Whose idea was this? Meet suspect #1 later in this post

The excitement in the air will be tangible Saturday when students and families and friends gather for San Diego State University’s graduation ceremony at Viejas Casino.

But for those who care about good governance and business ethics, a black cloud hovers over the event. That’s because the university will bestow one of its highest honors on someone with a sketchy track record in the department of doing the right thing.

Media reports and court documents raise questions about the character and integrity of Mark Arabo, set to receive an honorary doctorate May 17th at the Fowler College of Business commencement ceremony.

The decision to give Arabo the honor was not made locally, it appears, but was imposed on SDSU by the California State University board of trustees. More on that later.

The Voice of San Diego noted that he will receive the honorary degree despite having “a history of documented lies and a checkered past.” (Before his reputation was tainted, Arabo was known locally as an advocate for Iraqi Christians and as a well-connected, aspiring politician. His family ran Wrigley’s market in National City.)

Most of the dirty deeds occurred when he was president of the nonprofit Neighborhood Market Association (NMA), a trade group that represents corner markets and liquor stores. A lawsuit filed in 2014 by several members of the association alleged that after the nonprofit sold its office, Arabo personally received $210,000 from the proceeds. As Norman Grissom, the plaintiffs’ attorney at the time, said, “Mark realized a windfall from that.” Judge Strauss, who heard the case, ruled that Arabo had received improper compensation and ordered him to pay back the association the $210K plus an additional $38K for non-work-related travel expenses for which he had been improperly reimbursed — $248,000 in all. The judge admonished Arabo for essentially turning the nonprofit into “his own personal bank account.”

But most damning of all was the judge’s indictment of Arabo’s character and credibility: “I’ve never heard so much fiction under oath. It’s really unbelievable. I don’t even know where to start,” the judge said. Arabo even lied, or feigned ignorance if you prefer, about his own handwriting. “To sit here on this stand and…try to say that you can’t recognize your own handwriting is very difficult for me to believe,” said Judge Strauss. According to the VOSD, documents also show that Arabo “lied to the city’s Ethics Commission about the association’s activities,” which included questionable political donations and campaign finance violations that earned him “fines and reprimands from state and local watchdogs.”

The picture that emerged was so bad that Judge Strauss said Arabo couldn’t be trusted to run the organization. He stepped down from NMA in 2015.

What went wrong?

“There was a weakness in the system,” trustee Jack McGrory told the VOSD’s Will Huntsberry. “All the information was not discussed with the trustees. We’re going to have to fix that in the future.”

“System”…ah yes the impersonal, technical, bureaucratic explanation. The weakness, I’d proffer, was human weakness and probably cultural too.   

McGrory continued, “We’re going to have to change the process so that when recommendations are made it’s with the full knowledge of the issues that could come up.”

This seems, by implication, to be an admission that the trustee who nominated Arabo for this exclusive honor failed to provide his colleagues with basic background information that would enable board members to make a decision consistent with CSU’s purported values.

And I don’t know if changing “the process” is required given that they have a fine process already in place. It’s all there in a CSU website document entitled, “The California State University Board of Trustees Policy for Awarding Honorary Degrees.”

And its wording couldn’t be clearer:

“Nominees for honorary degrees must demonstrate high moral character,” it states. Not should, but must. Presumably to counter the human tendency for cronyism, “personal relationships alone do not justify the awarding of honorary degrees.” Nominees must also be “distinguished in their respective fields” and “the eminence of persons nominated must be widely recognized.”

It also outlines what should happen after a trustee makes a nomination. “If the president and chancellor agree to support the nomination, it will be forwarded to the Trustees Subcommittee on Honorary Degrees for review and recommendation.” It’s not clear if this subcommittee is still active or was disbanded by the board.

Was SDSU President Adela de la Torre consulted? 

It’s certainly reasonable to suspect that she was in the loop but it was probably more of a top-down announcement from the CSU board: this is what we’re doing as opposed to, Adela, how do you feel about Arabo?

McGrory vouched for de la Torre, insisting the recommendation didn’t originate with SDSU and she shouldn’t be blamed. 

The trustee who spearheaded the nomination could have cut out the subcommittee and gone straight to CSU Chancellor Mildred García, who put it before the board for a vote without any meaningful discussion or dialogue. That seems to be the implication of a comment McGrory made to Huntsberry, namely, that he had never heard Arabo’s name mentioned until it was time for the board to vote on the nomination.

Suspect #1

Who on the CSU board of trustees would have reason to nominate Arabo?

We started by noting that of the 25 trustees, only two members have a strong connection with our fair city. McGrory, the former city manager and Padres exec, is one of them. He’s an old-school, due diligence kind of guy who has spoken to the media about Arabo and has no motive or meaningful connection with him that we uncovered.

The other is Samuel Nejabat, a politically ambitious lawyer and business advisor appointed by Governor Newsom and confirmed by the Senate less than a year ago.

A simple Google search revealed that Arabo and Nejabat both serve on the board of the 22nd District Agricultural Association, entrusted by the state with overseeing the Del Mar Fairgrounds. So, they know each other.

But there’s more. A review of San Diego news reports shows them to be not just colleagues but friends and even partners. Nejabat and Arabo jointly donated money to the family of George Floyd, for which they made headlines in the San Diego news.

And it was just two weeks ago that both Nejabat and Arabo were seen together at a workshop hosted by Gavin Newsom’s appointment Secretary Morgan Carvajal. 

Public relations officials for the CSU board of trustees refused to confirm or deny that trustee Nejabat nominated Arabo for the honor. Efforts to reach Arabo and Nejabat were not successful.

What becomes clear, the more you learn, is that most likely he wouldn’t have received an honorary doctorate were it not for having friends in high places. We know about systemic racism. This seems like systemic favoratism. The cultivation and maintenance of personal relationships. Taking care of their own. I guess it’s how things operate at that level.

Does it turn honorary degrees into a mockery? Do they cease to mean anything if they’re just an opportunity for well-connected and well-coddled trustees to scratch their friends’ backs?

Do I even agree with the concept of honorary degrees? I’m not sure. There are plenty of ways to honor people. You don’t need to create a fake degree, which is sort of the way I view them.

On the other hand, maybe those who are outraged are being moral fuddy-duddies. Maybe honorary degrees were invented to give powerful people a way to honor their powerful friends. Maybe it was never about character, never about what it means to be a good capitalist, an ethical capitalist.  That’s just academic, theoretical stuff they teach to San Diego State University students at the Fowler College of Business.

In the real world, it’s different.

How do you feel about it? Is this just the way things work in the real world and we shouldn’t lose sleep over it, or are you perturbed?

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