Fired Profs Sue Oral Roberts University Claiming Retaliation

Three former professors have filed a lawsuit alleging that they were wrongfully dismissed as faculty at Oral Roberts University after they reported the University's use of resources in a candidate's political race for mayor in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Political involvement would be inconsistent with the school's non-profit tax status. The professors also turned over to the Board of Regents a report charging that University President Richard Roberts had engaged in other improper use of University funds and personnel. CBN News reported yesterday:

Richard Roberts is accused of illegal involvement in a local political campaign and 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.

She 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."

At a chapel service this week on the 5,300-student campus known for its 60-foot-tall bronze sculpture of praying hands, Roberts said God told him: "We live in a litigious society. Anyone can get mad and file a lawsuit against another person whether they have a legitimate case or not. This lawsuit ... is about intimidation, blackmail and extortion."

Oral Roberts' website describes the University as "a charismatic university, founded in the fires of evangelism and upon the unchanging precepts of the Bible." ORU's board of Regents is investigating the charges.