CSUN Reports No Misconduct in Election

Cal State Northridge administrators said Friday that an investigation of allegations that some faculty members coerced students to vote for minority candidates in a recent student government election turned up no wrongdoing.

The probe began more than a week ago after students complained that faculty and staff members were campaigning on behalf of an all-minority slate called We the People.

The accusations involve professors and staff members who allegedly encouraged students to vote and in some cases actually led them up to classroom phones to cast their ballots, which could be registered by a phone-in system. In another instance, a staff member allegedly promised a desirable job to a student if he remained neutral during the elections.

“There was no merit to any of the allegations we received,” James Goss, executive associate to CSUN President Blenda Wilson, said through a university spokesman.

Goss said he received six allegations against a graduate student, two staff members, a part-time faculty member and another person who has yet to be identified.

Yolanda Kairouz, Associated Students’ director of elections, said she was not surprised that the university cleared the staff and faculty of wrongdoing. She said the students who brought the allegations were afraid to go before administrators for fear their instructors would find out and retaliate by lowering their grades.

Because the university thus had no complaining witnesses, the investigators only had the names of the accused faculty and staff, she said, and “the faculty could easily deny it.”

University officials said Wilson will ask a Faculty Senate committee to determine whether there should be written regulations governing staff and faculty conduct in student elections. Currently there is no specific prohibition in the staff conduct manual against employees becoming involved in student elections.

Goss said the information was being pulled together in a report late Friday to be possibly handed to Wilson on Friday night so she could review it over the weekend.

University staff and faculty aren’t the only ones accused of tampering with the election. The election committee has heard about two dozen complaints against We the People and the rival slate, Students First.

All complaints against Students First have been dismissed. Four complaints against We the People have been upheld. They range from campaign overspending to wrongly stated endorsements.

Each validated complaint counts as a “strike” and the student government elections are run on a “three strikes and you’re out” policy. That means that We the People, which won the March 18 balloting by 200 votes out of 2,411 cast, could have its victory reversed by the election committee.

A Friday meeting that could have decided the fate of the all-minority slate was continued until 12:30 p.m. April 14. The meeting was continued because one of the election committee members had to leave early, depriving the committee of a quorum.

Four more allegations were scheduled to be heard Friday. Two were thrown out and the other two will be heard at the April 14 meeting.

The slate of We the People could hang on to its victory if it wins an appeal on two of the charges already lodged against it and if the two pending charges are dismissed, Kairouz said. Supporters of the minority group have also requested a formal hearing where they could rebut the allegations. That request too will be decided April 14, she said.