CSUN Granted Rehearing Over Professor Who Was Reinstated

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 CSUN 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 there was not enough evidence to support university allegations that in the spring, 1988, semester, Obinna offered his student A grades for selling $100 worth of raffle tickets to benefit a foundation he headed.

17-Year Veteran

Obinna, a 17-year tenured professor at CSUN, was instead suspended for 90 days for unprofessional conduct for “selling tickets in connection with a class.” Obinna had testified that he never offered students grades in exchange for selling raffle tickets, but that students volunteered to sell them.

The board at its Tuesday meeting granted a request by CSUN 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.

The rehearing request submitted by CSUN attorneys also raised some questions that the board wants answered, Morford said. Those questions involve contradictory testimony by former students enrolled in Obinna’s class as well as their credibility, he said.

“There’s no new evidence,” said Obinna’s former attorney, Francis E. Smith. “They’re saying that the hearing officer didn’t give proper consideration to the testimony of their witnesses.”

Obinna could not be reached for comment.