The University of Southern California is known for its’ high level education, high performing sports teams, and its uncanny ability to find a new scandal to flaunt. Just last week I was discussing the university’s decision to revoke the commencement speech from the valedictorian. As disappointing as that was, USC managed to make it even worse the following week. For context, pro-Palestine protests and encampments have been occurring all over the country in roughly 30 different universities. USC joined that cohort on Wednesday when a peaceful protest was planned in an effort to stop the university from funding efforts in the Israel-Palestine war. Students and faculty alike gathered in Alumni park to follow an itinerary put forth by a pro-Palestine group. This soon escalated when DPS flooded the scene midday, dragging tents from the park and arresting leaders of the protest. It only escalated further when LAPD was brought in and nearly one hundred protesters were arrested that night. The couple of days that followed, campus had shut down and the USC President Carol Folt had nothing to say.
The day after the protest, the USC Academic Events team sent a school-wide email stating that there will be extra security at graduation, along with the termination of the main stage ceremony. While other events will still take place, the main stage generally hosts 65,000 people including students, faculty, and staff and is the main ceremony where students get to walk the stage and receive their degree. But do not worry, in place of that USC was so generous as to include a “gallery of photos from ceremonies of previous years so you can see how joyful and special these are”. In other words, “Seniors, we are going to take away your ceremony, but here, have a look at what it could have been if we didn’t decide to cower away from responsibility”. Just like the situation with the valedictorian Asna, the university would rather cancel integral commencement events than stand up for its students.
The day following the announcement, students finally received a message from President Folt. In the message, Folt lightly addresses the violence that occurred in Alumni park just a few days prior, saying that they were protecting the community. She moves on to say, "USC has long-standing protocols that allow for peaceful protesting, and we have been working successfully with our community to ensure these rules have been followed at gatherings, protests, and vigils taking place all year. USC also has firm rules regarding harassment and bullying that we will uphold”. She neglects to tie this statement with the events that happened during the protest, implying that she knows that statement was not upheld in practice. The rest of her message contained mostly fluff, skirting around the issues by pointing out meaningless stuff. I am extremely disappointed in her decisions as president, and the decisions of the events team for ruining graduation for students who didn’t receive a high school graduation due to COVID in 2020. Their inability to deal with the problem has caused them to take it out on the graduating students, hindering what is supposed to be one of their proudest moments by disappointing them. So many students are grateful to have had the opportunity to spend their college years learning at this university, only for the university to fail them in the end. It is disheartening to see how quick the administrative office will turn on its students, and I hope that they are working to make it up to them.
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