USC Faculty Senate Releases Kangaroo Report; Provost Responds

Last week the USC Academic Senate published a report prepared by its Task Force to Review Recent Campus Events and Associated Administrative Decisions. The Task Force was created following the Senate’s kangaroo’s censure of President Folt and Provost Guzman in May 2024.

The task force consisted of the following members:

• Chair: LaVonna Lewis, Professor (Teaching), Price; Vice Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

• Kim Austin, DDS, Associate Professor of Clinical Dentistry, Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry; Assistant Dean for Diversity, Inclusion and Access

• Yaniv Bar-Cohen, MD, Professor of Clinical Pediatrics and Medicine, CHLA, Keck

• Christine El Haddad, Clinical Associate Professor, Marshall

• Devin Griffiths, Associate Professor, English, Dornsife

• Mari Kong, USC Bovard, online teaching

• Najmedin Meshkati, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Industrial Systems Engineering, and International Relations, Viterbi

• Morgan Polikoff, Associate Professor of Education, USC Rossier

• Howard A. Rodman, Professor, School of Cinematic Arts

• Lucio Soibelman, Fred Champion Chair in Engineering and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Spatial Sciences Institute, Viterbi

• Lorraine Turcotte, Professor of Biological Sciences, Dornsife

The 36-page report is an exercise in academic gaslighting. It opens with the following pompous preface:

Empathy is the skill that allows us to view the world through the eyes of others. It permits us to pause from our own biases to see situations through the lens of someone else's experiences, emotions, and concerns. In the moment that we are in — fraught with political polarization at home, escalating military actions abroad, and a culture in which differences are often cast as evil or the enemy — we have an obligation as an institution of higher learning to force ourselves to see situations from the “other’s” viewpoint.

It quickly becomes obvious that the document will need to be viewed through an Orwellian lens—“empathy” means the lack of empathy for victims of barbaric violence, “other’s viewpoints” are invoked to conceal the facts, distort the obvious, and to equivocate.

The preface states:

We wish to note that various communities experienced the commencement cancellations and Gaza protests in radically divergent, conflicting ways.

Yes, indeed—it’s all a matter of standpoint. The chants calling to abolish the state of Israel and purge it of Jews (“From the River to the Sea”), to deploy violence (“Globalize the Intifada”), and to valorize Hamas terrorists as martyrs may be perceived by some as a threat to their existence, but for others these are aspirational calls for justice and liberation.

Rather telling is the omission of the words “Israel” (except for “Fuck Israhell” graffiti) and “Zionism,” while “Gaza” and “Palestine” are mentioned numerous times.

Regarding that evidence, it is important to note that we did not speak to a ‘representative sample’ of the University community. We spoke to several members of the University leadership who have formal decision-making power, though President Folt declined to speak with us. We also talked to faculty, staff, and students who were disproportionately impacted by that power.

Indeed, “evidence” would be a distraction for those who are “on the right side of history.” Note the woke buzzword “power.” The preamble is followed by a cringe-inducing Executive Summary of “the lessons learned,” which is organized around platitudes—“Our Unifying Values”—Accountability, Open Communication, Integrity, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and Well Being, and Excellence. It is as bad as the “Unifying Values” themselves. Here is a quote to give you a taste of this word salad:

Integrity:

It is clear that ‘doing the right thing’ is open to interpretation. Nor can we always say that “our words, decisions, and actions, align with and are guided by our values, honesty, and ethical principles.” In addition, attribution bias says that we judge others on their actions but we judge ourselves by our intentions, which can lead to different interpretations of the same actions. We also sought to avoid falling victim to confirmation bias, (i.e., seeking out information that supported any pre-existing beliefs or preconceived notions we may have had about events). This report shares what our interviewees shared with us, highlighting areas of agreement and disagreement with actions taken by USC leadership throughout. We believe that it is important to engage in concrete and consequential actions that will support all members of the community acting with integrity.

The report is organized around the following topics, followed by an appendix:

• Topic 1. To review the decision by the USC Administration to ban Professor John Strauss from campus, identify lessons learned, and provide recommendations.

• Topic 2. To review the decision by the USC Administration to cancel the valedictorian speech and the main commencement ceremony, identify lessons learned, and provide recommendations.

• Topic 3. To review the handling of campus protests and the removal of protestors from campus, identify lessons learned, and provide recommendations.

• Appendix A: Documents and Interviews Requested from Central Administration (Communicated in Letter to Provost Guzman).

Topic 1 provides a reasonably accurate account of the case of Professor Strauss. The recommendations are sensible, but fail to address an important point, namely, that there were no consequences for the miscreants who filed false EEO-Title IX complaints against professor Strauss.

In a similar manner, Topic 2 fails to ask a key question: How was a valedictorian with social media links to antisemitic groups selected?

Topic 3 is the worst. The report distorts reality by downplaying the vandalism and disruption that occurred on campus during the protests, presenting the protests as “generally peaceful” and making false claims that some protestors did not understand that their acts—vandalism, theft, erecting illegal encampments—violated university rules and the law. The report, on the contrary, recommends scrutinizing DPS, illustrating the Task Force’s lack of concern about campus safety.

On a positive note, the report does acknowledge the rules concerning free speech on campus:

Over the last year, we are happy that the University has updated and clarified their policies regarding free speech, protests on campus, and student responsibilities. In particular, we agree that any exercise of free speech, including events and protest actions, should not:

• Interfere with or impede university functions, including but not limited to classes, exams, study periods, and other scheduled academic, educational, and cultural/arts programs. Such interference can take many forms, including the use of amplified sound, which is generally prohibited.

• Impede full access by other members of our community to USC’s campuses, buildings and grounds.

• Endanger, threaten or harass persons.

• Damage, destroy, deface, vandalize, or steal property.

• Bring onto campus prohibited items, such as sticks or other potentially dangerous objects that could injure people or property. All such objects are subject to seizure.

• Violate any federal, state, or local safety code (including with respect to building occupancy). All members of our community should respect these guidelines.

Returning to the report’s use of deceptive, Orwellian language to obscure facts and mislead readers, here is what the report says about safety:

The CAB [Community Advisory Board] has spent the last academic year focusing its attention on two distinct complementary definitions of safety:

(1) Safety is “A safe life that is free from experiencing crime.”

(2) Safety is “A safe experience navigating the campus and its surrounding locations free of being falsely targeted as suspicious, threatening, or not belonging to our community.”

These two definitions highlight an inherent tension between safety as policing, and safety as an inclusive, community-based value. The question we face is: how can we bring these definitions together?…

We agree that safety, including physical safety, is a community-based value, and it requires a community-based definition. That definition should be directly tied to our other commonly-held values, including Accountability, Open Communication, Well Being, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

You can see where this is going—abolish the police and DPS and let lawlessness reign, all in the name of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

The Provost’s Response

Provost Guzman responded to the report with a highly critical three-page memo in which he called the task force out on several blatant distortions. Quoting the provost’s memo:

Specific Factual Corrections

In this section, we identify specific text that is factually inaccurate or misleading and provide clarification to mitigate confusion about the actual events that occurred.

Pg. 14: “some community members felt the ultimate solutions to the commencement issues (including the large event at the Coliseum), did not present insurmountable security and/or logistic issues, implying that more creative solutions than canceling the main ceremony could have been possible.”

Every attempt to preserve the mainstage ceremony, including moving it to the Coliseum, was explored and found to be logistically not possible at the time decisions needed to be made. The necessary security measures put into place made it impossible to get the 70,000 people who attended Commencement onto campus in time for the main stage ceremony, while also leaving time for the 47 other ceremonies that took place across campus. Physical set-up for the mainstage commencement ceremony requires a minimum of ten working days, and additional time following the event for breakdown. Due to various events booked at the Coliseum during this time period, there was no logistic possibility for Commencement to be held there. For these reasons, an evening celebration that did not damage the turf for events following commencement was created.

P. 18: “Protesters were seen to have taken items (commencement fencing, a sandbag) from locations around campus.”

This is euphemistic and incomplete. Protestors stole items — including commencement fencing, wooden pallets, a merchandise rack from the bookstore, and sandbags — from locations around campus.

P. 18: “Protesters entered Doheny library to hang a banner. There was a physical confrontation with a student who was using the library to take an exam.”

This obscures how events unfolded. Protesters entered a room in Doheny library for the purpose of hanging a banner out a window. A student was taking an exam in that room and had been assigned that particular room ahead of time. The protesters refused to exit the room where the student was taking an exam, and an altercation occurred in which one of the protestors assaulted the student.

P. 18: “While some participants acknowledge that they were aware that they were violating various University policies (e.g., regarding encampments, occupying spaces reserved by other organizations), some also point out that policies were not always clear and appeared to be changing rapidly.... when policies are updated in real time, those changes need to be clearly conveyed to the University community.”

The key policies regarding speech and encampments were articulated many times and in many places, and the rules have been in place for many years. The participants in the encampment were told repeatedly they were violating campus rules and must vacate the encampment, signs were posted stating these rules, and various university officials were in contact with representatives from the encampment on a daily basis explaining that they were in violation of campus rules. Further, those who vandalized the campus, stole property, or disrupted the normal functions of the university also knew or should have known they were violating campus rules.

P. 19: “The Office of Student Life was engaged in conversation with student groups on both sides of the issue…. In conversations [by the Task Force] with Jewish and Muslim students, they each had a perception of a double standard.”

Rather than supporting a criticism of Student Life efforts, the language demonstrates instead that events in 2023-24 took place in a highly charged atmosphere where different groups saw the world very differently. How, after all, could both groups face a double standard? Student Life was operating in an extraordinarily challenging environment in which no set of policies or responses could have left all sides satisfied. Any criticism of them in the report ignores the incredibly hard work and dedication of our Student Life staff, including many junior members of the Student Life team. These staff were on campus 24/7 and doing their best to act with compassion and kindness in a difficult environment.

The provost also articulated several points of broader concern about the report:

USC’s Legal Obligations

The report fails to consider the significant legal obligations under which the university operates. For example, when receiving a complaint of threats or harassment, the university must follow its established processes and policies. It must conduct an investigation rather than assuming what occurred based on partial information.

When policy violations do take place, the university has a legal obligation to act. We are required by law to follow established rules, fulfill Title VI and Title IX obligations, and observe state and federal mandates without favoring one viewpoint over another. The encampments were in clear violation of our rules and blocked access by some of our students to parts of our campus. Because the individuals at the encampment refused to leave voluntarily, the university had no choice but to address the situation with the assistance of law enforcement.

The Importance of Safety

The report’s discussion of safety on campus fails to grapple seriously with challenges the university faced last year. University leadership has been clear throughout that safety is, and must be, our top priority and we must do what we need to do to keep the campus safe. Senior administration took necessary actions during a rapidly evolving situation to ensure all members of our campus were safe based on the information given at any given moment. The report repeatedly suggests – without evidence – that safety was less important than other considerations or was not the true reason for certain decisions. Further, the report never considers the real potential consequences of failing to prioritize safety. The report fails to acknowledge the burden, ultimately carried by the President, of having to make these decisions in the face of uncertainty and rapidly changing facts on a minute-by-minute basis.

Faculty Responsibility

An additional area of concern is the report’s lack of attention to the responsibilities of faculty at USC. Over the course of the last year, we received many reports of faculty behaving inappropriately. This alleged behavior occurred both in the classroom and in other contexts. During interviews with the Task Force, university leaders shared these concerns about faculty conduct and encouraged the Task Force to take it into account. These matters barely receive a mention within the report. The report even mentions an incident in which “a faculty member canceled class and encouraged students to attend the protests” (p. 17). Yet, there is no mention of the responsibility of faculty to ensure all students feel welcome in the classroom regardless of background or viewpoint, to refrain from violating university rules, and to refrain from encouraging students to violate university rules. Similarly, there is no acknowledgement that faculty conduct has the potential to violate the law, and every faculty member has a responsibility to know and remain in compliance with legal rules, per the faculty handbook.

Acknowledging What Went Right

A more accurate acknowledgement of what went right would have taken into account the hundreds of speech-related events that took place last year without incident, and the extensive coordination among Student Life, DPS, and those seeking to express themselves freely. We provided the Task Force a list of those events. Consideration of the events of last year in their entirety would offer a more balance and accurate account.

We would add to the provost’s evaluation of the report that we find it shocking that the report failed to mention our Report on Campus Climate and Call for Action and testimonials by parents and faculty, which we shared with the Senate leadership. We also find it concerning that the report failed to mention the financial burden to the university caused by the protests and the close ties of the protestors to radical terror-supporting groups.

Overall, the Task Force’s report is yet another illustration of the Academic Senate’s dysfunction. The Senate has been captured by radical faculty and serves purely as an organ of political activism. It does not represent USC faculty and should be ignored.

Comments by Circle Members

Below we share several comments by USC faculty.

Writing a report using the format of our “guiding principles” demonstrates a lack of imagination and independence. Those guiding principles are as far as I can tell are McKinsey-speak and divorced from reality. 

But once I was able to look beyond that, it seems that the only issue related to the impact of last year’s events on the Jewish community was centered around Dr. Strauss. Yes, members of the Jewish community who held vigils were not arrested — but that’s because we followed the rules and did not camp out or use hate speech. The emotional toll on our Jewish students, staff and faculty of seeing our people viciously murdered and taken hostage followed by the glorification of these atrocities by outside agitators and well-meaning but naive students cannot be measured. USC has a duty to protect all groups, including the Jewish community, from hate speech and emotional torture. Starting with enforcing the rules, and doing what is necessary to root out terrorist-aligned elements from our community.

— Professor, Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences

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One thing that struck me about the report was the following sentence: “The members of this Task Force worked hard to keep our own preconceptions from influencing our work and, for the most part, we have been successful in doing this.”
It is self-serving and rather arrogant. It is not for them to judge whether the Task Force was successful in mitigating their own personal biases. It’s up to the reader. 

Overall, I thought the report was rather biased and sloppy. I sympathized more with the points raised in the Provost’s rebuttal than in the Task Force report. That said, I thought the Task Force report made one or two decent points, particularly the following: “The EEO-TIX review process far exceeded a reasonable expectation of an appropriate timeline for an investigation such as this (especially as compared to the 90 days expectations that had been historically outlined in the Faculty Handbook). While we understand the need to collect evidence and conduct a thorough review, every effort needs to be made to reach decisions efficiently, as the effects of prolonged uncertainty on the accused can be profound.”

“One faculty member who had advised multiple faculty who have been investigated by the Office of Professionalism and Ethics commented that “the process is the punishment.” We believe this sentiment accurately describes the experience of many faculty as well as students who were investigated by the Office of Community Expectations. We heard from many that the opacity and uncertainty surrounding the investigations had been extremely disruptive to their professional and private lives, as well as mental health. We also heard from faculty that they spent considerable time and energy contacting various administrators, advisors, faculty and other community members to try and get clarity about a process that was never clearly spelled out.”

— Clive Lennox, USC Associates Professor of Accounting, Marshall School of Business, Leventhal School of Accounting

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My general impression is that this report could have been much worse. It was not as one-sided as I feared from the pro-Palestinian views of some of the Task Force members. There were other Task Force members who likely helped in making it a more balanced document. The result is that important but controversial issues were simply ignored. 

The John Strauss affair was presented in a balanced way, and it was clear that the administration owed him an apology. It was also true that, as stated, the protesters broke many rules and should have been punished. The poor communication of the upper administration with the USC community regarding the Valedictorian affair and the commencement, especially by the President, were correctly highlighted. I also agree that the reporting system should be modified by making it less threatening and opaque to students. 

What is totally missing in this report is the role that some faculty played in harassing Jewish students in their classrooms, in ways that are easily characterized as antisemitic. In fact, any criticism of faculty behavior that falls under indoctrination, intimidation, and harassment of students was absent, and there was no self-reflection or recommendations on moving forward. The Provost, in his response, picked up on it right away, because the upper administration had been aware of many such incidents. The behavior of these faculty created a climate at USC where Jewish students in certain schools felt unwelcome and intimidated.  Also ignored is the fact that some faculty organized one-sided anti-Israel and anti-Zionist events without allowing an opposing view to be presented and have openly supported a pro-Hamas narrative.

A responsive task force on investigating what happened last semester should have worked for several months, interviewed a larger cross section of the affected campus population, especially students, and had a different composition. How many members of our group were invited to appear before the Task Force?  How many faculty, staff, ands students knew there was such a Task Force? Reports at Stanford, Columbia, and UCLA did a much better job of describing the situation on their campuses.

— Professor, Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences

References

1. Report by Task Force to Review Recent Campus Events and Associated Administrative Decisions.

2. A. Guzman, Comments on the Report of the Academic Senate Security Task Force.