“USC has no ethnic or racial majority.” These words from my USC tour guide in 2023 rang in my head throughout my college selection process. As someone who grew up attending predominantly white schools, I saw USC as the place where I could both engage with a diversity of people and ideas and have my perspective valued in return.
Over the past few months, as USC failed to stand up to America’s biggest bully, I’ve begun to question this as a solid ground for my decision. On January 29, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to “combat antisemitism,” threatening to deport international students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests last year. A few weeks later, yet another order from the Department of Education sought to halt federal funding for universities unless they abolished Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs.
International students make up almost 27% of the USC population while students of color make up more than half, according to student demographics reported in 2024. These orders target our community, yet we don’t see our administration defending us. Not only does Trump’s strongarm approach pose a grave threat to democracy, but the refusal of our university to push back is equally concerning.
“I don’t think I’ve deviated for a second, and I don’t think the university will,” insisted USC President Carol Folt, in an interview with Annenberg Media and the Daily Trojan earlier this month, when asked why she allowed the Office of Inclusion and Diversity to be absorbed by the Culture Commission.
Well, when my registered student organization (ART/EMIS) focused on empowering intersectional feminist identities receives an email requiring us to state that “eligibility is not determined based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or any other prohibited factor,” it discredits what we stand for. OF COURSE we’re in favor of an “inclusive culture” and “non-discrimination,” but not when they’re used as a way to erase the very real systemic issues that work to push us down. Clubs like this exist for a reason and requirements like this work to make us forget that.
The purpose of education is to provide the freedom and the tools to examine, question, and challenge ideas through critical thinking, said USC Annenberg professor, journalist, and author Robert Scheer. It is “impossible for anyone to engage in this questioning alone,” he said. “We need the support of institutions.”
Dr. Allissa Richardson, an associate professor of journalism and communication and the director of USC’s Charlotta Bass Journalism and Justice Lab which studies the impact of Black media, expects “unequivocal institutional support.”
“This includes public statements defending academic freedom, legal resources to protect us from politically motivated attacks, and structural safeguards that ensure the university does not cave to external pressures,” she said.
Instead, all we’ve seen is a bare-bones website listing executive orders, another FAQ site that answers (again, minimally) questions on immigration, research, and federal funding, and a PR orchestrated email about following the law while maintaining our “academic mission” (assuming we still actually have one).
Ironically enough, USC claims to embrace six unifying values as cited below — which the administration seems to have forgotten while students and faculty fight to keep them alive.
“Integrity” requires us to “stand up for what is right, regardless of status or power,” the values read, yet USC has cowered in the face of political pressures.
King Trump has found himself a Trojan army.
The value of “Excellence” encourages us to be “active leaders in what is taught, thought, and practiced locally and globally.” If USC’s deference to political threats becomes the norm, then I have no interest in being labeled a product of this “thought-leader.” After having spent the better part of my high school years working to get into a school like USC, this realization is especially jarring.
USC also claims here to “seek continuous feedback and learn from [their] mistakes.” In the interview with student media, Folt was asked about reports that half of the people arrested at protests last Spring were students. “Well, I would tell you that half weren’t,” she said. “To me, I was trying not to really look at it that way.”
I would invite Folt to sit in on one of my communication fundamentals classes and learn about this process of selective memory — a practice that often shapes the dominant narrative in favor of individual interests, usually those who already sit in the seat of power.
“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” When the Department of Education establishes a website with such a threatening name as “enddei.gov,” can we finally see the threat to our existence as a university? When the heading of a page working to declare diversity initiatives as “discriminatory” reads “schools should be focused on learning,” can we finally understand that erasure is the name of the game?
In his executive order, Trump wants us to believe that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives go against “civil-rights laws [that] protect individual Americans from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” This is absurd. The civil rights movement championed the struggle for justice for African Americans who continue to face discrimination. There is a reason I’ve avoided the acronym “DEI” in this piece. Words are important.
This is language meant to confuse, and USC’s caving to the Trump administration’s lawless orders feeds right into it.
“The reality is,” Folt said, “it’s not against anything in our history to comply with the law. So I think you need to understand that. Universities follow the law.” To comply with the law and to take a stand against a corrupt government are not mutually exclusive.
USC also lacked university-wide diversity initiatives until 2015, and only named the first chief inclusion and diversity officer (Christopher Manning) in 2021. Now is not the time to move backwards.
Where do we draw the line? If we think it’s okay to tarnish our mission and values by altering our language and our websites, what else will USC surrender in the future?
“We can all use this moment to reassert, rather than retreat from, the university’s mission in fostering a diverse and intellectually vibrant community,” Richardson advises. “Compromise should not mean capitulation.”
“Well-being” seeks to “create a caring culture that fosters our ability to thrive in mind, body, and spirit,” the values read. This is quickly dismantled when we fail to stand up in the face of political threats and worry about external control over our own narratives.
“Open Communication,” the values state, aims to “actively listen and communicate in a clear, honest, timely, and accessible manner and provide opportunities for safe, respectful dialogue and interaction.”
Where is the invitation for open dialogue between students and administrators?
Finally “Accountability” is stated as a value in which we “do not avoid addressing problems.” It is where “the environment we create and the actions we take promote safety and trust,” notably “at all levels of the university.” Institutional trust continues to decline while accountability exists in name only.
Take the address from Folt to faculty and the Academic Senate last spring, for example. When asked why she did not visit the encampment set up a mere two-minute walk from her office before LAPD began their raid, she admitted, “I don’t know why I didn’t. I regret that.”
Regrets and excuses have no room in the offices of our leaders responsible for ensuring our rights as students and as a community. How do you expect your students to live up to your values if you don’t yourself?
“We have to respond to the moment,” Scheer explains. “To the time we’re in right now. As in, not two years ago or even a week ago, but yesterday and this morning.”
His words underscore the urgency of the reality we face. While USC clings to outdated protocols and fails to meet the needs of its students, the world around us is rapidly changing and our fundamental rights remain vulnerable.
So, I ask my university: What are you doing to protect education? How do you plan to fulfill your obligation to ensure students remain free to question and to think?
How will you ensure our safety?