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Are the people in charge of Mills College total rubes?

If you studied business or watched a few crime dramas, this seems to be the most likely outcome. If you majored in something else maybe it is difficult to understand. Perhaps some think that when an acquirer says "I will do this after an acquisition", what that means is they plan to execute operationally on every aspect of their sales pitch, even after the pitch is no longer needed because the sale is complete. You have to look further ahead. Once the pitch has been swallowed hook, line and sinker by the desperate fish and reeled into the fat-cats megayacht in Boston Harbor...what then? What is their incentive to deliver on their promises?

If it's easy for them to find 300 co-ed students that want to go to Mills College, will it be easy for them to find more students than that? Will it be easy for them to find students prepared to pay what Northeastern charges at all their other satellites?

If Northeastern is going to charge market rates for tuition, why can't Mills College try that first?

Why would Northeastern take over Mills College and continue to make the same operational mistakes Mills has been making for at least 5 years - by many accounts, since the Holmgren era? Of course the Northeastern board of former CEOs and Goldman Sachs investment bankers are going to improve the efficiency of their asset utilization. You would have to be extraordinarily naïve not to see that coming.

Use logic and game theory, think about this from the financial perspective. The people pushing this deal are not doing it to advance racial and social justice and gender equity - even if they're telling the world they are. If they were, they could be transparent. End of story.

Transaction Structure

Mills College has 5 categories of immensely valuable assets:

land (and buildings/improvements) - many billions, materially under-valued on the books
art (and archives) - probably billions, since 1 item sold for $10 million & there are 12,000 items
brand (and other intellectual property) - incalculable, more than $1 billion revenue last 20 years
endowment - $206 million, probably more
faculty - a trifling 3% pay rise shows they are not really valued but they are very valuable to Mills

Is the true structure of this deal:

Northeastern pays $X million to the Mills Endowment to acquire everything else?

The endowment grows larger, and instead of having to fund a troublesome women's college it can instead fund a lightweight "Institute" or "Center", which relies on its newly seized control of the Alumnae Association's assets to fund its predictable operating deficits. The less the Center actually does the better, in this plan. Those profiting from investment management fees - at least $5,142,033 over the last 5 years - would presumably make substantially increased profits from a larger endowment with no drawdowns. Colleges may come and go but endowments can be forever...
[Source]

Where is the excitement about the new STEM-related degree courses Mills will be offering? Or about how financially healthy Mills College will be now that it can raise tuition back to market rates because its buildings will be A.D.A. compliant (something they already planned to do in a settlement with the Justice Department)?

The "excitement" is being generated through strategically worded media statements about the "acquisition" or "absorption" and what that means for the Institute...whatever that is. Or Center. But hey, there will be reunions, and the pool. The AAMC will still be allowed occasional access to some of the things it owns, like Reinhardt House. At least, until some Boston beancounter changes their mind...but that could never happen, right?

Taking Away A Good Education From Minority Communities Is Racist

It's not just the White Supremacists from history trying to oppress races and communities, it is happening right now today in front of our faces. "Give them a hand out, not a hand up" is slavery by another name. It's a race...to the bottom, not the top. Mills College has done a huge amount for the majority minority communities it serves by taking their best and brightest and polishing them into the next generation of leaders, ready for the world stage. Whether you call it a "Center" or an "Institute", some vague idea handed over to a tech school to facilitate endowment paperwork is not going to do anything close to helping those communities. It will only accelerate East Bay gentrification.

It is surprising to see anyone in this day and age getting fooled by this systematic, strategic racism and going along with it, let alone a corrupt or misguided group actively promoting it.

Tactics As Old As Time

Opportunities abound for "creative accounting" and things to get "misplaced" or "misallocated" as the Mills turkey gets carved up:

Lisa Kremer states if any crime was actually occurring here, the perpetrators would go to jail. But she is coveniently leaving out one very critical fact: they would have to get caught, indicted, tried in court, found guilty, and sentenced to jail. White collar crime, first offense...is jail really on the line for anyone here? How long would such a process even take, compared to handing the keys to the College over to Northeastern?

We cannot possibly know because everything seems to be happening in secret, in haste, and apparently with extreme recklessness. We don't know why, but because we are not being told anything we can infer a lot of things. There has to be a reason they're fighting transparency and a reason they're pushing an Institute.

"No-one believes that the Mills endowment is going to end up with an amount equivalent to the current market value of the real property...do we?"...no, we don't. We're not sure the vendors even know themselves the value of everything they're trying to unload in this fire sale.

Source: Britannica.com

Mills Hall 1890. Source: University of California CaliSphere

Infiltrators With Fake Answers to Very Real Questions

Beware the shills, whose every comment is designed to distract and demoralize the Resistance while promoting the plans of the Cabal.

There are infiltrators everywhere - why would this be the case if everything going on was legit? Why would there be a lawsuit with an expensive law firm if nothing untoward had happened? Why would any trustees need to sue to get information in the first place? Why were specific trustees named - are they all members of the Executive Committee? What exactly have those people been doing that merits a Court to intervene? Why so much secrecy if the College really is broke?

We have questions. While we are wondering, we are digging. We are finding some very interesting things. Stay tuned as the scandals continue to deepen.

The Defendant Tells The Media About The Plaintiffs

President Hillman used to teach Law to people, so it is surprising to see her so actively commenting to the media about the case she is the primary Defendant in. Most lawyers would advise their clients against such behavior:

Source: SFGate Thursday, July 8

Isn't it the role of the Judge to decide if a lawsuit is "legally mistaken?"...not the Defendant?

The lawsuit was filed on June 7, and it hit the media a month later. What was said by any of the Defendants to those two plaintiffs between the time the lawsuit made the news, and the time they "withdrew" - if in fact that is what has even happened? The lawsuit presumably took some time to put together before June 7, so these two were good for months. Then all of a sudden it is on TV and immediately they're out? Something doesn't add up here.

According to Inside Higher Ed, President Hillman issued a statement on Tuesday, July 6. Why wasn't this particular statement from her posted to the College's web site, Facebook page and social media - like Hillman's previous statements have been? Issuing a statement that only the media is permitted to view is not the same thing as speaking publicly to your stakeholders. That's more like trying to dodge discussion.

How did President Hillman get the information to announce in statements sent to media on Tuesday, July 6 and either the same or a second statement Thursday, July 8...that two of the plaintiffs are withdrawing from the lawsuit? We weren't able to find that on the Court docket. If it came from her attorneys you would expect it to be confidential information. Has she, a defendant, been in communication with the plaintiffs about the lawsuit? Does she have spies?

DudeBros Can Haz Oakland Party Pad

Meanwhile, over at the Northeastern side of the Interwebz, they're laughing at their latest conquest:

Source: Reddit/r/NEU

Source: redacted

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