A bitter internal struggle over the future of Grambling State University now may be headed to federal court, after the Louisiana institution’s alumni association, the mayor of Grambling, La., and others filed a lawsuit alleging that employees are being mistreated and that the university is being led in the wrong direction.

The News-Star, a newspaper in northeastern Louisiana, reports that the lawsuit contains more than 40 allegations of legal and “civil rights” violations. Among them: that university employees were fired because of “personal vendettas,” that proper financial records were not maintained, and that university officials illegally used the alumni association’s name and nonprofit status to collect sponsorship revenues from the Bayou Classic, a state football game.

Among those named as defendants in the lawsuit are Horace A. Judson, Grambling State’s president; Sally Clausen, president of the University of Louisiana System; and E. Joseph Savoie, the state’s higher-education commissioner. In another article published by The News-Star, they denied the allegations and said the plaintiffs had previously filed similar lawsuits that were unsuccessful.

Earlier this year, a state audit found that the university appeared to have largely dealt with the fiscal and managerial problems that, at one point, left its books unauditable and led its accreditor to put it on probation (The Chronicle, March 27).