LOCAL : Reinstate Professor, Panel Orders
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A state board has ordered the reinstatement of a longtime Cal State Northridge professor who was fired last summer for allegedly offering students A grades if they sold raffle tickets to raise money for his nonprofit foundation.
Three members of the state Personnel Board voted Monday to suspend Prof. Eleazu Obinna for 90 days, then ordered CSUN to give him back his job in the Pan-African studies department.
The board, voting in closed session, upheld the opinion of Administrative Law Judge Byron Berry, who said there was not enough evidence to support university allegations that Obinna offered his students A grades if they sold $100 worth of raffle tickets for the United Crusade Foundation. Berry wrote an opinion for the board after hearing seven days of testimony during hearings on the CSUN campus during the fall and winter.
Berry said he recommended Obinna’s suspension because of unprofessional conduct for “selling tickets in connection with a class. It is not an appropriate class activity.”
CSUN officials would not say whether they will appeal the board’s decision.
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