In a press conference Thursday, 11 of the 19 members of the Advisory Committee on Muslim Life (ACML) officially announced their resignation. The members informally resigned April 19 after penning a letter that urged USC President Carol Folt to reinstate valedictorian Asna Tabassum’s commencement speech commencement after it was revoked over “safety concerns.”
The committee said it was not told ahead of time about the decision or given a meeting after it was announced that Tabassum would not be allowed to speak. They were granted a Zoom meeting with Provost Andrew Guzman along with safety and risk assurance administrator Erroll Southers who said in an April 15 email that the decision to axe Asna’s speech was necessary to “maintain the safety” of the campus.
According to Dr. Sherman Jackson a professor of religion, ethnicity and American studies, the meeting provided no other insight into the university’s decision, which Jackson and the other committee members say did not have satisfactory reasoning behind it.
“The substance of this decision totally undermined the purpose of the committee,” Jackson said at the press conference. “The manner in which this decision was taken suggested that the committee itself had no real standing with the university.”
President Folt refused to acquiesce to the demands of the ACML, leading to the majority of the committee’s resignation.
Jihad Turk, a now former member of the ACML who resigned Friday, said the committee had a meeting with Folt about reinstating Tabassum’s speech where she refused their request.
The ACML was founded in January of 2023 by USC administration as a way to “be in conversation with the USC administration about how to create a more inclusive campus environment for Muslims,” according to Dr. Evelyn Alsultan, an associate professor of American studies and ethnicity at Dornsife. Less than a year later that board, which was made up of 19 members including students, staff and faculty, is now in jeopardy.
The committee had been working on providing university administration with recommendations to address Islamophobia across campus, however after the announcement that Tabassum would not be allowed to speak, the committee quickly turned its attention. The school’s subsequent decision to uninvite the other mainstage commencement speakers, proved to only compound the issue according to the committee.
“This moment of representation made [Muslim students] understand the meaning of Trojan pride and made them feel seen as a Muslim at USC,” Jackson said, referencing a letter from a student. “Unfortunately, that moment was quickly taken away.”
The former committee members said muslims across USC have felt uncomfortable since the war broke out in October, and the revocation of Tabassum’s speech was the last crack in an already deteriorating relationship. Lack of funding for the ACML, and professors’ “ignorance” towards Muslims were said to be lingering issues affecting the community.
Alvin Makori, a PhD student studying urban education policy at the Rossier School of Education, said he was opposed to how USC treated its larger Muslim community.
“I stand by them,” he said. “And I stand for acknowledging and correcting the injustices that USC has put on specifically us, Asna and the Muslim community on campus as a whole.”
“[Asna’s] cancellation, I think, is a violation of so many things,” said Sarah Gualtieri, a Dornsife professor who attended the press conference in support of those resigning. “A violation of free speech, but also a violation of the ethics of the university.”
Gualtieri, who has been with USC for many years, said she has seen a pattern of the school with regard to the Palestinian cause.
“I have been here for many years at USC,” she said. “And I feel like everything that has happened is really part of a long standing pattern, particularly around the suppression of Palestinian human rights on campus.”
Jackson went on to say that without communication and a free flowing discourse, a university loses its meaning.
“We fail our students, we fail their parents, we fail our faculty, and we fail everyone who was invested in this university,” he said.