A trustee of Oral Roberts University and his wife have given a $1 million gift to the school’s scholarship fund that, when matched through a fundraising campaign, will whittle its debt from more than $50 million to around $2.5 million, school officials said Thursday.

The debt grew as the university struggled in 2007 amid lawsuits alleging financial and administrative scandal.

A Tulsa County district judge dismissed a former Oral Roberts University accountant’s claim of fraud Thursday but kept other elements of the lawsuit alive.

In a former student’s lawsuit, which also was heard Thursday, the judge made no ruling and set separate hearings in March to continue argument

Oral Roberts says he does not think his son, who has been accused of misspending funds at the university the evangelist founded, did anything wrong.

The younger Roberts, a televangelist, was accused along with his wife, Lindsay, of spending money on shopping sprees, home improvements and a stable of horses for their daughters at a time when ORU was badly in debt. Both have denied wrongdoing.

Huddleston, who was hired in 2006 and spent 15 months at the school, said he was discharged because school officials feared he would reveal that the account existed.

The power of “spiritual regents” and ultimate leadership by the founder and his family are gone in Oral Roberts University’s revised articles of incorporation and bylaws.

The Green family’s donation signaled acceptance of its deal with ORU, which requires the college to adopt shared governance, in which professors, administrators and trustees jointly run the university.

Former Oral Roberts University professors Tim Brooker and Paulita Brooker filed a new version of their lawsuit Friday, adding and subtracting people they are suing.

Green, who did not attend Oral Roberts, pledged a total of $70 million to the 5,700-student university but allowed only $8 million to be used immediately and withheld the rest until his family could review the school’s financial records and until regents could consider other stipulations.

Oral Roberts University Business Regent I.V. Hilliard, co-founder of New Light Christian Center Church in Texas; and Regent Emeritus Benny Hinn, who until recently was a business regent, have resigned from the school’s board of regents, according to a press release.

In return for a $62 million donation, Oral Roberts University’s board of regents will be asked to share power, the Tulsa World has learned. Mart Green, a Yukon businessman whose family founded the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores, released a statement to the World on Tuesday outlining his process for reform at the university.

In a statement released Tuesday, Oral Roberts University announced that Louisiana minister Jesse Duplantis had resigned his position on the board.

The evangelist Creflo Dollar has resigned from the Oral Roberts University board of regents, and another evangelist, Benny Hinn, has lost his status as a voting member of the board.

Richard Roberts told students at Oral Roberts University that he did not want to resign as president of the scandal-plagued evangelical school, but that he did so because God insisted. Richards previously claimed God told him to deny allegations made in a lawsuit filed against him.

Oklahoma City businessman Mart Green, founder of Mardel, a Christian office and educational supply store chain, said he decided to help after watching media reports about the school, which recently revealed that it was more than $50 million in debt.

To ORU’s 5,300 deeply religious students, the events of recent weeks have brought an unexpected test, one that caused them to choose between questioning or defending the administration, worry about tainted diplomas and search for spiritual answers.