It did not matter where you were sitting during the Undergraduate Student Government presidential debate, every person in attendance could feel the heated tension among each candidate.
On Friday night, Annenberg Media hosted the USG presidential debate for the student body. The event lasted for two hours and many topics were discussed, including USC COVID-19 protocols, off-campus safety, Greek life and much more.
Tensions between the candidates began to brew when the conversation shifted from the pandemic to abolishing Greek life on USC’s campus. Rachel Lee and Collin Colson gave opening statements second, calling for the abolition of Greek life in their statement.
“A vote for us is a vote to abolish Greek life,” said the Lee-Collin ticket.
The Hannah Woodworth and Nivea Krishnan ticket responded to the statement by saying that the abolition of Greek life is made through the university administrators — they have the authority to make the final decision. Also adding that there must be a proactive program in place to prevent and report sexual assault in Greek life.
The Kyle Valdes and Safal Mengi ticket, who both opposed the banning of Greek life on campus, believes that removing Greek life from the university does not help resolve any issues but creates newer ones.
“Everything just goes underground,” Valdes said.
As the night went on, the intensity between the six candidates remained in the room, even having an influence on the audience. There were a few outbursts from the audience in reaction to the candidate rebutting each other.
When questions were open to the in-person and virtual audience, the moderator asked the audience to clarify if questions are intended for specific candidates or to all the tickets to keep things formal. Many questions asked were about the topic of Greek life.
A livestream viewer asked the entire panel if the abolition of Greek life is not feasible, what steps would be taken to prevent sexual assault within fraternities.
Valdes responded to that question by saying, “We should focus on getting all the bad eggs out of the system,” and that fraternities on campus should have systems for reporting individuals without a whole fraternity being punished.
Voting is set to take place on Feb. 23 to 25 and more information on all the candidates can be found on the Undergraduate Student Government website.