Last month, USC's appointment of Wanda Austin as interim president marked a historic departure from the school's history of white, male presidents. However, the broader racial and gender makeup of the board that Austin governs does not reflect the student body she now leads.
The Board of Trustees, which manages the university's day-to-day affairs, is currently made up of 59 trustees, including CEOs, industry leaders, and community activists. Of those 59, less than one-third are women, and around one-sixth are non-white.
Currently, the 59-member board of trustees has only 18 women, That makes it 71 percent male and 29 percent female. The student body, on the other hand, is only 47 percent male and 53 percent female, according to data collected in 2016.
Racially, the board of trustees is even more imbalanced. There are two African-Americans, two Asian-Americans, three Latinx, and four international board members – trustees who do not currently work or reside in the United States. That makes the board 73 percent white, three percent African-American, three percent Asian-American, four percent Latinx, and six percent international.
Compared with the student body, the board of trustees has a disproportionate amount of white representation. At USC, according to statistics gathered from the 2016 school year, 32 percent of students are white – less than half the ratio on the board – and six percent Black, 17 percent Asian, 14 percent Hispanic, and 25 percent international.
These numbers matter because the Board is powerful in every facet of life at USC.
On the Board, there are 11 different committees covering topics such as academic affairs, university development, and student affairs. Together, the board members wield decision-making power over all university matters. Among many other powers outlined in the bylaws, committees have the authority to recommend programs, review professors' tenure and supervise the university's financial records.
The board is lead by the president and the chairman of the board, positions respectively held by Austin and by Rick J. Caruso, who was elected by other board members for a five-year term. As interim president, Austin leads the board, the university and has oversight of all of their operations. The president is responsible for appointing the deans of each academic school, supervising each academic program, and enforcing the rules of the university, among other duties.
Caruso recognizes the need for a more diverse board of trustees.
"No doubt we need greater diversity, and that is one of my primary goals," Caruso told Annenberg Media in a phone interview last month. "We are working on that. That will also be part of the discussion. We clearly need more diversity in terms of men and women of color, so that is a priority."
Kimberly Freeman, the Chief Diversity Officer of USC's Office of Diversity, also emphasizes that "having diversity in leadership roles is beneficial for generating new ways of thinking about complex problems."
Outside of the board, USC has frequently touted its commitment to diversifying its student and faculty body. On Tuesday, the university announced that its freshman class holds the school's record highest number of African-American and hispanic students and that one in four students identify as a minority.
Former President C. L. Max Nikias said, "throughout USC's academic ascent, we have always prioritized maintaining a student body that is representative of the country and the world at large."
In July 2018, the Marshall School of Business announced it was the first school in the country to reach gender parity in its new class of admissions.
"We are proud to achieve this distinction," said James G. Ellis, the dean of the business school. "Our ongoing focus on diversity and inclusion is playing out in real numbers now."
It seems that even at schools that excel at prioritizing diversity such as USC, the reality of the leadership lags behind the goal of representation.
When Austin was appointed interim president on August 7, supporters applauded the school for applying its focus on diversity to the top. Austin, who graduated with a PhD in industrial and systems engineering from the school in 1988, became the first woman and African-American to lead the university.
However, a closer look at the Board of Trustees she now leads reveals that while the university has focused on maintaining a student body "representative of the country and the world at large," it has not made as strong a focus on maintaining a board of trustees representative of its own student body.
"Diversity in leadership is important, and leaders should reflect the bodies that they represent," said UCLA sociology professor Jessica Collett, who studies gender. "When people in an organization see people like them, it builds commitment to the organization."
A USC faculty member who studies inequality, however, is less hopeful that adding board members with different racial and gender backgrounds will add true diversity. She spoke under the condition of anonymity, citing fear of losing her job.
"I don't think the particular identities of the people in power make much of a difference," she said. "USC will just slot in people who look good on the website but who are still making the same kinds of decisions… It's not placing different people on the board that will make a difference, but rather giving that board less power or sway over how things operate here."
The professor was also critical of USC's timing in Austin's appointment, alleging it was a PR move instead of a sign of true progress. Austin was chosen to replace former President C.L. Max Nikias when he resigned following a campus uproar over student accusations of sexual misconduct by campus gynecologist George Tyndall.
"Institutions put women of color in power after scandals all of the time," she said. "And I think it's cynical to ask women of color to absorb the PR blows that white men create."
There is an emerging tendency for corporations to put women of color, and black women in particular, in power after company scandals. In 2017, Starbucks hired Rosalind Brewer, its first black female chief operating officer, amid boycotts of the company following alleged discrimination. In February, the Dallas Mavericks appointed Cynthia Marshall, a black women, as the team's CEO after sexual misconduct accusations. More recently, just about a week after Austin's appointment, pizza chain Papa John's enlisted former Uber Chief Brand Officer Bozoma Saint John, an African-American woman, to shield the company from controversy surrounding the former CEO's use of the N-word.
USC's board has now opened a website through which students can make recommendations about leadership.
Drew Schwendiman contributed to this report.