IN RESISTANCE TO ANY ATTEMPTED TAKEOVER.
SEE ALSO
1. Mills College is Worth Billions - Who Gets the Prize?
2. 135 Acres Worth Less than $300,000? College Owns Hundreds of Millions in Equities, Real Estate
3. We Got the Mills College Receipts - From the IRS
4. Mills College Financially "Very Healthy" With 100% Rating From Charity Navigator
5. Mills College 2017 Financial Stabilization Plan
6. Gasoline on the Burning Platform - Men to Live on Mills College Campus
7. UC Berkeley "Life and Death" Financial Crisis, How Can They Afford Mills College Problems Too?
8. Strong, Proud and Determined to Save the College We Love
9. Sue the Board - It Worked For Sweet Briar, Could It Work For Mills College?
10. Déjà Vu - Organized Faction of AAMC Pushing UC Merger Plan Similar to Board of Trustees
11. Mills College Leadership Caught Speechless by AAMC Resistance
12. Save Mills Coalition Steps Up, Hillman Administration Gets Voted Down
13. Mills College Community Stunned by Another Hillman Hand Grenade
14. The Art of the Steal 2.0 - Billion Dollar Black Holes From Barnes to Bender
15. Trustee vs Trustee - Mills College Board Members Sue For Transparency
16. F*CK YOUR INDEPENDENCE: Hillman Declares War Against Mills College Alumnae
17. White Supremacy Reigns in Mills College and Northeastern Boards
18. The Defendant Tells The Media About The Plaintiffs
19. Good News For Women's Colleges - Congratulations, Beth!
20. $25 Million To See The Books
21. "Damage So Severe The Community May Never Recover"
22. Desperate Defendants Finally Speak: Gaslighting Frenzy Before Court Monday
23. Failed Leadership Fakes Support With Fake Forum
24. Mills College Has $85 Million Without Restrictions, So Why Can't It Stay Independent?
26. Simple Solutions For Mills College Financial Situation
27. Online Education In The Bay Area: New Gold Mountain
28. Mills College Trustees Rushing Into A Deal Without Knowing The Terms