"A sex trafficking operation or a school?”
In 2019, a local business-licensing office in suburban Minneapolis noticed a pattern with applicants from a nearby school’s massage therapy program. Two graduates worked at a massage parlor listed on Rubmaps (a website notorious for listing spas offering sex or sexual services). Another seven graduates had lost their licenses for “ties to prostitution/sex trafficking” — according to the specific wording from the licensing office. The office alerted the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, and after an investigation, the school was ordered closed due to an explicit suspicion of an institutional tie “to prostitution/sex trafficking.”
The documents provided by the state of Minnesota do not distinguish between prostitution and sex trafficking; other publicly available information is limited, and media attention is scant. However, this case must be viewed in the context of a wider, hidden problem in higher education: fraudulent use of massage diplomas by sex trafficking operators.
Sex trafficking is “absolutely and unequivocally a problem that is going on everywhere. People just don’t realize it,” according to Debra Persinger, executive director of the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards. Persinger noted that massage therapy is one of the primary vehicles for sex trafficking in the United States. Previously, illicit massage businesses would operate without licenses, then be shut down. Persinger also told us that traffickers in the last decade have shifted to fraudulently obtaining licenses in an attempt to protect themselves. Because proof of education is required for licensure, traffickers have used massage therapy schools as an avenue to create this layer of protection. A 2017 report from FSMTB’s Human Trafficking Task Force notes that buying falsified diplomas and fraudulently acquiring licenses is a common practice for traffickers attempting to portray businesses and employees as lawful, and this damages the credibility of legitimate schools and businesses.
The business referenced above, the American Academy of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, continues to operate, now under a new name; a change of ownership brought it back into compliance with relevant regulators. This raises an obvious question. Is there any wrongdoing a for-profit school can commit that means it truly must be shut down for good?
Although many may not think of it that way, massage training is a form of higher education. Public policy discussions usually differentiate career, technical, or vocational training from the “traditional” college experience. Yet, both are governed by the same regulations and draw on the same Title IV federal financial aid program. For a for-profit college to operate — whether offering vocational education or a B.A. — it must have authorization from a state. To offer federal financial aid to students, a for-profit college must also have accreditation from a federally approved agency and approval from the U.S. Department of Education. Debates about the appropriate level of oversightfrom state authorizers, accreditation agencies, and the Department of Education continue among policymakers — even as fraud and deceptive marketing practices by schools like Corinthian and ITT Tech have produced headlines. While we have state, federal, and nonprofit regulators, meaningful consequences are hard to come by for bad actors. Worse, all this red tape creates an illusion of regulatory rigor.
This month, our foundation published a research report about one particular massage school because it shows what happens to students — and schools credibly accused of wrongdoing — when the system works. The Minnesota Office of Higher Education conducted a speedy investigation, alerted the school’s accreditor and the U.S. Department of Education, and issued a closure order. The language in the order is specific, and clear: the state authorizer wrote:
“While OHE does not investigate or regulate prostitution and/or human trafficking, any links to prostitution and/or human trafficking indicate a lack of authenticity and legitimacy of a private postsecondary education institution and its programs.”
Despite the severity of this particular situation and serious risk of harm to students, current regulations allowed the school to remain open — and to continue offering federal financial aid — simply through a change of ownership. The school was sold, rebranded, and now offers the same classes it did originally, with the exception of one program specifically called out by the state authorizer.
When regulators lack power or resources to protect students, terrible things can happen, including sex trafficking. As the Minnesota case demonstrates, even when schools suspected of trafficking are identified, the remedies available to state authorizers are limited and schools may be allowed to continue operations.
To begin to determine the scope of trafficking at vocational schools, my co-author on the research report, Ellie Bruecker, contacted 90 state agencies responsible for overseeing for-profit higher education. The majority of the 57 state agencies that responded to her outreach were unaware of the issue or claimed it was not a problem in their state. Yet, she discovered 18 schools suspected of sex trafficking in six states; in recent days we have learned of others. A subset of the schools under suspicion by officials also had Department of Education approval to draw federal funds; these schools have received $61.1 million over the past 20 years and an additional $1.2 million from funds the CARES Act allocated in support of institutions of higher education. Put simply, most state regulators are not trained to distinguish between a sex trafficking operation and a school — so in many states, they may unintentionally be authorizing both.
How can we protect students at for-profit schools from sex trafficking — in addition to protecting students from the more mundane kinds of fraud and deception that do make headlines? At the state level, governors must take the lead to ensure that state authorizers are connected to other relevant agencies — and empowered to take action when they identify suspicious activity. In this case, empowerment is not just political support or training: It also requires real dollars and staffing. This problem also cries out for interagency partnerships, and the most successful states (Colorado, Minnesota) already have strong working relationships between the higher education regulators, the FBI, and the state’s attorney general office. State authorizers do not need to retrain as “Law & Order: SVU” detectives — but it is clear that the most successful among them have these cops on speed dial. Our foundation is working closely with the National Governors Association and the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association to improve awareness of this issue and best practices among state authorizers. Coordination with groups that support victims is also critical, so that the affected students can receive the help and support they need.
At the federal level, interagency cooperation between the Department of Education and the Department of Justice is critical, but the public also deserves to understand the scope of the problem and how much federal funding has gone to schools actively operating as parts of trafficking networks. After reviewing our brief, the chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic And Consumer Policy, Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), initiated an investigation into federal funding at vocational schools suspected of sex trafficking; his letter from the subcommittee asked the Department of Education to respond within two weeks.
That date has passed. There is no word on their response.
View the full article in Real Clear Politics.
