CSUN Again to Give Grade Case Evidence

The state Personnel Board has granted Cal State Northridge officials a second chance to present evidence against a Pan-African studies professor who was fired last year and then reinstated after a judge found him innocent of charges that he sold grades.

The state board in June ordered Cal State Northridge officials to give Eleazu Obinna back his job based on recommendations by an administrative law judge. The judge, after hearing seven days of testimony, ruled that there was not enough evidence to support university allegations that, in the 1988 spring semester, Obinna offered his students A grades for selling $100 worth of raffle tickets to benefit a foundation he headed.

Obinna, a 17-year tenured professor at the university, was instead suspended for 90 days for unprofessional conduct for “selling tickets in connection with a class.” Obinna had said in testimony that he never offered students grades in exchange for selling raffle tickets, but that students volunteered for the sales.

At a meeting this week, the board granted a request by Cal State Northridge attorneys that the judge in the case reconsider some of the testimony presented during hearings held in November and February, said Duane Morford, chief of policy for the state Personnel Board.

No date has been scheduled to rehear the case, Morford said.

Obinna could not be reached for comment.