TROJAN CHINATOWN

TROJAN CHINATOWN*

*I recently retired from USC after over thirty years as a tenured full professor and SOLO founder of the PhD program in Creative Writing & Literature

       PART I

  LA Times Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Paul Pringle’s new book, “BAD CITY” exposes details of a few of the most egregious scandals of the University of Southern California’s panoply of shockers. These include accounts of a medical school dean, a student health center gynecologist and others whose criminal behavior was “stonewalled”  by USC’s administrators, until their evasion no longer worked. Then they employed other tactics.

   As in the case of the medical school dean, for example, an impartial legal investigation culminating in a full report to the USC community (as promised by administrators) has never materialized. The enormity of these criminal acts has been matched only by the totemic silence of the refusal to acknowledge their existence.  BAD CITY asks why (unlike the University of Michigan sexual abuse scandals or the Penn State scandals)  the Los Angeles D.A. never investigated top administration about their possible involvement – or why the unspeakable medical school dean has never been charged with any offense.

    Instead of the promised accountability and transparency about wrongdoing and how the wrongdoing was enabled – USC embarked on a path of deflection. It chose a downward-directed guilt assignment:  shifting the blame onto its faculty as perpetrators of “crimes”, in an effort to distract from its major offenders and their enablers. This official deflection required a host of vigilante  agencies known by their acronyms  (CoPR, OPE, OED, etc.). These were “informer” operations leading to “prosecution” for violations of the rules of the Faculty Handbook (jokingly referred to as a “bible” of Due Process Denial).  Still, unlike public universities, the private institution of USC is less “answerable” re due process violations, though it remains undeniably accountable to a fair standard of justice.

    In June of 2019, the Office of the Provost actually boasted  about the successful sanctioning of faculty via CoPR.  Here is an excerpt:

     Since it started work in Spring 2018, CoPR’s sanctioning panels decided thirty-four cases of faculty misconduct—from among our total faculty of 7,400. Some of the behavior was recent while other acts took place earlier, but were reported only lately. As you would expect, the outcomes varied with the seriousness of the behavior and consideration of the circumstances. Eight cases led to termination or resignation (five of those respondents were tenured, well-established scholars); in eight cases, the outcome was a pay cut or denial of raise; in the remaining eighteen cases, the outcome was a requirement for counseling or coaching, or warnings. In connection with other sanctions, two professors were demoted.

The cases dealt with a range of behavior: violating university policies concerning unwanted advances or comments, or interactions with an intimate partner (nine cases); disparaging or unprofessional language or conduct (five); belittling and intimidating behavior towards staff, colleagues, or both (five); failure by a healthcare professional to fully report payments from industry (four); research conflicts of interest (three); failure to properly credit a student or a source in academic writing (two); unauthorized dual employment or dual faculty/student status (two); failure to follow guidance from Disability Services and Programs concerning accommodations (one); non-compliance on billing (one); not performing clinical responsibilities (one); and speech based on national origin or religion that violated the university’s anti-harassment policy (one).

     Former cops, sheriffs, backroom interrogators, outside lawyer-recruits, none whose “beat” had ever been higher education – proceeded to browbeat and “prosecute” academics. This was done in the process of determining guilt (for  among other grievous offenses)  “making inappropriate  or harassing comments, sending excessive emails, using profanity, ” etc. Eventually the guilty, after a faux “grievance” process) were turned over to a sanctioning board, to witness their salaries slashed, and/or their tenure, along with their reputations. “Counseling” was mandatory, providing the guilty with opportunity to “re-think” their sins and demonstrate remorse before being allowed to resume teaching or interacting with students or colleagues, chastened.

   Administrators have not been subjected to these interrogation tactics. (The disgraced medical school dean, who possessed a notable ability for fundraising mega-millions for the university, also possessed a notable ability for drug abuse and consorting with criminals, but was never subject to the interrogations that faculty members have endured for what amount to (comparably) micro-offenses. Nor has any other dean, middle or upper administrator been summoned to these sinister “conversations”.)

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    “Secret tribunal” attacks on faculty appeared to pop up out of nowhere – but, in fact, the “show trial” shakedown had been in the works for a while. Former president Nikias and his smarmy palace guards, from various administrative or academic backgrounds, built a “cordon sanitaire” around his office like the gates securing the grounds of the mansion he lived in, owned by USC.  “Dirt files” on certain outspoken faculty members had reputedly been maintained for some time.  The bloat of a highly-paid administrative “class” (now 3 to 1 vs. faculty) swelled in the hiring tsunami of  vice deans, vice presidents, vice provosts, “associate whatevers”. As the university corporatized, this layering of H.R. blubber filled job descriptions all about enforcing conformity.

    When Nikias finally stepped down, members of Concerned Faculty, a professor and staff watchdog group (demanding “moral leadership”) put pressure on the SC Board of Trustees, an over-sized, self-perpetuating governing body of various billionaires with unilateral powers –to hire a woman as the next president.

   In fact, after an “interim” president, (a woman of color and a Board member) was temporarily appointed - the path for female candidates opened -- and the BOT chose an academic/administrator named Carol Folt, formerly of UNC Chapel Hill, as Nikias’ successor – the very first woman president in the university’s history!

      But wait -- here is Folt’s reply to a question  from a student newspaper (Daily Trojan) reporter about the “missing” promised follow-up investigation addressing the debacle of  medical school Dean Puliafito . This embarrassing attempt at an informative response cringingly reveals why faculty high hopes of a woman president changing the culture were now dashed.

  “I couldn’t commission a recreation of the Puliafito report. That happened how many years ago - I think we’re talking five, six, seven years ago – there’s nobody still here… which means they don’t have to speak to us.”

     As a Concerned Faculty member pointed out, the first L.A. Times report on Puliafito was in July 2017 –not that long ago.  Also, Folt’s use of “recreation” would seem to indicate that there is indeed a report to “re-create”?

     As far as “nobody still here”?  Yikes. Surely she wasn’t attempting to call her predecessor, former president Nikias, for example, a “nobody”?  (Nikias, though forced to resign, remains a shadowy presence on campus, teaching classes and settling into a lifetime membership on the Board of Trustees.)

       No reports are forthcoming on the mega-scandals, but the pillorying of faculty continues.

      There is no statute of limitations on the truth (or its close cousins: clarity, transparency and accountability.) The recent protests over USC administrators’   admitted “troubling delay” in reporting the late 2021 expose of drugging and sexual assault at Sigma Nu fraternity to the SC community join the long list of  “nothing forthcoming”  or “don’t hold your breath” files re comprehensive follow-ups.

       It is indeed rare for USC faculty members (along with students) to speak out publicly in protest - or to gather to push back against questionable administrative actions (or non-action) -- just as it is not at all uncommon for there to be “troubling delays”  by administrators in communicating to the USC community information about its long and appalling list of mega-scandals.

  The two are related. From the cumulative individual disgraces of a former medical school dean, a student health center gynecologist, coaches cooperating in “side door” bribe-admittances, a corrupt “deal” at the School of Social Work - to most recently,  Sigma Nu - these “impartial”  or task force investigations have been offered with assurance by administrators, which regularly fade into the smog surrounding “settlements”.  While these investigatory pledges are made  (with crucial “full disclosures” implied or stated) – also occurring are “bye bye and don’t tell” pay-outs (or “golden parachutes”) along with non-disclosure agreements, provided to exiting “perps” – like the million dollars to Puliafito - or an undisclosed amount to Tyndall.  Faculty members who look for those once-promised revelations look in vain. There is a message to faculty and staff in these tea leaves and it appears to read: “none of your business.”

   What was once a university with a semblance of faculty governance is now an armored entity. As per its by-laws, “The University of Southern California is a corporation which may refer to itself as a university.” The bottom line for a university that is in reality a corporation (last time I checked) would prioritize something like “ka-ching” and auto-continuance, not education. Most major universities are “corporatized” now – and like USC’s hiring of  business management & strategy consultants like McKinsey & Company, belong to the culture of  conformity for profit.  (McKinsey too has been embroiled in scandals, from Enron to opioid manufacturers to ICE to its role in Saudi Arabia’s clampdown on dissidents.)

Despite the current USC administration’s useless blather about “wellness” and  Orwellian “double-speak” in its high-drag commitment to Diversity, Inclusion  and Equity – (DEI)  – the area of gender discrimination and discussions about The Problem of  sexual misconduct has been left out of the official monologue.

  Sexual bad behavior at USC, despite decades of complaints and damning national statistical surveys by the AAUP, (the American Association of University Professors) has not dropped off in the age of Me Too. Recent “campus surveys” revealed USC as among the top bad actors, given its stats on sexual misconduct and “non-consensual” sex (rape). (Though there is required “sexual harassment  video training” for faculty, administrators are not required to “train”.)   Administrators turn to Title IX as their defense in “protecting” complainants and others via anonymity. What sounds like concern can ultimately function as “protection’s” opposite.  There is a phalanx of lawyers advising administrators on USC’s ongoing though unstated primary objective – avoiding more lawsuits and damaging public revelations.

    BAD CITY foregrounds the heroism of the USC student health center nurse supervisor, Cindy Gilbert, whose urgent attempt to report gynecologist George Tyndall and his sexual violations of female patients was dismissed after a cursory “investigation” by the OED (Office of Equity & Diversity) and its head, who was also director of Title IX. When Gilbert finally brought her complaint about Tyndall to the campus rape crisis center – the LA Times picked up the story and the rest is history. Tyndall was “let go” by USC and given a substantial “payout”, but the news was out. He was ultimately arrested and charged with numerous felonies and SC ended up paying a billion dollars to his victims, the highest amount ever paid in a settlement of this sort.

    Cindy Gilbert was promised a promotion by USC for her reporting. However, the promotion never took place. Instead, as Pringle reports in BAD CITY, Cindy Gilbert was now a “troublemaker, a loudmouth, a problem employee. And that’s how she was treated by the administrators who should have taken action against Tyndall but did not. By going around them and over them, Gilbert had embarrassed them. She had made them look bad and there was a price to pay for that.”

    The “price” that these administrators planned to make her pay became increasingly obvious. They criticized her, gradually removing her supervisory duties. Her promised promotion vanished, rescinded.   At last, she was called into a meeting (an “ambush” in her own words) with representatives of H.R. who accused her of making an “inappropriate remark to a co-worker”. That hearsay (false, according to Gilbert) along with the steady unfair push-back left her with no choice but to finally resign.

    The “price” exacted and Gilbert’s H.R. “ambush” represent, tragically, the classic model of payback for whistleblowers at USC, with Cindy Gilbert as its standard-bearer.

    For describing a horrific history of sexual abuse on campus, her reward was the forced loss of a nursing job she loved and the patients who were her longtime professional focus and concern.

     From Cover-up Central, an invisible warning, like a shudder, radiated outward and began to circulate: Remember Cindy Gilbert? No? X marks the spot where she used to work. Her absence is an example of what happens to employees who make trouble.

     Despite the risks, there have always been employees of USC foolhardy or brave enough to openly address what’s wrong.

      The acronym tribunals and the provost’s bragging list of “faculty catches” all follow the same pattern as Gilbert’s “ambush”.  There is the out-of-the-blue “invitation” to be “interviewed” about reported “transgressions”, followed by appeals, followed by sanctions, etc.

        The story is almost always the same. And it is my story too.

         Watch this space for Part II – my own account of my “micro-criminal” career. (!)