Ex-Instructors File Suit : 4 Assert They Lost CSUN Jobs for Whistle-Blowing

Four former instructors at Cal State Northridge have filed suit accusing school administrators of terminating them in revenge for alleging financial improprieties and student drug use in the English as a Second Language program.

The suit, filed Wednesday in San Fernando Superior Court, seeks $3 million in general damages and an unspecified amount in punitive damages for each plaintiff.

The instructors--Linda Galas, Richard Everett, Lori Ushidate and Jacalyn Scott--say they were punished for becoming campus whistle-blowers.

The suit also alleges the existence of a slush fund, into which money collected from students for textbooks was deposited but not reported to the administration.

Ann Salisbury, a spokeswoman for the university, said the allegations of drug use were investigated and dismissed by campus police. “Not even a hint of evidence surfaced,” she said.

About the existence of a slush fund, Salisbury said: “I categorically deny it.”

Shortly after Galas went to campus officials with allegations of drug use in the program, Galas said all four were informed in May that they would not be rehired. Instructors in the program teach English to students from foreign countries, the vast majority of whom are from Japan.

Galas also said the group’s efforts to organize ESL instructors into a bargaining unit angered the administration.

Regarding the instructors’ termination, Salisbury said the university raised its academic standards, requiring instructors to obtain master’s degrees. Those who did not do so could no longer teach, she said. “People were not fired,” she said.

Three of the four instructors did not have advanced degrees. Galas, now director of Coast Language Academy in Woodland Hills, said that had not been a problem because their expertise in foreign languages was considered a more important qualification.

“Our belief is we were terminated for having raised very uncomfortable issues, and it was easier to get rid of us than to deal with those issues,” Galas said.