Censure and Sensibility at USC

There are multiple reasons the University of Southern California (USC) Academic Senate might act to censure USC President Carol Folt. The faculty could censure her for her relatively anemic fund-raising performance over the past five years—see Contribution Revenue in USC’s Annual Reports—including her poorly received attempts to reorganize volunteer alumni and alumnae supporters; for her unliteral decision to pause 401(a) USC nonelective employer contributions to faculty and staff individual retirement accounts during the 2021 calendar year, despite USC’s offers to make these payments to faculty and staff when hired, and despite record returns in 2021 on an unrestricted endowment balance of approximately $2 billion; for selling the Seeley Mudd Estate, the banquet-friendly former USC presidential mansion in San Marino and decamping to an event-free modernist box in Santa Monica; or for tolerating a degree-granting, full-tuition, distance-only USC school that includes no full-time faculty.

However, her responses to the pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist encampments on the USC campus this spring are not grounds for the censure she and USC Provost Andrew Guzman received from USC’s Academic Senate on May 8^th. Further, removing these encampments is one of the few steps she has taken during her tenure as USC President that seems intended not to alienate USC’s rabidly loyal alums. However, her steps certainly annoyed many of USC’s progressive faculty.

The USC Academic Senate members and most faculty observers present at the Senate’s May 8^th meeting objected to multiple decisions by President Folt, including not allowing USC 2024 valedictorian Asna Tabassum to speak at commencement, incrementally canceling USC’s 2024 main commencement ceremony, using the Los Angeles Police Department to forcibly remove student and non-student protesters from USC’s campus on April 24th, resulting in 93 arrests, approximately half of which involved students; and again using LAPD to peacefully remove student and faculty protesters from the exact location on campus in the early morning hours of May 5^th. The peaceful results on May 5^th were possible because the campus had been closed for several days to all who were not USC faculty, staff, students, or vendors. All who had returned to reoccupy the space cleared on April 24^th were students or, in a few cases, faculty members.

President Folt and Provost Guzman addressed the Academic Senate at length on May 8th, but their efforts were largely unsuccessful. The presence of armed USC Department of Public Safety officers at the meeting sent a clear message to the faculty that they did not enjoy the trust of the USC leadership. The faculty group was mid-sized, with around 50 in the room and over 200 on Zoom. However, the presence of armed personnel seemed excessive and unprecedented, which annoyed the faculty from the start. Both Folt and Guzman reiterated that their actions were in response to concrete safety threats. Guzman, a former Law School Dean, explained the trade-offs he considered and the principles he relied on in making his decisions and recommendations to President Folt. He aimed to communicate his reasoning to the group and succeeded, at least in part.

Folt was considerably less persuasive than Guzman. Her consistent position was that the nature of the safety risks to which they were responding and how they had been identified and assessed were off-limits in any discussion with any group of faculty members. Presumably, President Folt did not intend to be as condescending as she appeared. However, she treated safety objectives as a magic wand, justifying any decision she made, no matter how opaque. In this respect, she was dismissive. Her responses implied she was not accountable to the faculty, but the Academic Senate was not buying it.

Both President Folt and Provost Guzman emphasized the importance of adult forbearance on the part of all parties involved in emotionally charged disputes on campus, even when some of these parties are under-informed concerning their positions and unrealistic concerning their demands. They are correct, but Folt is a hypocrite.

When I retired from the USC faculty in 2022, two deans I had worked with offered me part-time teaching positions. President Folt intervened and blocked one of the appointments after I declined the other offer. According to those familiar with the situation, viewpoint discrimination primarily motivated her actions. It seems my ideas don’t align with hers—readers curious about that story can read “Why I’ll Never Be Allowed to Teach at USC Again.”

One of the reasons I retired from USC earlier than I originally planned is the relentless virtue signaling exhibited by USC’s leadership and the intrusive intellectual bankruptcy of their professed commitment to “diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice.” I am an unreconstructed, libertarian-leaning conservative who disagrees with most and possibly all of President Folt’s worldview because she and the rest of the progressive left are mostly wrong. It was part of my job to tolerate this, and I did, but I was due from her none of the forbearance she and Guzman were calling for from others.

Ideally, the central administration, which chose USC’s 2024 valedictorian from an eligible group based on a committee recommendation, would have more carefully vetted the selection. All eligible students are excellent and high-performing, but, likely, the final selection of a female South Asian engineering student who is also an observant Muslim involved a robust focus on identity. An equal focus on social media posts would have precluded substantial but pointless controversy.

Still, Folt got matters very right concerning USC’s protest encampments. The campus belongs to the University of Southern California, a California private, public-benefit nonprofit corporation. USC has the right to exclude others from its property, a contractual duty to perform services for its students, and a business need to satisfy its students’ parents. The protesters stepped between the institution and its obligations to suppress and sometimes preclude the university’s performance. Perhaps most of the faculty believe that USC has a moral duty to allow our students to protest. If so, the institution more than achieved this, even somewhat infringing on the school’s obligations to students trying to complete their classes and graduate successfully.

These fundamental priorities remain lost on at least a majority of USC’s faculty and a large share of the faculty in USC’s Academic Senate. As perversely amusing as it is to see Folt censured by her own, the step is not justified here. The resolution calling to censure Folt and Guzman combines an impromptu motion intended to communicate dissatisfaction with the performance of USC’s leadership with a well-thought-out resolution prepared by the Senate’s Executive Committee before the May 8^th meeting. The Executive Committee’s effort called out the circumstances of concern to the faculty but focused on examining and improving the process by which the President and Provost made their decisions. Much of the Executive Committee’s language appears in the final resolution passed by the Senate, but others added to the call for censure. The Executive Board’s sponsorship is absent, indicating that they rejected censure as a friendly amendment to their motion. The resolution’s new sponsors are other members of the Academic Senate.

An initial motion from the Senate rank and file called for a vote of no confidence in the President and the Provost. This motion was tabled during the discussion but could have been very consequential. A comparable action in 2018 cascaded into the eventual resignation of former USC President C.L. Max Nikias. There was strong sentiment for proceeding with a no-confidence vote on May 8^th, partly because the academic year was closing, and organized opportunities for the faculty to respond to the circumstances before them would soon recede. Wisely, the group concluded it was important that members of the Senate confer with the school faculties they represent before proceeding to a no-confidence vote. Since meeting during the summer was out of the question, the body settled on a compromise step. Their vote to censure formally communicates their collective dissatisfaction but does not involve taking a truly punitive step.

The matter might not be settled yet. The measure to censure the President and the Provost for their performance passed with 21 votes in favor, seven against, and six abstentions. Based on the Senate’s discussion, it’s possible that those who dissented or abstained believe censure is not enough and might prefer stronger action. They may still push for this, but they should reconsider. President Folt handled the most critical challenges presented by the protesters appropriately. While there are valid complaints the USC faculty could raise about her record, this issue is not one of them.

Photo by FASTILY — Wikimedia Commons & Photo from X; Edited by Jared Gould