Black Faculty, Staff Members Condemn Raffle Scheme at CSUN

Black faculty and staff members at Cal State Northridge voted unanimously Thursday to condemn an alleged grade-selling scheme involving two Pan-African Studies Department instructors, saying reports “shocked and saddened us all.”

“We distance ourselves from and find reprehensible the conduct which has been so widely reported,” said a statement approved at a meeting of 30 members of the Black Faculty and Staff Organization.

The statement came on a day that official inquiries growing out of the scheme, in which students said they were offered A’s for selling $100 worth of raffle tickets, took a new turn.

The state attorney general’s office said Thursday it has begun investigating the United Crusade Foundation, a Pacoima nonprofit organization that was to have received proceeds from the raffle. United Crusade was founded by Prof. Eleazu S. Obinna, one of the professors under investigation.

The inquiry will try to determine whether donations to the foundation were improperly diverted from charitable purposes to individual private gain, said press spokesman Duane Peterson. Civil penalties for mishandling charity money includes fines and restitution, he said.

Scheme Being Reviewed

Campus police also are reviewing the raffle-for-grades scheme and expect to present their findings to the Los Angeles city attorney’s office in the next few days.

Thirty students have told campus authorities that Obinna and Willie J. Bellamy, a part-time instructor in Pan-African Studies who does administrative work for the foundation, promised A’s to members of three field-studies classes who sold 20 of the $5 raffle tickets. The raffle prize was a $22,000 Sebring sports car.

The statement by the black organization was drafted by Rosentene Purnell, a Pan-African Studies faculty member, and William Watkins, CSUN associate personnel director.

“The black community of this campus . . . has endeavored for over 20 years to provide students with a supportive network committed to their educational development and enrichment,” the statement said. “We shall continue to maintain the integrity of this effort and will not allow the actions of a few individuals to cause retreat.”

The statement did not mention Obinna or Bellamy by name. “We’re censuring the conduct, the exchange of grades for sale of tickets and anybody who participated in that act,” Purnell explained.

Obinna and Bellamy have refused to comment, on advice of their attorney.

Even before the raffle-selling allegations surfaced, a Faculty Affairs Committee composed of five full-time Pan-African faculty members had planned to seek disciplinary action against Obinna for “unprofessional conduct,” several department members said.

“There have been charges brought by individual faculty members relating to the unprofessional conduct of Dr. Obinna in the way that he has represented various aspects of the department,” Purnell said. She refused to elaborate.

Cal State Northridge officials are expected to announce remedies today for 181 students whose academic status might be harmed when the university canceled the three field studies classes last week, just three weeks before the end of the academic term.

“We are looking at a variety of ways to make sure none of the students registered in the three courses has been harmed,” said Ann Salisbury, acting director of public affairs. “We will do whatever it takes” to help the students, she said. The three courses were field studies in the black community.

Edward Sampson, dean of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, which includes Pan-African Studies, is to discuss the effect of the cancellations in a meeting with reporters today.

Kermit Jackson, president of the Black Student Union, said many of the 200 or so students who met privately with Obinna and two other teachers Wednesday were angry at the campus administration.

“Students were wondering why they were being penalized by the university for something that two individuals did,” he said. “For some, it affects their graduation status.”

Salisbury said the possible remedies for students whose classes were canceled includes allowing them to obtain credit by doing additional “educationally appropriate” work in the summer.

Asked about graduating seniors whose status may be damaged, Salisbury said the university does not think there are many of those. But she said they also will be assisted in whatever way necessary.

One professor said Thursday that many faculty members and students were aware of the raffle because the car being offered as the prize was parked on campus for some time. The professor, who asked not to be identified, said pictures were taken of models with the car, with the idea of making posters to better advertise the event.

When he created United Crusade Foundation in 1982, Obinna filed documents with the state identifying its goals as fighting poverty and hunger in Africa and homelessness and illiteracy at home. The foundation never grew large, typically spending more money on their annual dinners than they raised.

But several of those connected with the organization insist it retained its high-minded purpose. Board members said they spent their own money to provide meals for the hungry during holidays and clothing for the poor.

“We’ve done it by our bootstraps,” said board member Norman Brock, whose business was assembling the sports car for the raffle. “We are totally legal.”