Scandal at Oral Roberts University

ORU President Richard Roberts &
ORU First Lady Lindsay Roberts

Oral Roberts University (ORU) based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was founded by televangelist Oral Roberts, and is described by Wikipedia as "a charismatic Christian university". It has an enrollment of about 5,300 students, including students from most U.S. states along with a number of international students. The university's president since 1993 has been Oral Roberts' son, Richard Roberts.

According to KOTV, Oral Roberts University, ORU's president Richard Roberts, and other school leaders have been named in a wrongful termination and defamation lawsuit.

The lawsuit against ORU, President Richard Roberts, the ORU provost and several other administrators was filed by three former professors. Two of whom, talked to reporters along with their attorneys at a news conference Tuesday morning.....

According to the lawsuit, the professors also went to ORU regents with concerns about an internal university report, documenting allegations of questionable expenditures and management of the university. According to the lawsuit, the report itemizes dozens of instances of misconduct.

"Misuse of funds, misuse of assets at the university. Misuse of University personnel, all sorts of issues that we thought would be damaging for people to know," said Dr John Swails, Ph.D.

The professors believe they were punished for being whistleblowers.

A following story by KOTV stated:

The lawsuit accused Roberts of lavish spending at donors' expense, including numerous home remodeling projects, use of the university jet for his daughter's senior trip to the Bahamas, and a red Mercedes convertible and a Lexus SUV for his wife, Lindsay.

Lindsay Roberts is accused of dropping tens of thousands of dollars on clothes, awarding nonacademic scholarships to friends of her children and sending scores of text messages on university-issued cell phones to people described in the lawsuit as "underage males."

Today KOTV reports:

Former professors add to their lawsuit against Oral Roberts University in Tulsa. The lawsuit names new defendants, makes new allegations, and releases more information......

The suit now claims the regents didn't properly oversee the university and its president Richard Roberts.

The former professors also say Oral Roberts University allowed a man who previously confessed to "exposing himself to a 15-year-old boy in a school locker room" to mentor college kids.

The plaintiffs say it's just another example of the school's poor leadership.

Their attorneys have also now released a packet of information that they say led to the professors' dismissals. The packet is a list of rumors compiled by Richard Roberts' sister-in-law, his community and government liaison.

The list includes details about Oral Roberts University’s first lady Lindsay Roberts' alleged relationship with an underage boy.

The report says she spent the night with the boy in a guest house at the university nine times; she was photographed with a boy after curfew 29 times and was smoking with the boy at her house.

The allegations, if true, would suggest that there may be tax problems for ORU, implying that there were unjustified tax ememptions. Moreover, the New York Times reports that the suite includes "a claim that he illegally mobilized students to campaign for a Republican mayoral candidate."

Tax law strictly limits the political activities of nonprofit groups, as well as the use of a charity’s assets by insiders like the Roberts family. The university’s reported ownership of a plane might also raise questions, lawyers said. Harvard, the nation’s wealthiest nonprofit institution, does not own a plane.

In the 1960s, the I.R.S. ruled that a college could require students to work on political campaigns as part of a class assignment. But the agency did not address whether a nonprofit group could direct students to work on a specific campaign in the way the suit contends that Oral Roberts students were managed.

The suit raises potential problems for the university that could jeopardize its tax-exempt status, said Marcus S. Owens, a lawyer at Caplin & Drysdale in Washington who previously ran an I.R.S. division that oversees nonprofit groups.

If it is determined that university officials misled the tax agency in the inquiry on the political activities, the Justice Department could begin a criminal investigation, Mr. Owens said.

Comment: This seems to me to be an important story, given the visibility of ORU and similar institutions, and their apparent importance in American political life. At least it seems more important than the press coverage I have seen, until I Googled the story, So I have blogged it in some detail.

I don't want to rush to judgment, but wait while the legal system adjudicates the charges. Still, what a sad moment for the parents of the kids in ORU, who presumably are paying for a private school with a religious orientation to give their kids a good moral foundation. I am a strong believer that educators do much of their work by setting an example of how to behave in the world. Parents of ORU students must be wondering what their kids are learning from ORU.

More generally, Republican candidates have enjoyed strong support from Christian conservatives playing the "values" card. There have been many recent news stories suggesting that many Republican legislators have poor moral compasses, and this story adds to those suggesting that televangelists are all too human. Lets look at what politicians actually do, and not fall for the false claims to moral superiority of scoundrals. JAD