Faculty calls for USC president to go
Letter signed by 200 says he has lost the ‘moral authority’ to lead
LOS ANGELES — Two hundred University of Southern California professors on Tuesday demanded the resignation of university President C. L. Max Nikias, saying he had “lost the moral authority to lead” in the wake of revelations that a campus gynecologist was kept on staff for decades despite repeated complaints of misconduct.
In a letter to USC’s Board of Trustees, the faculty members wrote that they had come together to “express our outrage and disappointment over the mounting evidence of President Nikias’ failure to protect our students, our staff, and our colleagues from repeated and pervasive sexual harassment and misconduct.”
“We call upon President Nikias to step aside, and upon the Board of Trustees to restore moral leadership to the university,” they wrote.
A university spokeswoman had no immediate comment. A call to John Mork, the Colorado energy mogul who chairs the trustee board, was not immediately returned.
There have been calls for Nikias’ ouster on social media and in an online petition circulated by alumni since the Los Angeles Times last week detailed USC’s handling of Dr. George Tyndall. But Tuesday’s letter marks a rare display of public criticism from some of the university’s most highly respected faculty members.
Those signing the letter represent 14 different schools within the university and include some of USC’s most prominent academics — former deans, department chairs and distinguished professors.
Ariela Gross, a nationally known expert in race and slavery who holds the title of John B. and Alice R. Sharp Professor of Law and History, helped draft the letter and described it in an interview as “a there’s-no-turning-back, regime-change letter.”
The effect the letter will have on trustees is not clear.