TL;DR: A small group of powerful white people on the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees are pushing a plan to merge Mills College with UC Berkeley. Now a small group of white people on the Board of Governors are pushing a plan to merge Mills College with the University of California, even though this is against the majority wishes of the Alumnae.

In our last post Sue the Board - It Worked For Sweet Briar, Could It Work For Mills College? we shared how Sweet Briar College was successful in stopping their President and Board of Trustees' plan to destroy the college. How? By taking legal action. Three lawsuits were filed, one from students, one from faculty and one from the county. The outcome was replacement of the management and most of the Board of Trustees who had said "failure is the only option" with a leadership team that saved the College with new ideas that delivered successful results.

Today we are pleased to report that there has been some significant movement on this front at Mills. The Alumnae Association of Mills College (AAMC) has retained a lawyer, and there is a separate GoFundMe from the Save Mills Coalition for another legal action.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-mills-college

Some have speculated that two legal challenges could be confusing for donors, but as we will show you in this post it is necessary. The most dangerous enemy is the enemy within. There appear to be some significant conflicts of interest within the AAMC Board of Governors.

The "full spectrum dominance" plan for the University of California to take over Mills College's spectacular campus includes managed internal communication and social media. There are loud voices, none of whom are POC, saying they are the ones with a plan to save Mills College.

You need to tune out the noise and tune into the signal. Use logic: the best way for Mills College to remain as its founders intended, a degree-granting institution on its own campus, is NOT to lobby the UC Board of Regents to take over Mills - as both the #UCMills faction and Hillman faction are advocating. We should be lobbying the UC Board of Regents, faculty and students and (soon to be outgoing?) Governor Gavin Newsom to keep their greedy government-backed hands off our precious jewel.

If you beg the UC system to takeover Mills College, don't be surprised if the end result is the UC system taking over Mills College.

Cracks Begin To Show

Although the public messaging has been "this is a done deal, the Board of Trustees voted to close Mills College, the financial situation is dire and unsolvable", cracks are starting to show. In recent town hall meetings it has emerged that the endowment of the college has increased to $200 million and the last full financial year (ended 30 June 2020) saw the College make a $2.4 million profit. This was before selling off priceless artifacts like $10 million for the Shakespeare folio. In 2020 the expected deficit for this post-COVID 2021 financial year was $12 million, but in fact it is only $3 million. The Board of Trustees has also voted to increase the payout rate from the endowment from 5% back up to 7%. They have not voted to close the College, though this may be coming up at the next Board of Trustees meeting on April 15.

A quick recap of President Hillman's "financial stability plan" since the same Executive Committee pushing the UC Merger plan appointed her:

reduce admissions to a part-time role
reduce the involvement of AAMC in outreach to new students
reduce marketing to wealthy international students
increase the intake of impoverished students in the local area
reduce the payout rate from the endowment fund
fire tenured professors
reduce the breadth and depth of educational programs offered by the College
sell off priceless assets

Predictably, this "slash and burn then have a fire sale" approach did not result in increased enrollment. Instead it seems designed to push the College towards a cliff, distressing the assets to a point where the only savior is a government takeover in the guise of the University of California.

We are supposed to just accept it as a coincidence that President Beth Hillman is a lawyer who came out of UC Hastings, AAMC Vice President Alexa Pagonas is a lawyer who came out of UC Hastings, Trustee Eric Roberts is a lawyer who came out of UC Berkeley, and Trustee Marilyn Schuster (design lead for the Mills Institute) spent most of her career at Mills' eastern rival Smith College - where Carol Christ was President before re-joining UC Berkeley as Chancellor in 2017. Many of the other trustees also list the University of California in their bios, including 2 of the 3 alumna trustees.

On the Board of Governors side, the same people who in February were telling us that "there is no villain or evil profit-monger", "Mills College can't be sold", and the white people leading the Mills shutdown plan are "bad ass rock stars" - are now the crew publicly advocating for the UC takeover.

Sometimes, conspiracies are not just theories. People actually do make plans in secret and lie about them in public.

AAMC Board of Governors members Alexa Pagonas, Courtney Long and Cherlene Sprague Wright were kicked out of the S.P.A.M. facebook group for pushing their #UCMills plan. Their UC Mills facebook page has only a few followers, and no comments from supporters outside of the admins. Their plan appears to be almost identical to President Hillman's - to let the University of California acquire Mills.

Pagonas was cheerleading the UC Berkeley takeover (before we broke the news that UCB's deficit is $340 million), and now claims that UC Hastings is the model for what Mills College should become - even though Hastings is co-ed, has no undergraduates and struggles to compete for limited funds from the shrinking UC budget.

Is This What Most Alumnae Want, Or Just A Small White Faction?

At the recent AAMC Board of Governors meeting the results of a survey of Alumnae were presented (results reproduced below). 70% supported Mills College continuing as a private, independent, degree-granting women's liberal arts college on its own campus; less than 10% disagreed. 59% were against the Mills Institute plan, with only 16% agreeing. The "UC Mills" plan was not even presented to the alumnae in the survey.

A vote was taken by the Board of Governors to retain an attorney to represent the AAMC. A vote was not taken on the UC Mills plan. However, the next day this was misrepresented. All the messaging going out was about UC Mills, which now has a web site and a social media campaign targeting prominent politicians like Barbara Lee and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf.

Are the AAMC truly representing the alumnae if they are promoting an approach that almost none of the alumnae want instead of pushing for the outcome that 70% voted for?

They retained an attorney without first exploring if there is a viable legal pathway? This does not make sense. Is it really grassroots effort if it's effectively the same plan as the one coming from the Board of Trustees?

The attorneys retained by Mills College are her friends? Yet she is leading the legal challenge against Mills College?

Alexa Pagonas' statement that the Board of Governors is supporting the UC Mills efforts is simply not true. The faction committed to a UC takeover are actively spreading false information:

The people behind #UCMills are promoting the idea that legal counsel has been retained by the AAMC to support the #UCMills plan:

UC Mills is not a plan of the AAMC. It is being pushed by a small faction within the Board of Governors:

Alumnae Betrayed

The AAMC sent a letter out to alumnae promoting the UC Mills plan:

Members of the Save Mills Coalition were stunned by the UC Mills announcement and felt betrayed by "spineless, back-stabbing and deceitful" lies from the AAMC:

How Long Has This Been Going On?

This transaction has been contemplated for a long time, although it appears the "what is Mills Institute" part of it is an after-thought that is only being considered now. Meanwhile, over at UCB, they're being told this is a done deal - before the Mills College Board of Trustees has even voted on it.

UC Berkeley discussed this takeover in a meeting of their divisional council in December 2020. This conflicts with President Hillman's recent claim that a deal with UCB looked "unlikely", which she followed up a week later with the announcement of a deal with UCB.

In a September 2020 Town Hall meeting with the AAMC, President Hillman discussed her UC merger plan [side note -why are so many videos on the Mills College YouTube channel unlisted? Good deals are still good when there is transparency...]

Alums are just one stakeholder group. As hundreds of thousands of dollars of pledges are pouring in from all around the country and the world to save Mills College - will the AAMC reach into its coffers to help fund another legal challenge on behalf of the faculty and staff?

People are free to do what they want with their money. If you want to #SaveMills, pledge to the legal challenge that is determined to do that. AAMC have shown their true colors by promoting something that they didn't even ask alumnae to vote on, and failing to promote what 70% demanded.

AAMC SURVEY RESULTS

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.

#MILLSFOREVER