billingsgazette.com
March 11, 2005
Last modified March 11, 2005 – 8:28 am

Tie to illegal degrees doesn’t block school licensing
By MEAD GRUVER
Associated Press

CHEYENNE — Wyoming licensed a Laramie-based online school last year even as
its owner helped direct a Hawaii online school that was offering illegal
medical degrees and was later shut down by a judge.

The owner of American Central University, Adalat Khan, was the Malaysian
regional director for American University of Hawaii, a fact that Wyoming
education officials concede they overlooked in the documents Khan provided
on his background.

As a result, nearly eight months into an ultimately successful lawsuit filed
by Hawaii’s Office of Consumer Protection to get American University of
Hawaii shut down, the Wyoming officials offered no objection when the
Wyoming Board of Education unanimously licensed American Central in April.

And American Central has been an Education Department headache ever since.

For not having even one qualified instructor in Wyoming, the agency prepared
last fall to pull the school’s license — only to have the process bog down
while state attorneys deliberate how to do that.

“The whole thing is in legal turmoil,” said Phil Kautz, the department’s
private school licensing manager, of American Central’s status now.

Khan and an employee of the school in Laramie, Marcia Edwards, declined to
comment.

Khan runs a school in Perak, Malaysia, called the Mina Management Institute.
For a time, American Central and American University of Hawaii were listed
next to each other on the Mina Management Institute Web site as
“distinguished partners” of the institute.

Hawaii’s Office of Consumer Protection sued American University of Hawaii in
August 2003, alleging it illegally offered medical degrees. A judge ordered
the school shut down in January.

Because Wyoming requires private schools to disclose whether any of their
officials has ever had a license suspended, revoked or not renewed,
Education Department officials say Khan may have been required to tell them
he worked for American University of Hawaii.

Khan was certainly required to open up about his work with American
University of Hawaii after the judge closed the school in January, according
to Fred Hansen, the department’s finance director and another of its private
school licensing officials.

“He should have disclosed,” he said.

But while Khan didn’t mention American University of Hawaii in the
department’s licensing forms, he did say he was the school’s Malaysian
regional director in the third sentence of a career summary he provided to
the department.

“I’m not sure we caught that sentence,” Hansen said.

Khan also provided a copy of his 1999 doctorate in business administration
from American University of Hawaii. Although Hansen knew American University
of Hawaii was unaccredited, that was not enough of a stain on Khan’s record
to prevent licensing.

The nonaccreditation may have seemed relatively insignificant compared with
the charges that the school offered illegal degrees.

The medical degree was offered through Yerevan State Medical University in
Armenia. In Hawaii, it’s illegal for a school that’s unrecognized by the
American Medical Association to offer medical degrees.

The lawsuit also accused American University of Hawaii of two other
violations of Hawaii law: offering law degrees despite no American Bar
Association accreditation and not maintaining enrollment of 25 students in
Hawaii.

District Judge Shackley F. Raffetto not only ordered American University of
Hawaii to quit doing business and shut down its Web site, he ordered it to
pay the state $500,000.

“It was such an easy case because the promotional materials and documents
spoke for themselves,” said Jeffrey Brunton, a Hawaii Office of Consumer
Protection attorney.

He said it was one of the larger schools of its kind in Hawaii, enrolling
and graduating thousands of students, mainly from other countries.

The school’s Web site shut down last month. It briefly resurfaced with an
address in Clinton, Miss., but as of Thursday wasn’t active.

Hansen said he would bring up Khan’s work with American University of Hawaii
at the Wyoming Board of Education’s next meeting, in Saratoga in May, and
said it could be grounds for pulling American Central’s license.

Department spokeswoman Deborah Hinckley said the department wants to require
accreditation for all Wyoming schools. Lawmakers in January briefly
discussed requiring accreditation but set the issue aside for study over the
interim.