4 Students at CSUN Say A’s Offered for Ticket Sales

Four Cal State Northridge students testified Monday that a Pan-African studies professor promised them A grades in an upper-division course last semester if they each sold $100 worth of raffle tickets to raise money for charity.

The testimony came during a hearing on an appeal to the state personnel board by Eleazu S. Obinna, the CSUN professor who has been fired for his alleged involvement in the grade-selling scheme. The appeal hearing, expected to continue through Wednesday, is being held on the Northridge campus.

Obinna, a 17-year, tenured faculty member, and Willie J. Bellamy, a first-year instructor, told the students that the only work required for an A grade in the course, “Field Work in the African-American Community,” was to sell 20 $5 raffle tickets for the United Crusade Foundation, according to the testimony before Administrative Law Judge Byron Berry.

The four students said they were not required to attend class or complete any other assignments.

“Dr. Obinna said that if you sell 20 raffle tickets, you get an A,” LaTicia I. Clark testified.

Campus Reputation

Clark, a Pan-African studies student who signed up for Obinna’s class in February after hearing from friends that it was an easy A, told the judge that Obinna’s comments later in the semester made her suspicious. After selling her 20 tickets, she returned the $100 to Obinna but had lost some of the raffle ticket stubs, she said.

“He said not to worry because he had another set of stubs,” Clark testified. “But how would he know the names of the people I sold the tickets to?”

Clark said she was told that the proceeds from the raffle would go toward helping the black community through work by the nonprofit United Crusade Foundation, which is headed by Obinna.

Obinna and his attorney, Francis Smith, declined to comment on the case Monday. Obinna had previously said he has done nothing wrong.

Student Complaints

Students began complaining to school officials about the ticket selling in April, according to university memorandums filed in the case. In an April 13 memo to Edward E. Sampson, dean of the school of social and behavioral sciences, Obinna denied the charges, court records said.

After a campus investigation, CSUN President James Cleary sent a letter to Obinna on May 23 telling the professor that he was being fired for “unprofessional conduct and dishonesty” for the grade-selling scheme, as well as for lying about the scheme to Sampson.

Obinna is still drawing his salary while appealing the firing to the state personnel board. The judge in the case said he probably will announce a decision in about 2 months.

Bellamy, who was also fired, could not appeal because he was a part-time instructor, he said outside of the hearing Monday. Bellamy denied the students’ allegations. He said he is now a full-time religious studies graduate student at CSUN and works for the Immanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles.