Latest scandal pushing some USC backers past tipping point
LOS ANGELES — Roy Nwaisser has four degrees from the University of Southern California and is a superfan of its storied football squad — he hasn’t missed a home or away game in 27 years.
But his devotion has been tested by a series of scandals culminating with the school’s starring role in a massive college admissions bribery case.
Hours after that news broke Tuesday, Nwaisser turned down a request to speak at an alumni fundraiser in Nevada.
“I can’t in good conscience promote the university until they clean up their act,” Nwaisser wrote to the group. “If people want to donate their money they should give it to institutions with fewer scandals and less corruption.”
It’s been a bruising two years for USC. The president stepped down amid investigations into a medical school dean accused of smoking methamphetamine with a woman who overdosed, and reports the school ignored complaints of widespread sexual misconduct by the campus gynecologist. And an assistant men’s basketball coach pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a wide-ranging FBI probe.
In last week’s announcement of criminal charges over admissions cheating, no institution was implicated as much as USC.
More than half the 32 parents charged were trying to bribe their children’s way into USC. One of those parents, Homayoun Zadeh, is a USC dentistry professor now facing termination.
To help their two daughters, actress Lori Loughlin and her husband paid $500,000 to have them labeled as crew team recruits at USC, though neither is a rower, prosecutors said.
In a letter to the campus, interim President Wanda Austin twice emphasized that prosecutors alleged the school was a victim of employees who purposely deceived it. In a follow-up, Austin did not use the word victim and said the school was cooperating with prosecutors and conducting its own investigation that could lead to further discipline.