Cal State Plans to Challenge Order to Reinstate Professor

The California State University system plans to ask the State Personnel Board to reconsider an order reinstating a Cal State Northridge professor fired last summer for allegedly offering students grades in exchange for selling raffle tickets.

Cal State Northridge President James W. Cleary said in a written statement that the university “will pursue whatever course of action is available to have this case reconsidered.”

The professor, Eleazu Obinna, was suspended by the state board for 90 days for unprofessional conduct, but the university was ordered to reinstate him in the Pan-African studies department.

In its June 27 decision the board said attorneys for the Cal State system did not present enough evidence to show that Obinna offered students “A” grades in exchange for selling $100 worth of raffle tickets for the nonprofit United Crusade Foundation that Obinna headed.

Obinna admitted that he asked students to sell the tickets on campus but denied in sworn testimony earlier this year that the sales were connected to grades. The board ruled that he had sold tickets in connection with an upper-division field studies course last spring.

The five-member board could decide to hear all or part of the case again, said Walter Vaughn, assistant executive officer. “If the board decides against reconsidering the case, then that is the end of the process,” he said.

Mayer Chapman, attorney for the Cal State system, declined to say on what grounds the campus will ask for reconsideration. Generally, he said, such requests question “whether all the evidence was properly considered.”

Chapman said he did not know when the request would be filed.