Student Groups File FPPC Complaint against LBUSD Board Candidate, CSULB, and Professor

One point of contention the students bring up in the FPPC complaint is that all assignments involving service learning work—such as the one in question—are coordinated by the university’s Center for Community Engagement, which is headed by Benitez, according to the school’s website.

In their unsworn complaint, the student organizations asked the agency to investigate what role, if any, Benitez played in assigning students in Rodriguez’s class to phone bank for his own campaign.

At the time of publication, the university’s Public Affairs Department had not yet divulged how much Benitez’s role at the university intersected with this specific assignment, a question we posed to them on May 25.

FPPC Communications Director Jay Wierenga confirmed that they received the student’s complaint filed on May 21 and said it could take up to two weeks for the agency—which investigates political campaign malpractice in the state—to decide if it will open a probe into the matter. Though the agency is cognizant of election dates, the duration of an investigation depends on the complexity of the case, he said.

The complaint was filed by Nathan Carbajal—a CSULB student who was not in Rodriguez’s class—on behalf of La Raza Student Association and the Young Democratic Socialists of America.

It was another student-member from La Raza who submitted the original grievance to the university after she attempted to complete Rodriguez’s assignment and found it “disturbing” that he never mentioned any of the candidates in the education board race except for Benitez.

“I am bothered that a professor discretely managed to use his authority to promote a specific political agenda,” the student wrote to the university’s Dean of Students Piya Bose.

The student chose not to comment for this story, citing a fear of reprisal.

Rodriguez and Benitez appear to have a close working relationship at the university. The Daily 49er in 2011 reported that the pair were in charge of the university’s Community Scholars Program and both are currently faculty members in the school’s Chicano and Latino Studies Department.

Rodriguez has also liked several posts made by Benitez’s campaign Facebook page.

FORTHE Media attempted to contact Rodriguez via email, asking, among other questions, how he would characterize his relationship with Benitez, but he did not respond. Two phone calls also went unreturned.

Rodriguez, an associate professor of Chicano and Latino Studies, is also a Santa Ana Unified School District board member.

We also reached out to Benitez’s campaign for comment and on Saturday, they issued a statement to us saying that the FPPC had not yet notified them about a complaint filed against Benitez.

“We cannot comment about an alleged complaint until we have seen it,” the statement said.

After we sent the campaign a copy of a letter from the FPPC dated May 23 notifying the Benitez campaign that a complaint had been lodged against them—and which contained the original complaint—they did not respond to follow-up questions.

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Benitez has taught at CSULB for 22 years.

The complaint goes on to allege that Rodriguez violated a law barring state employees from using public resources for campaign activity and that the university violated the state education code mandating that public universities remain neutral in regard to political campaigns.

For its part, the university said it was aware of the complaint and that an investigation had been conducted by its Academic Affairs Department.

“We’ve looked into it and haven’t found any wrongdoing as it relates to these allegations,” said CSULB Associate Vice President of Public Affairs Terri Carbaugh.

When asked if any disciplinary action was taken by the university in this case, she said she couldn’t comment on the specifics of personnel-related investigations.

“We take such allegations seriously. The campus has policies and procedures in place governing the use of state resources and community service learning,” Carbaugh said in a statement later emailed to FORTHE Media.

Carbajal said a number of students completed the assignment by phone banking for Benitez’s campaign but could not provide an exact count.

The complaint also accuses Benitez of violating a state campaign fairness law that requires a candidate who “receives contributions from a state or local government agency” to “report receipt of those contributions,” including the salary of a state employee engaging in partisan campaign activities.

A review by FORTHE Media of Benitez’s campaign finance disclosures from 2018 did not show that any such public contribution was reported.

The disclosure documents do report in-kind donations related to phone banking by TALB.

The Executive Director of TALB, Chris Callopy, said student volunteers are a typical part of the union’s campaigning operation.

“When we get volunteers here we don’t ask where they’re from, we’re just happy to get them,” he said.

Callopy said that all of the candidates throughout the race have used students from a variety of schools as volunteers, including Benitez’s runoff opponent Armendariz.

However, the allegations in the complaint aren’t that the assignment contained campaign work, but that it’s design was inherently partisan.

When asked if any of the students campaigning for Benitez during the time in question voiced anything like the allegations contained in the complaint, he said he did not remember any who did.

“I don’t have any knowledge of anyone forcing anyone to do anything as a volunteer,” he said.

Benitez’s opponent in the upcoming runoff, Armendariz, explained that he’s had former students volunteer for his campaign but never any of his current students. 

“Oh my god, no. I am shocked. That is something I would never do,” the high school teacher said when asked if his campaign had engaged in practices like those alleged in the complaint.

It’s important to note that Benitez is not accused of employing his own students as campaign volunteers, but that the assignment given to the students in Rodriguez’s class was under the purview and was likely coordinated through a university department headed by Benitez.

Still, Carbajal and the student groups behind the complaint feel that if Benitez had a hand in pushing the assignment, it could be considered undue influence in the outcome of the primary election, which would have implications outside of campus.

Carbajal said: “This behavior could affect the community as a whole, seeing as it’s a school board election.”