SPECIAL: Unsilencing the University of Southern California – Current Failures and Past Scandals

Published September 27, 2024

Sep 27, 2024

An entrance at the University of Southern California is closed and staffed by security in response to a protest by student activists against war in the Middle East by author (GoPro Hero 11 Black).

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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

The University of Southern California (USC) doesn’t want me to talk with you, much less write about it openly and honestly. Just over two years ago, USC’s Vice President for Professionalism and Ethics, Michael Blanton, snarled at me in a Zoom meeting, wondering if I was “going to send any emails.” Mike, as they call him, had come to know me as the staff member from the Office of the Provost unceremoniously questioning him, and for sound reason. One of his own internal investigators had named him in open court, alleging systematic misconduct, deliberate mismanagement of documents, manipulation of investigations, and intentional destruction of what’s known as a “preservation file” related to gynecologist George Tyndall. That still secret whistleblower even went to the press, to KCET, and then she fought a four-year legal battle all the way to arbitration. Now here I was staring him down, and what was he to do other than pull another hattrick out of the legal arsenal? Sure enough, he did, and soon I was on my way into the real world!

First, he made me promise that if he did it, I wouldn’t kill myself. You see, things don’t always end so well for whistleblowers, and the more I stared down, Mike, and the more he growled at me, the more obscene the situation became. Here was a grown-ass man, acting like a child, misguided in his belief that he was protecting an institution by breaking the law, and he knew it. Like the song from J. Cole, “Crooked Smile,” his look wasn’t so good, and I was far from an angel. The fact of the matter was simple: I was standing up to Blanton’s way of doing business. USC denied the allegations, of course, by the anonymous July 2020 whistleblower, and as near as I can tell, the case has now been settled. The truth of it, though, alarmed the faculty; was it true? Was USC really as corrupt as they say? Is the case simply that we shouldn’t trust institutions, Men and Women of Troy, betrayed by powerful attorneys like Blanton acting simply above and beyond the law? New General Counsel Beong Soo-Kim, a former federal prosecutor, couldn’t have been more obsequious in telling the faculty that there was no need for further investigation.

Now Michael Blanton has been promoted on an interim basis, the press release announced. Beginning on October 1, 2024, as Senior Vice President Felicia Washington leaves to take a new position at the University of Pennsylvania, the chairs will move like in a game of musical chairs. The dog-faced Blanton will now serve as “interim vice president for culture, ethics, and compliance... when Stacy Giwa steps into the role of interim senior vice president of human resources.” Following the departure of veteran administrator and former Vice President of Equity, Equal Opportunity, and Title IX, Catherine Spear, to head the University of California, Systemwide Office for Civil Rights, as well as Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer Dr. Christopher Manning to San Diego State University, the bench at USC is getting a little empty. Now Manning is obviously much missed, given the terrible news that spread across campus yesterday of a student assaulting a faculty member with a metal water bottle in what appears to be the result of social isolation and racial tension. Spear, ever the wiley manager away of USC’s most sensitive legal affairs, is much less missed, except perhaps by President Carol Folt.

The student, who appears on her social profiles to have been on a clear path to a successful career, announced before assaulting the faculty member at my own former haunt, the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, “Carol Folt is going to hear about this.” According to the report from Annenberg Media by student journalists Sophie Sullivan and Shane Dimapanat, after the assault, when told Department of Public Safety Officers were being summoned, she replied, “No need.” Classmates interviewed termed her a "loner.” Noting she often sat by herself without friends in class, per the report by Sullivan and Dimapanant. For those with longer memories, the attack may on some level call to mind the 2016 murder of Professor Bosco Jian; the student was schizophrenic, and there were warnings. Following that incident, USC hired one of the best investigative firms in the country, and they recommended USC create an Office of Threat Assessment to coordinate risk management with real-time security functions. I was there!

Still, I’m not sure that Dr. Manning, with his graciousness yet unreplaced, or even Patrick Prince, the veteran law enforcement officer and investigator with a big smile, could have prevented what happened. Colleges and universities will always be places where we find ourselves, and there will always be social isolation, cultural divides, and contentious politics. Working in the field of higher education administration for so many means that you accept that terrible things will happen sometimes, and you simply wish there were ways to meaningfully prevent them from occurring again, even if you can’t change the past. I sadly have little confidence in the current leadership of USC to lead through these troubled times in any meaningful way. Rather, I expect them to simply retrench and, in fact, even ignore the significance of what just happened. Since last spring, when President Carol Folt was at the receiving end of a faculty censure vote over the Israel-Palestine protests, it’s been apparent that the clock was ticking down. Just like the security checkpoints that now ring the campus to limit further protests, it all has a chilling effect.

Now don’t get me wrong, since USC first started fencing up the campus following the 2012 Halloween Party shooting, an incident of gang violence carrying over from off-campus, the goal has always been to protect students. Except, it hasn’t always worked, and in two incidents off-campus involving homicide, it’s become clear as ever that USC is a big university in an even bigger city with a persistent crime problem. In the era of mass school shootings, USC thankfully has only had a scare, and strangely enough, I was in the exact same building that day as this event occurred, and it was terrifying. These days, you could hardly get a gun onto campus with the secured access, but still, violence is happening, so it’s clearly not just the neighborhood or the guns, but rather it’s a people problem. Beyond any mental health problems, we’ve become an increasingly fractured and divided society, caught between two extremes that advocate philosophies of intolerance and ingratitude, condoning even outright cruelty beyond anything that might turn riotous, approaching almost a professionalization of systematic harassment of each other. USC’s recent attempt to rationalize this social dynamic—a new webpage ostensibly on freedom of expression (freedomofexpression.usc.edu)—is almost an Orwellian turn of events.

Amidst a series of images depicting protest and activism, it states the following: “We recognize that, on occasion, the manner in which people exercise their right of freedom of expression may raise strong emotional responses for members of our community.” This is then contextualized in relation to discourse: “Because of this, we want to provide those members with resources to help navigate difficult conversations and express opinions with civility, respect, and an open mind.” You see the problem, if you ask me at this point, is that no one is prepared to commit to a philosophy of true non-violence. Rather, I’ve heard the idea of Mahatma Gandhi, even Martin Luther King Jr. openly mocked, as an impossible occurrence in the present environment, so instead, we see the embrasure of violence. For the police, and against the police, and most recently, for the war on both sides of the conflict in the Middle East, which has clearly begun with a terrorist attack that’s now a genocide amidst raging war on multiple fronts totally unlikely to produce any long-range strategic goal. Why are we all so comfortable with the idea of bloodshed now? Is it simply the effect of Donald Trump on our body politics, or is Trumpism and the reverse form of extremism, whatever you want to call it, revolutionary, now totally dominant like the latest strain of COVID-19?

Screwing each other over isn’t anything new: greed; indeed, malfeasance has always been with us, but strangely, it seems to dog USC even more than other institutions. As Annenberg Journalism Professor Sandy Tolan notes in his recent article on the Israel-Palestine Protests in Al Jazeera, “USC: The university of lockdown,” the latest crackdown, including the requirement of “reflection papers” from students arrested over the protest, is simply a further extension of “the university’s opaque, bunkered response to these scandals,” which, as Tolan notes, “have often made it hard to be a proud Trojan.” The sad fact is that I know the people who are behind these measures, and the truth is that they’re simply unable to see beyond themselves, caught up in a reactionary cycle of secrecy and deception. The scandals at USC, particularly gynecologist George Tyndall in particular, have been often compared to the Larry Nassar at Michigan State University. New reporting by The State News journalists Alex Walters, Owen McCarthy, and Theo Scheer, based on documents secured as public records, shows the depth of betrayal at Michigan State. MSU was in a "war,” according to its top attorney. This is a dangerously misguided mindset to have about sexual assault victims. USC can and should be a safe campus, but through transparency and goodwill, not repressive measures and obfuscation.

Respect to USC President Carol Folt, but it’s time to begin a transition. If she won’t release the long-buried O’Melveny & Myers investigation report into George Tyndall, the Board of Trustees should on its own. That current President Suzanne Nora Johnston has made little public statement about any of these issues is troubling. While the President has her role as leader on campus, it’s up to the board to have final oversight. Aside from a small reduction in size, there’s been negligible reform, and members are just as disengaged as they were when the Tyndall scandal broke, costing USC $1.1 billion in legal settlements. The problem wasn’t the money. The victims deserved compensation. Rather, the issue was the gross negligence in ignoring multiple investigations that showed Dr. Tyndall’s behavior was egregiously poor and his medical techniques were highly questionable. MSU’s attorney’s criticized attorney John Manly, who also pursued USC over Tyndall, writing about him: "I'm going to start taking bets on how quickly he responds to emails in the future... He just can't help himself. He's predictable if nothing else."

In an email response to The State News, Manly wrote, “For the record, I am impolite to people in positions of authority who protect pedophiles." USC’s response was undoubtedly no better. USC Senior Vice President for Administration Todd Dickey resigned his position a week before the scandal broke, well aware of the investigation led by Los Angeles Times journalist Paul Pringle, only to remain on as a Special Advisor to then President Max Nikias. I would see USC General Counsel Carol Mauch Amir openly scoff at the idea of being “too honest” in the university’s reform efforts to meet the scandal, presently known as the “Culture Journey.” In response to the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights investigation into USC, the institution shielded “3,638 identified emails and other documents related to its investigation and handling of Employee 1’s matter, asserting they are privileged attorney client communications and/or attorney work products.” The Education Department in turn requested a “privilege log” that USC in turn did not provide for the document, including “for all the redactions” to the documents it did release. USC also did not provide Caruso’s promised investigation report. Some documents were later released as part of civil cases, but never the full tranche.

They provided some window into what happened institutionally. This includes the payment of a reported $200,000 to George Tyndall in exchange for not pursuing legal action against USC. About the payment, former USC Provost Michael Quick would write on May 21, 2018, “While it is difficult to accept, as settlements never sound appropriate, the reality is, given our size, structure, and due process policies, it is often the most expedient way to remove someone from the university.” In the civil case files, the transaction process is described in a June 18, 2016 email from an HR partner to Kelly Moy, now an Associate Vice President, Human Resources, with approval from Tim Bessolo, presently an Associate Vice President, Strategy and Business Operations, to be presented to Tyndall by current Vice President for Student Life Monique Allard. The HR partner and Allard, with the full knowledge and approval of USC’s most senior officials, would present Tyndall with the settlement offer on June 21, 2016, and it would be accepted. A member of USC student Health was tasked with “checking with the medical board what she is required to report.” The university would not report Tyndall until sometime in March 2018 after learning of the Los Angeles Times investigation.

I knew all of these people, and I know why they felt that they were protecting USC. Even as the university balked at paying the victims, offering initially a paltry $215 million class action settlement before continuing litigation forced an additional $852 million. They truly believed they were protecting the institutions. USC could not forestall the Los Angeles Times though, and in breaking the story, after prior conflict with his editors over USC Keck Medicine School Dean Carmen Puliafito, they finally got the story out. Sadly, at present, the Los Angeles Times is resting on its laurels instead of continuing to pursue USC to ensure that the promised changes happen, even as many of the same officials who failed in the first place continue to rise in power. Moy never liked me, and for my part, I never liked her. Simply put, I knew too much for her liking about how USC operated and what it all meant. Little at USC has changed since the scandal, and to date, not even a single news outlet has been willing to report on the USC Responds report, which offers the first glimpse into this secretive world of internal investigations.

Undoubtedly, no faculty or students presently being investigated for having been arrested at or participated in any way in last spring’s Israel-Palestine protests will receive $200,000 payments for being terminated in exchange for their silence. Reports from within USC suggest that the retaliatory investigations, led by Mike Blanton’s Office of Professionalism and Ethics with the full support of USC’s Provost and President offices and even the Times reporting on these cases won’t seem to stop them because, according to experts, they’re entirely legal. The 2021-2022 numbers released in August 2024 weren’t good. 1800 complaints alleging 2700 violations, with data coming far after it was obligated to be released quietly sitting on a university website. I never knew about George Tyndall until the day the Times broke the story, but people at USC know what will happen if they protest, and yet many are still willing to do it to oppose a war. Have we time traveled back to 1968? Personally, I’m not surprised that my former colleagues are capable of such repressive measures. Whatever you think about the conflict, clearly crushing all dissent with law enforcement and secret investigations isn’t the answer.

Today, I stay away mostly from the USC campus that I once was a student on and then as an employee for nearly a decade. It brings back too many memories. Powerful people awash in money that’s not even rightfully theirs, carrying out a mission that you really have to wonder if it should be believed in. There’s an educational goal, but they’ve gone so far off the path of normality that something needs to change, and it’s not more security restrictions. We were always worried about school shootings happening. The USC Department of Public Safety would even practice its response on an annual basis, and we did have one scare after the mass shooting in Las Vegas due to a mental health “episode.” Undeniably, the student who was arrested for assaulting her professor was not well in the moment—not that it’s an excuse, but we need more understanding. Sending her to prison for a long time won’t make the situation any better, because when something like that happens, it’s an indicator that the community as a whole is deeply unwell. Neither USC’s Office of the Provost nor the Office of the President issued any statement about the assault. In response to the incident, USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy sent out mental health resources to students, according to Annenberg Media.

Link: Lawsuit Alleges USC Deleted Evidence, Maintained Negative Files Against Employees

Link: USC Faculty Pushes for Independent Investigation into Allegations of Shadow and Dirt Files on Colleagues

Link: Doe v. University of Southern California (2:20-cv-06098)

Link: Announcing USC’s interim chief compliance officer

Link: Felicia Washington has been named vice president of human resources

Link: Vice President for Student Affairs and Campus Diversity Named

Link: Catherine Spear appointed to lead UC’s Systemwide Office of Civil Rights (SOCR)

Link: Suspect faces felony charge in assault of Price professor

Link: Warning signs: Student threatened USC professor more than a year before killing him

Link: USC’s faculty senate censures President Carol Folt and provost over commencement

Link: How Far is Too Far?: Fortress USC and the Struggle to Keep Students Safe

Link: Man convicted of attempted murders in USC Halloween party shooting