I'm reprinting below an email I received from Thomas Rebman, a retired naval officer who is now training for a second career in elementary education. Mr. Rebman is seeking practical advice as he pursues a complicated and frustrating lawsuit that has strong implications for buyers of overpriced textbooks--not to mention academic whistleblowers--everywhere.

My name is Thomas Rebman and I am currently a student at Daytona Beach Community College.  A highly decorated, retired, 23 year Naval Officer, I am obtaining my Elementary Education Degree so that I can teach Elementary School as my next career.

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My reason for writing is I could use your advice on what resources are available within the Education community to assist me. I have tried to reach out to every government and private organization I can think of, to no avail. Although I have gotten support from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), and the ACLU, the college does not seem to want to correct the problem. I am now trying to inform the public at large about my discovery that Follett Higher Education Group (a $200 Billion a year company with 700+ campus bookstores throughout the country) is willfully and intentionally defrauding students against the contracts in place to protect the students.

I also want the public to know that at least one college president, D. Kent Sharples, of Daytona Beach Community College, has chosen to ignore mounds of irrefutable evidence that this is, in fact, taking place. As a matter of fact, he has mistakenly gone one step further. He has chosen to personally attack me, kick me off campus with police (I am 6 credits short of my AA degree), and has stated to the local media that I "slapped" someone. I believe he has done this because pressure exerted by Follett, who incidentally paid the college approximately $500,000 dollars last year (we have an enrollment of around 11,000 students) as the college's share of their revenues.

I know this is a lot of information to take in. I can easily summarize it this way. I feel Follett is breaking FTC Monopoly laws, intentionally overcharging students, and making a lot of people at Follett rich instead of using education dollars to educate our children. They restrict book information so that students are forced to use their on-campus bookstore. They underpay for used textbooks (each college has a contract that states what they should pay as a buyback minimum), overcharge when they resell these textbooks (again, the contract states they SHALL NOT sell used textbooks for more than 75% of the current new text selling price), and at least here at DBCC, all financial instruments issued by the college are only good at the campus bookstore (Pell Grants, Book loans etc.) which prevents the student from competitively shopping (internet book prices are 40-70% cheaper).

If you have any ideas on how I can get the national media involved or if you know of a government or private agency that could help me I would greatly appreciate your assistance. If you have any personal feedback, I would greatly appreciate that as well. Their actions have financially devastated my family, ruined my civic reputation, and have dramatically decreased my employability as a teacher. I feel they are trying to "out money" me and frankly, right now, they are doing a good job of it. I can no longer even afford the maintenance fees on the two free bookswap websites I set up for students at DBCC and UCF.

Thanks so much in advance for your assistance, I genuinely look forward to your opinion of my situation. If you have any questions, feel free to call or email anytime.


Sincerely,


Thomas F. Rebman
LT, USN Retired
Daytona Beach Community College Student