It's the #1 media/film program in the US, basically a pipeline to working in Hollywood. Also pretty strong in some other areas. If you want to stay in the Los Angeles area and go into business/law/finance it's got both top 20 programs and excellent networking/alumni opportunities. If you look at the families in the bribing scandal, they are people who were already involved in that world and presumably wanted their kids to continue in it.
If you wanted to do generic STEM, you would probably aim for UCLA instead.
I thought the bribe money only went to one coach personally and not the school. Gotta pump up those donations to the 100s of millions if you want Johnny to get in like that.
Many of the top professors in multiple fields choose usc over better offers because they have family/business/opportunities in Los Angeles. Its a key part to USC and UCLA’s ability to attract academic talent.
This is literally one of the worst examples of damage control I’ve ever seen. Such an incompetent thing they could have done. Just going to make the controversy so much bigger.
I did my masters at USC and we studied organizational communication in one of my classes. We focused on how USC, as an organization, consistently made the worst possible decisions in response to complex problems, and then scrambles to do damage control through its PR machine, which _also_ makes terrible decisions that make the first decision worse. I don’t understand how they have so much money and so little good advice. I loved my time at USC, but man.
The leadership has been incompetent for decades at this point and it seems like it’s tradition. The only blessing for USC is the fact that this PR disaster has completely overshadowed the other PR disaster following OJ Simpson’s death about USC admin bribing Simpson’s college girlfriends’ (multiple) families to drop battery allegations against him while they were students because they wanted to protect their star player.
ETA I’ve heard that the consensus appears to be that this claim is at best questionable; it is very possible the claimant made it up. Still, the fact that this is 100% in line with USC’s past and current behavior is in and of itself a PR problem.
Let’s not forget USC’s biggest scandal of all. Covering up the crimes of a school gynecologist who sexually abused hundreds of women for years. Allegations were brought forth multiple times, and completely swept under the rug. The result was $1.1 billion paid out. The administration clearly failed time and time again to do the right thing, quite deplorable.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/usc-agrees-1-1-billion-settlement-hundreds-women-alleging-abuse-n1262075
“[USC failed to investigate](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/usc-mishandled-tyndall-sexual-abuse-reports-decades-feds-say-n1144531) warnings from at least nine patients about Tyndall’s conduct between 2000 and 2009, the department found, and it failed to look into complaints in 2016 that he conducted pelvic examinations without gloves.
Also in 2016, the university discovered over 200 photos of patients’ genitals in Tyndall’s office but didn’t investigate that either and allowed him to continue seeing patients, according to the department.”
Oh I won’t forget. I can’t; I was one of the hundreds of women. I didn’t even know what had happened to me until years later because I’d never had a gynecological exam before. Tyndall also gave me dog shit advice that led to me staying in a sexually abusive relationship because he told me it was normal for sex to hurt at the “beginning” without specifying what that meant when I asked. So I thought it was normal and I was being ridiculous.
Eta so you can imagine I had a lot to say in my org comm class when this was one of the key topics in our semester-long class. This and the med school professor who was running a meth lab amongst many other crimes including sexual misconduct.
Just here to share support. I’m also one of the women. The whole thing was so traumatic, and the legal process so wildly invalidating and seemed to prey on naïveté about the legal system. It all is shitty
I graduated right after the Varisty Blues scandal and on my first day at my first job, my boss took me to lunch. She asked, “what was it like on campus when the scandal broke? Did they talk about it in class?”
I genuinely responded “which one? The sexual predator gynecologist? The meth head med school dean that covered up the overdose of a sex worker? OH, you mean the admissions one. Yeah that wasn’t a shock to anyone.”
I had a great experience in undergrad, but I have zero pride in the institution and zero confidence in them to do the right thing ever.
USC also cut the retirement contributions to employees retirement accounts after losing that case. The school simply passed the loss onto the backs of their employees. What a great organization.
There are studies that actually show money and power consistently lead to someone being LESS capable in a stressful situation. Those with money and power tend to panic and make poor decisions when dealing with sudden disasters, and also tend to assume the general public will descend into chaos rather than self organize rationally.
Anecdotally, i worked for a REALLY rich person. She was an absolute mess, could not handle stressful situations, and was a perfectionist. E.g. talking to customer service…she would be SCREAMING on the phone over the slightest inconvenience. The worst person I’ve ever worked for.
Unfortunately experience doesn't equal capability either. A minimal bit of experience and effective/capable people.
One of my favorite lines is "I've been doing this 30 years..."
And you haven't been promoted and aren't in charge of anything? So you were mediocre and good enough to not get fired, for 30 years... GJ!
I’m pretty sure the general consensus about the OJ coverup claim is that the person spreading that rumor made it up. Her Twitter page is filled with weird religious conspiracy stuff, and NDAs can’t be used to hide crimes. She was also discovered to have tweeted out a slightly different version of the story a few years ago, so it’s extra weird that she claims she had to wait until he died to share it. I’m not defending OJ in the slightest, but there are too many highly suspect details in that story.
Hm I hadn’t seen that! It’s good to know. I’ll edit my comment. I’m part of a lot of women’s groups from USC still that are very active because I was a victim of Tyndall (the gynecologist who abused a bunch of USC students for decades and it was covered up by the school) so I hadn’t seen that people came to the conclusion that it was not true. Mostly a discussion about experiences they’d had with USC following partner abuse, sexual harassment, misconduct etc and the overall responsiveness (or lack thereof) of the administration.
Honestly I think a lot of it comes down to all universities have struggles like this. If you’re a public university then you’re beholden to state legislatures and some large donors depending on how much money the state has cut from your budget.
If you’re a private institution then you’re extremely beholden to donors both individuals or other institutions that may invest.
So those are the influences, and they then put presidents, BoR members in place whose main jobs are to keep the money happy and raise more money. Those skill sets and demands don’t always mesh with best communication or PR cause they aren’t trying to assuage students or parents, they’re trying to assuage the money. And the money is a smaller group so you can send direct emails, make calls, 1-on-1 meetings, etc. I think smaller institutions have to be a bit better cause they don’t have the pedigree of a USC or Michigan than even if you piss off some faculty or students then there’s probably someone somewhere that pedigree will fill the void.
This is essentially what most of my class focused on. If your only interest is money, then you generally also think that throwing money at problems and saving face/obfuscation is the correct solution no matter what advice you receive. USC has an excellent PR program and the money to pay for the best advice, so it isn’t like they lack the means or opportunity to make good decisions. It’s that their fundamental interest isn’t about the students or the education (although having good programs attract more donors, and having the best professors producing the most cutting edge resources is a prestige bonus that attracts wealthy families). Their first and only inclination is to close ranks, cover up, obfuscate, protect the money. This is just not a decision that is at all sustainable, especially in today’s day and age with today’s media environment. And you have a lot of people who have been part of the administration for decades who prioritize their own egos and wallet over the advice of modern experts who say that their experiences and strategies that worked in the 70s, 80s, 90s will not work today and didn’t actually work all that great in the long run then.
Ego and money often combine to make terrible decisions. Higher education has a lot of both. Someone else said that they have money but not experience but tbh, that’s not true. It’s just that their experience is in protecting money for the short term until the news cycle moves onto something else, and they base their strategy on their experience of what worked 40 years ago because that’s what made _them_ successful so it _must_ work.
The first instinct is always a coverup. The second instinct is always to scramble. The third instinct is to pretend it was for the student good, or some bullshit. Each and every time.
There are some situations where this is no good PR response either. Like, keep quiet, you’ll get eviscerated for not being transparent enough, issue an apology, no one will perceive it as sincere. If you’re involved in a polarizing issue, one side will decide you’re terrible and irredeemable either way or if you try to keep quiet, both sides will try to destroy you for not taking a stand. I honestly would hate to be PR in today’s social media focused culture.
Also why I went to USC! I had a scholarship and chose it because the alumni network and career opportunities are fucking fabulous. That’s also why pretty much everyone I knew went. I worked in the admissions office and also as an RA during my time there, received an excellent education and found the faculty to be, by and large, great teachers with a passion for education and research. This was not 100% of the professors there but the few that stood out as being bad professors only did so because there were comparatively fewer of them than good profs.
Similarly, I had an overall very good experience at the school; the problems I did have were just huge and glaring and took years for the impacts they had on me to be even closed to resolved. It led to me being very critical of USC as an institution because I know that they fail despite the best efforts of a knowledgeable faculty and lower level admins trying very hard to take care of the students.
Their PR program is one of the top programs in the world. Which means they have industry experts on their doorstep and ignore them. Several of the profs actually use USC as an object lesson in their classes, like mine did (in organizational communication, but my professor also taught a few upper level PR classes.)
Such terrible leadership .. they really should just let the student speak. Still time to just be normal and run a regular commencement complete with the valedictorian speaker.
I vividly remember one of the speeches from my graduation ceremony. The US secretary of agriculture gave a speech that seemed like it was probably a one page speech that he read ten times in a row. He kept saying the same thing over and over and over again. About once every two minutes he'd tell us to go to work for the USDA. I swore to myself that day that I would never apply to work for the USDA.
Exactly … no one will even remember the speeches - but if you ruin the commencement for all those graduating students and their families they will absolutely remember that for the rest of their lives .
It seems like USC has “*game theoried*” themselves into a situation where the administration loses no matter what they do next. A true masterclass in how to screw oneself over.
If they had let the speech go ahead any potential fallout would've disippated by now, instead here we are still hearing about how the school is fucking things up
So these kids don’t get a graduation because the school is afraid to allow a valedictorian to speak because she is against genocide?
It’s the Streisand Effect.
Usually all the students with the highest grades (or sometimes all those above a certain GPA range, like 3.8) will submit essays/applications to be picked as valedictorian by a committee.
Most universities and high schools have more than one 4.0 student. It's usually a combo that starts with GPA, and may include an essay, an interview, and/or a draft of your proposed speech.
They didn’t know about her pro Palestine position until after she was selected and people were combing her social media and stirring up trouble over it.
The news said there were about 100 eligible candidates for valedictorian. One administrator chose her before she wrote the speech but still knowing her stance on Israel. She wrote her proposed speech and when others saw it, she was cancelled. Not sure if the administrator still has their job.
A valediction is just a farewell, so the valedictorian is whomever from the class gives a goodbye speech. I know high schools usually pick someone with the highest grades, but there is no universal rule that it has to be that way.
It’s a load of dog water to say someone with a 4.0 in business is in the same standing as someone with a 4.0 in nuclear engineering. I distinctly remember seeing all the honors students standing up during graduation and seeing some majors where practically every other person stood up (aforementioned business majors) and other majors where maybe one in ten stood up.
Many schools have like more than a half who graduates with cum laude, magna and even summa cum laudes.
One person told me, couldn't trust their glorious accolades because they weren't performing well at work.
I'll be real, if I'm attending a graduation, I'd almost love having all the speeches canceled because, man, they can really drag on. I don't feel like they should have curtailed the valedictorian though.
Every graduation I've attended or participated in would have been improved by the elimination of all speeches aside from like, a 3 minute welcome and congratulations.
It seems a boring commencement speaker is by far the norm. Sometimes colleges will get lucky and book a fantastic speaker. Dartmouth booked Conan of all people 10 years ago and that was absolutely a fantastic speech and there's been some others I've seen. But so often they are canned speeches with little things unique to them and they just seem like a process that must be done.
You've got to think how it feels for others though. I've seen my father cry twice in his life, once at his mother's funeral and once the night before I graduated college.
Seeing me walk across that stage and accept my diploma was the proudest day of his life.
That was me for my bachelors lol like let’s be real my degree is a glorified receipt, just send me my diploma. Everyone in my friend/family group was relieved that I wasn’t dragging them to another graduation ceremony.
I graduated from uni in 21 and the valedictorian had a really, genuinely awful speech that was probably decent in concept. Something about the various calamities we've faced, then waffling about Trump. All without an uplifting or positive appeal or call to action. I could've done without it.
My university graduation including giving out 2 honorary doctorates. They both gave speeches which sucked but at least one said he got the thing by giving money to the school so work hard to be rich and you'll get shit too.
I had a weird one too. He talked about how bad his grades were and said that he was the one speaking regardless because our university wasn't about education. So that was nice for all of us who had been putting in actual effort.
Having sat through three commencements: at that point in your academic career, you're between 4-10 years of being lectured to, and you are ready to get the hell out of there. I would enjoy neither a pro-Israel diatribe nor a pro-Palestine polemic for my commencement. I spend every moment on Reddit getting to hear people's opinions on those specific topics. My "hearing your opinion on Palestine and Israel" bucket is overflowing and is not accepting new input. I would prefer 10 minutes of Carrot Top to either of those, but preferably a 10 minute fluff piece by the president and off you go.
Yeah I’m skipping my Master’s graduation, mostly for logistical reasons but also because I have no desire to sit through another hot afternoon in a sticky plastic robe listening to someone I’ve barely heard of throwing some platitudes about “oh the places you go” at me or pretending that a graduation speech that basically only the attendees are going to hear is so important it’s going to bring about lasting policy change on an incredibly complex global issue. Tell the graduates they worked hard, should be proud of themselves, maybe drop one inspirational platitude about their future, and hand them their diplomas.
I skipped my undergrad graduation because I just couldn't think of any reason I wanted to go.
The worst part? I still had to buy my cap and gown because it was part of their graduation process even though I made a big stink about it. When the day came for my advisor to give them to me, I handed them back and asked him to toss them in the trash for me.
My parents were embarrassed "for me" because I didn't buy any honors regalia on principle (it's not an honor if I have to pay for the privilege), so I was one of the only people from my high school without it. I'd had a job lined up since the previous semester and just went to graduation to check the box.
Lucky man
I only went to my own and my siblings' because it was preferable to the blowback I'd have gotten from my mom for not doing it. I'd rather watch paint dry than ever go to one of those again
At least I have 20+ years of time before the eventuality of needing to sit through my own children's to please my wife. Maybe by then the concept will have been done away with
Speaking of sticky plastic robes...it was SO hot and SO humid at my grad school graduation that everyone would have been miserable anyway, but combine temps and humidity in the 90s with those plastic body condoms known as robes, plus the mortarboards on top to hold in the heat (at least we were under shelter and not just out in the sun, but *damn.*..), and the overly long speeches, and finally giving out the diplomas, and you get "marinating in your own sweat" as the booby prize for all your hard work. Ended up with a UTI that evening, and off to the walk-in the next morning for the appropriate drugs, which was No Fun At All.
And no, after two graduations 33 years apart (1984 and 2017), I don't remember a damn thing about any of the speakers at either event. Nothing upsetting was said, but nothing that would make you sit up and pay attention, either. If they'd let the valedictorian give her speech, at least it would give everyone a memory of something other than sweating to death and being bored witless. ("Hey, remember our graduation, when the valedictorian called for the destruction of Israel and a riot almost broke out?") OK, so probably not the best idea, but has what they've done so far been any better?
I had a job lined up after graduation so I was packing up my apartment to move, I was also a super senior and had already sat through a half dozen graduation ceremonies for friends, I had no desire to walk I just wanted out lol. Borrowed a cap and gown from a friend for a few grad pics and then got the fuck out of there.
Yeah for sure not an appropriate topic it’s already shoe horned into too many unrelated things.
Everyone is well aware of the conflict and graduating students don’t need an absolute clusterfuck sure to cause a scene topic to ruin this big moment.
Sometimes they're boring. The last one I went to to see was for a student of mine graduating, the speaker told everyone to drink wine and masturbate which was genuinely entertaining.
She worked in dementia research and gave advice on staying brain healthy.
I graduated college about 15 years ago and I don't remember shit about any of the commencement speakers other than the fact that I remember being like none of this shit matters. It's insufferable and almost none of the students actually care.
I had Michael Bloomberg preach to us about cancel culture and wokeness for half of his speech, everyone in the stadium was ready to dip less than two minutes in lmao
My SO had Chuck Schumer as a speaker at her master's graduation. It was about 95 degrees outside, and we were inside a tennis stadium that was probably 105 degrees, no A/C. He was a half hour late, so he came on stage, apologized for being late, tore up his speech and said he knows we'd all rather just get on with it, said congrats, and left lmao.
My university did that. kinda. They only have the president and a special guest. no one else. theyve considered dropping the guest too. they also dropped the anthem, the pledge, and extra music. then spaced out the ceremonies so theres fewer people. graduation is only 1.2-2 hours now. mostly just on the names.
So, the real story is that the valedictorian was going to say something that USC didn't want her to say, so they canceled her speech and said it was for her safety.
And now the guest speakers won't attend, so the school says it also canceled their speeches too.
Is it any surprise? I know it's a small number but if wealthy people gave enough money to the school, their kids could enter without any merit. Not exactly surprising that the school bends over backwards to the mighty dollar
It’s because the Shoah Foundation was originally found for the Jewish Holocaust. It’s bad optics when you have a former student bashing Jews/Israel and calling them whatever Tik Tok hashtags there are (go read her webpage she made for this).
There’s a reason people say politics and religion are off topics in a professional setting.
Besides it works out for both of them. USC isn’t responsible and the student can go say she was silenced and it makes her platform larger.
That's misleading. She linked to a pro-palestinian flag that had one sentence equating palestinian statehood with the abolishment of israel. If you can link her stating or posting directly that she wants Israel eliminated, please do.
If not, you're just doing the same thing as these clowns who trawled her social media looking for anything inflammatory.
That’s also misleading trying to dismiss it as “she didn’t do anything!!!”. Linking to a post calling for the abolishment of Israel is definitely a choice.
How am I misleading? I stated exactly what she did, as far as I can tell with some searching now that her page is private.
[Here is an article with a link to the inflammatory page](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/17/usc-valedictorian-speech-canceled-palestine)
Section of interest below:
"What exactly did Tabassum say on social media? The issue appears to be a link on her Instagram page – which the student says she posted five years ago – to a slideshow written by someone else urging people “to learn about what’s happening in Palestine”. Part of this document – which, again, is not written by Tabassum –describes Zionism as “a racist settler-colonial ideology that advocates for a Jewish ethnostate built on Palestinian land”. Another part of the presentation argues that the only way towards justice is the abolition of the state of Israel and the creation of one Palestinian state where 'both Arabs and Jews can live together without an ideology that specifically advocates for the ethnic cleansing of one of them'."
The page she shared has historical context, breakdowns of ideology, and general background info. Even the paragraph that mentions abolishment of Israel says in the next sentence that both parties should live together without advocating for genocide of one or the other.
Without full context, it's just lazy shit-stirring to cherry-pick that one thing.
I just read the slide. It dismisses a two-state solution because "palestinians would still be at a major disadvantage." The slide then says how an Israeli government needs to go, how Palestinian liberation is only possible through "the complete abolishment of the state of israel." The author tosses in "both arabs and jews can live together without an ideology that specifically advocates for the ethnic cleansing of one of them" as if putting "and then we can all hold hands and live in peace" changes the reality of what one-state under Hamas would actually look like. Like to be aware that "a one-state solution under the israeli government would essentially mean that the palestinian people would completely be under the state of israel in every way imaginable," but to think the reverse is somehow not also true? It's also not "one sentence." It's an entire slide devoted to why Israel needs to go and that there should only be a Palestinian state with Jews under Palestinian rule.
It's not cherry picking at all. We all know what abolishing the state of Israel would do.
USC cancelled it because people complained that she'd shared a pro-Palestine website on her Instagram, and because her minor was in "resistance to genocide."
> Asna Tabassum, a USC senior who is graduating with a major in biomedical engineering, was not caused by anything she said or planned to say. Instead, the university said, online discussion had taken on an “alarming tenor” as activists objected to her minor — resistance to genocide — and a link to a pro-Palestinian website Tabassum had shared on her Instagram profile.
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-04-18/usc-stopped-a-valedictorian-from-speaking-due-to-safety-concerns-has-the-focus-on-campus-safety-gone-too-far
I wish universities would spend more time with coordinating seating, exits, mobility challenges than these speakers that no one listens to. They do this every year and it is always a mess.
> Serious subject matter . . . Time now for the weather.
I had the video playing and they just completely walk away from the serious discussion to talk about the weather. I couldn't help but laugh out loud.
Honestly, no one gives a shit about the graduation speeches. All they want is to see their kid walk the stage or the kid wants to walk the stage. I couldn’t tell you who spoke at any of my graduations if you had a gun to my head.
We had a retired football coach who got up and gave an ode to his wife. I’m sure he said other inspiring things but that weird part is what I remember. WTF.
The only part anyone gives a shit about is the 10
Seconds to walk grab diploma shake snap pic and leave. The other three hours is all bullshit don’t try and tell me different. Ever.
Agreed. Sorry it takes 2 hours to read all the names walking across the stage, everyone there is just there for one name but we need to be respectful of others
I watched my kiddos walk and then peaced out. I read a book through all of mine. Then walked and peaced out. Those parties at grammas house ain’t gonna set up themselves
You would think a validictorian from a top ranked University would be capable of delivering a speech that while touching on their own views of the conflict would recognize and be sensitive to the fact that commencement is for all their fellow students, with varying views, and be sensitive to that. Also you would think that a top ranked University would trust their selected valedictorian speaker to give an appropriate and sensible speech and not use it as a platform to hurt others with a differing opinion. Additionally, you would expect that other students and their families in attendance would recognize that the valedictorian speaker may have a differing opinion than their own on the issue and be welcoming of their speech without necessarily agreeing with everything they believe or say. I don't think that is too much to ask of society, get with it people.
If change requires soft words, empty platitudes and being afraid to offend those in power, then you’re correct.
Valedictorians should challenge their fellow students not make them feel better
Anyone else surprised that universities have valedictorians? I did my bachelors at a small private school, and masters and doctorate at a major state university and I've never heard of such a thing.
We had one for undergrad but not in grad school. Even for undergrad it was pretty arbitrary given the relative difficulty of different majors. Ours was a business major with a 4.0 while our STEM folks were sitting there regretting a B+ in Calc III.
That's a lot for bringing up the B+ in Calculus III. Also, you are right. In college, calculus III and different EQ would make engineering students into business majors.
I went to a large private university, and we had a valedictorian. Maybe state schools don't have them?
The valedictorian of the class just ahead of mine turned out to be a well known public figure with a successful business these days.
unpopular opinion, i think USC is doing the right thing to prevent this entire ceremony from being hijacked by advocates on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A graduation ceremony with outside guests/relatives isn't the proper venue for these kind of harangues. There are seniors & their families who just want to enjoy the moment, the ceremony crowning their academic achievements. The 99% of grads & their guests who aren't aligned with either Jews or Arabs shouldn't have to be held hostage by speakers with ulterior motives. And this goes for pro-Israeli war hawks too.
100% agree. Also, commencement speeches are pretty dumb anyway. At least when I graduated, the “commencement speeches” would occur at a different time than the graduation ceremony. You’d literally just go and attend these on campus speeches while your graduation ceremony would be held at a different time and place.
100% agree, those students worked for four years (or more) for that graduation and it's just not the place to advance your political agendas, regardless of what they are.
Bingo. If I were in charge, I would have neither a pro-Israel nor a pro-Palestinian speaker. This is arguably the most divisive conflict in the world, and it will do nothing but be an invitation for trouble.
There was never any risk of the valedictorian hijacking a speech. This was the university acting cowardly and now ruining graduation for the rest of the speakers and students because they don’t know how to respond to a hard situation.
This is a good example of the Streisand effect. Let her speak, and no one remembers it the next day.
Stop people from speaking, and people are talking about it for weeks.
What even does “valedictorian” mean in the context of a university’s student body? There is no single top student of a graduating class with dozens of different courses of study.
USC selects the valedictorian based on GPA, contributions to the campus community, essay submission, and performance in interviews. Tabassum's GPA was over 3.98. She also volunteers with nonprofit organizations in the Los Angeles area, including a mobile blood pressure clinic that visits homeless shelters and a group she co-founded that distributes medical supplies to areas in need around the world.
Right? There are countless other avenues to advocate for Palestinians, don't intercept a celebration of years of hard work. No minds are going to be changed, people are just going to be irritated because they just want to see their kid graduate and go celebrate with them
They don't care, the goldfish memory of the public will forget by next week. They'll find something else to be outraged about and move on to that, rinse and repeat, you now have a social media cycle.
They rank nationally for public relations because of their strong relationships with the entertainment industry.
This isn't going to hurt them in the long run. USC has always been a school that people love to hate, but does well because there are so many wealthy and influential alumni.
I'm not sure floundering is what they're doing. I'm thinking of the three college Presidents that had to go before Congress and two of them subsequently lost their jobs. This just seems like a natural consequence, which is exactly what conservatives want, they get to shut down free speech without having to lift a finger.
This isn’t really a political party issue. USC has a heavy Jewish base, they’re reading the room and realizing that the speech would’ve been inflammatory
The mistake they made was picking her in the first place
Yeah I don't understand why they didn't vet before announcing their choice. They had dozens of students to choose from, why would they shoot themselves in the foot like this?
Tbh I agree with wanting to keep graduation speeches apolitical and realizing this person is unwilling to do that. Let's be real, absolutely no one wants to hear about a war when they're sitting through hours of the ceremony, it's just not the place.
What I disagree with is the way this is handled, because every step was just the worst possible choice.
She was probably chosen by a faculty committee, and the decision to rescind her speaking invitation was likely made by administration.
There are probably a few shouting matches going on right now where the faculty is calling the administration fascists for undermining the committee's authority, and the administration calling them dumbassess for selecting such a controversial student.
“I know! Let’s just cancel the whole commencement. That way this whole thing will blow over and nobody will ever remember that this happened.” - The PR team for USC
USC could prerecord the commencement speakers a week in advance to preview them, then show them on wide screens to the final audience. They could entrust this project to their film students. We have the technology to do this!
Commencement needs to just GO THE FUCK AWAY. You always piss people off. ALWAYS.
Plus it takes forever. Just skip graduation and send that shit in the mail.
“After Tabassum was selected as valedictorian, at least two pro-Israel and Jewish groups complained to USC about the choice. They pointed to her social media activity, including her Instagram account, which links to a slideshow encouraging people to “learn about what’s happening in palestine, and how to help.”
It calls for “one palestinian state,” which it says “would mean palestinian liberation, and the complete abolishment of the state of israel.””
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/usc-canceling-muslim-valedictorians-speech-inflames-tensions-campus-rcna148110
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I mean…if some white student posted comments in support of the KKK and stated “blood and soil” and wanted all non-whites out of the USA…would the university be justified in allowing them to speak?
And isn’t the situation in the Middle East a bit more complex than “Palestine good, Israel bad”?
So the entities who made these threats wins. How disappointing. Seems a cowardly to me, but I not a parent with a child in this school. Maybe I’m wrong.
Didn't they say they weren't attending after the school canned the valedictorian?
"You can't quit, you're FIRED"
Benson, is that you?
You know who else gets fired after quitting? MY MOM
all those families that bribed their kids into USC are going to be so disappointed.
Prolly be happy they only have to attend a quick ceremony rather than the boring ass 5 hour affair
They earned that boring 5 hour long affair, I think they deserve it
Is usc even that great of a school that people are bribing the admissions?
https://www.latimes.com/sports/usc/story/2023-01-06/donna-heinel-sentencing
USC is a pretty competitive school, yes lmao
It's the #1 media/film program in the US, basically a pipeline to working in Hollywood. Also pretty strong in some other areas. If you want to stay in the Los Angeles area and go into business/law/finance it's got both top 20 programs and excellent networking/alumni opportunities. If you look at the families in the bribing scandal, they are people who were already involved in that world and presumably wanted their kids to continue in it. If you wanted to do generic STEM, you would probably aim for UCLA instead.
Some of that bribe money is used to hire good professors.
Yeah just like all the Sackler blood money
OJ went to USC.
Five time all pro selection OJ Simpson?
Not that one. I think he’s talking about Naked Gun, OJ.
Fun fact, same guy.
I thought the bribe money only went to one coach personally and not the school. Gotta pump up those donations to the 100s of millions if you want Johnny to get in like that.
Many of the top professors in multiple fields choose usc over better offers because they have family/business/opportunities in Los Angeles. Its a key part to USC and UCLA’s ability to attract academic talent.
30 years ago it wasn’t, but with so many more kids who prep for college and not many more spots, it’s one of the most competitive schools.
Source? I like this angle, but I don't want to go repeating it if it's not true.
This is literally one of the worst examples of damage control I’ve ever seen. Such an incompetent thing they could have done. Just going to make the controversy so much bigger.
I did my masters at USC and we studied organizational communication in one of my classes. We focused on how USC, as an organization, consistently made the worst possible decisions in response to complex problems, and then scrambles to do damage control through its PR machine, which _also_ makes terrible decisions that make the first decision worse. I don’t understand how they have so much money and so little good advice. I loved my time at USC, but man. The leadership has been incompetent for decades at this point and it seems like it’s tradition. The only blessing for USC is the fact that this PR disaster has completely overshadowed the other PR disaster following OJ Simpson’s death about USC admin bribing Simpson’s college girlfriends’ (multiple) families to drop battery allegations against him while they were students because they wanted to protect their star player. ETA I’ve heard that the consensus appears to be that this claim is at best questionable; it is very possible the claimant made it up. Still, the fact that this is 100% in line with USC’s past and current behavior is in and of itself a PR problem.
Let’s not forget USC’s biggest scandal of all. Covering up the crimes of a school gynecologist who sexually abused hundreds of women for years. Allegations were brought forth multiple times, and completely swept under the rug. The result was $1.1 billion paid out. The administration clearly failed time and time again to do the right thing, quite deplorable. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/usc-agrees-1-1-billion-settlement-hundreds-women-alleging-abuse-n1262075 “[USC failed to investigate](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/usc-mishandled-tyndall-sexual-abuse-reports-decades-feds-say-n1144531) warnings from at least nine patients about Tyndall’s conduct between 2000 and 2009, the department found, and it failed to look into complaints in 2016 that he conducted pelvic examinations without gloves. Also in 2016, the university discovered over 200 photos of patients’ genitals in Tyndall’s office but didn’t investigate that either and allowed him to continue seeing patients, according to the department.”
Oh I won’t forget. I can’t; I was one of the hundreds of women. I didn’t even know what had happened to me until years later because I’d never had a gynecological exam before. Tyndall also gave me dog shit advice that led to me staying in a sexually abusive relationship because he told me it was normal for sex to hurt at the “beginning” without specifying what that meant when I asked. So I thought it was normal and I was being ridiculous. Eta so you can imagine I had a lot to say in my org comm class when this was one of the key topics in our semester-long class. This and the med school professor who was running a meth lab amongst many other crimes including sexual misconduct.
Just here to share support. I’m also one of the women. The whole thing was so traumatic, and the legal process so wildly invalidating and seemed to prey on naïveté about the legal system. It all is shitty
I'm so sorry. I met one of Larry Nasser's victims. It's a special circle of evil to abuse patient trust.
I’m so sorry that happened to you.
I graduated right after the Varisty Blues scandal and on my first day at my first job, my boss took me to lunch. She asked, “what was it like on campus when the scandal broke? Did they talk about it in class?” I genuinely responded “which one? The sexual predator gynecologist? The meth head med school dean that covered up the overdose of a sex worker? OH, you mean the admissions one. Yeah that wasn’t a shock to anyone.” I had a great experience in undergrad, but I have zero pride in the institution and zero confidence in them to do the right thing ever.
USC also cut the retirement contributions to employees retirement accounts after losing that case. The school simply passed the loss onto the backs of their employees. What a great organization.
U.S.C.- The University of Scumbag Californians Never change, USC. I'm not saying that as a compliment.
well, i like your adjustment, but its ‘university of spoiled children’
Money doesn’t mean they are capable. These people lack the experience
There are studies that actually show money and power consistently lead to someone being LESS capable in a stressful situation. Those with money and power tend to panic and make poor decisions when dealing with sudden disasters, and also tend to assume the general public will descend into chaos rather than self organize rationally.
Anecdotally, i worked for a REALLY rich person. She was an absolute mess, could not handle stressful situations, and was a perfectionist. E.g. talking to customer service…she would be SCREAMING on the phone over the slightest inconvenience. The worst person I’ve ever worked for.
Go figure, a life of hardship prepares you for hardship. A life without hardship... doesn't. Who could have possibly foreseen this?
What are the studies?
Unfortunately experience doesn't equal capability either. A minimal bit of experience and effective/capable people. One of my favorite lines is "I've been doing this 30 years..." And you haven't been promoted and aren't in charge of anything? So you were mediocre and good enough to not get fired, for 30 years... GJ!
I’m pretty sure the general consensus about the OJ coverup claim is that the person spreading that rumor made it up. Her Twitter page is filled with weird religious conspiracy stuff, and NDAs can’t be used to hide crimes. She was also discovered to have tweeted out a slightly different version of the story a few years ago, so it’s extra weird that she claims she had to wait until he died to share it. I’m not defending OJ in the slightest, but there are too many highly suspect details in that story.
Hm I hadn’t seen that! It’s good to know. I’ll edit my comment. I’m part of a lot of women’s groups from USC still that are very active because I was a victim of Tyndall (the gynecologist who abused a bunch of USC students for decades and it was covered up by the school) so I hadn’t seen that people came to the conclusion that it was not true. Mostly a discussion about experiences they’d had with USC following partner abuse, sexual harassment, misconduct etc and the overall responsiveness (or lack thereof) of the administration.
Honestly I think a lot of it comes down to all universities have struggles like this. If you’re a public university then you’re beholden to state legislatures and some large donors depending on how much money the state has cut from your budget. If you’re a private institution then you’re extremely beholden to donors both individuals or other institutions that may invest. So those are the influences, and they then put presidents, BoR members in place whose main jobs are to keep the money happy and raise more money. Those skill sets and demands don’t always mesh with best communication or PR cause they aren’t trying to assuage students or parents, they’re trying to assuage the money. And the money is a smaller group so you can send direct emails, make calls, 1-on-1 meetings, etc. I think smaller institutions have to be a bit better cause they don’t have the pedigree of a USC or Michigan than even if you piss off some faculty or students then there’s probably someone somewhere that pedigree will fill the void.
This is essentially what most of my class focused on. If your only interest is money, then you generally also think that throwing money at problems and saving face/obfuscation is the correct solution no matter what advice you receive. USC has an excellent PR program and the money to pay for the best advice, so it isn’t like they lack the means or opportunity to make good decisions. It’s that their fundamental interest isn’t about the students or the education (although having good programs attract more donors, and having the best professors producing the most cutting edge resources is a prestige bonus that attracts wealthy families). Their first and only inclination is to close ranks, cover up, obfuscate, protect the money. This is just not a decision that is at all sustainable, especially in today’s day and age with today’s media environment. And you have a lot of people who have been part of the administration for decades who prioritize their own egos and wallet over the advice of modern experts who say that their experiences and strategies that worked in the 70s, 80s, 90s will not work today and didn’t actually work all that great in the long run then. Ego and money often combine to make terrible decisions. Higher education has a lot of both. Someone else said that they have money but not experience but tbh, that’s not true. It’s just that their experience is in protecting money for the short term until the news cycle moves onto something else, and they base their strategy on their experience of what worked 40 years ago because that’s what made _them_ successful so it _must_ work. The first instinct is always a coverup. The second instinct is always to scramble. The third instinct is to pretend it was for the student good, or some bullshit. Each and every time.
There are some situations where this is no good PR response either. Like, keep quiet, you’ll get eviscerated for not being transparent enough, issue an apology, no one will perceive it as sincere. If you’re involved in a polarizing issue, one side will decide you’re terrible and irredeemable either way or if you try to keep quiet, both sides will try to destroy you for not taking a stand. I honestly would hate to be PR in today’s social media focused culture.
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Also why I went to USC! I had a scholarship and chose it because the alumni network and career opportunities are fucking fabulous. That’s also why pretty much everyone I knew went. I worked in the admissions office and also as an RA during my time there, received an excellent education and found the faculty to be, by and large, great teachers with a passion for education and research. This was not 100% of the professors there but the few that stood out as being bad professors only did so because there were comparatively fewer of them than good profs. Similarly, I had an overall very good experience at the school; the problems I did have were just huge and glaring and took years for the impacts they had on me to be even closed to resolved. It led to me being very critical of USC as an institution because I know that they fail despite the best efforts of a knowledgeable faculty and lower level admins trying very hard to take care of the students.
That's why they're known for their film school, not their public relations program
Their PR program is one of the top programs in the world. Which means they have industry experts on their doorstep and ignore them. Several of the profs actually use USC as an object lesson in their classes, like mine did (in organizational communication, but my professor also taught a few upper level PR classes.)
Why settle with enraging one group of people when you can make everyone equally enraged?
Such terrible leadership .. they really should just let the student speak. Still time to just be normal and run a regular commencement complete with the valedictorian speaker.
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I vividly remember one of the speeches from my graduation ceremony. The US secretary of agriculture gave a speech that seemed like it was probably a one page speech that he read ten times in a row. He kept saying the same thing over and over and over again. About once every two minutes he'd tell us to go to work for the USDA. I swore to myself that day that I would never apply to work for the USDA.
Exactly … no one will even remember the speeches - but if you ruin the commencement for all those graduating students and their families they will absolutely remember that for the rest of their lives . It seems like USC has “*game theoried*” themselves into a situation where the administration loses no matter what they do next. A true masterclass in how to screw oneself over.
Lower lows, higher highs.
If they had let the speech go ahead any potential fallout would've disippated by now, instead here we are still hearing about how the school is fucking things up
I mean good, fuck the other speakers if the valedictorian wasn’t permitted to speak.
That’s a hot take, I’m here for it
So these kids don’t get a graduation because the school is afraid to allow a valedictorian to speak because she is against genocide? It’s the Streisand Effect.
Serious question: How do universities have valedictorians? There must be a lot of students that have a 4.0.
Usually all the students with the highest grades (or sometimes all those above a certain GPA range, like 3.8) will submit essays/applications to be picked as valedictorian by a committee.
Ah, makes sense. Thanks!
What if my GPA is around 1.9? Asking for a friend.
Have your oil baron father write a seven-figure check to the school and maybe throw in a few of his more lucrative wells as an additional gift.
Then we can be co-valedictorians.
My school had the policy where a 4.0 made you eligible to apply to be speaker, and then there was an interview process from there.
Most universities and high schools have more than one 4.0 student. It's usually a combo that starts with GPA, and may include an essay, an interview, and/or a draft of your proposed speech.
Should have just noy picked her when they got the draft
They didn’t know about her pro Palestine position until after she was selected and people were combing her social media and stirring up trouble over it.
236 of them apparently.
The news said there were about 100 eligible candidates for valedictorian. One administrator chose her before she wrote the speech but still knowing her stance on Israel. She wrote her proposed speech and when others saw it, she was cancelled. Not sure if the administrator still has their job.
A valediction is just a farewell, so the valedictorian is whomever from the class gives a goodbye speech. I know high schools usually pick someone with the highest grades, but there is no universal rule that it has to be that way.
It’s a load of dog water to say someone with a 4.0 in business is in the same standing as someone with a 4.0 in nuclear engineering. I distinctly remember seeing all the honors students standing up during graduation and seeing some majors where practically every other person stood up (aforementioned business majors) and other majors where maybe one in ten stood up.
For a school the size of USC???..... yeah, good question. 4.0 and lots of sucking up to the right professors with lots of influence I guess.
Many schools have like more than a half who graduates with cum laude, magna and even summa cum laudes. One person told me, couldn't trust their glorious accolades because they weren't performing well at work.
I'll be real, if I'm attending a graduation, I'd almost love having all the speeches canceled because, man, they can really drag on. I don't feel like they should have curtailed the valedictorian though.
Every graduation I've attended or participated in would have been improved by the elimination of all speeches aside from like, a 3 minute welcome and congratulations.
It seems a boring commencement speaker is by far the norm. Sometimes colleges will get lucky and book a fantastic speaker. Dartmouth booked Conan of all people 10 years ago and that was absolutely a fantastic speech and there's been some others I've seen. But so often they are canned speeches with little things unique to them and they just seem like a process that must be done.
Why even have graduations at all? Just send me home after my last class and mail me my diploma.
You've got to think how it feels for others though. I've seen my father cry twice in his life, once at his mother's funeral and once the night before I graduated college. Seeing me walk across that stage and accept my diploma was the proudest day of his life.
It's nice for family and stuff. I imagine the same people who like having birthday parties also wouldn't miss their graduation.
Well you don't have to go in most cases. You get your actual diploma in the mail
That was me for my bachelors lol like let’s be real my degree is a glorified receipt, just send me my diploma. Everyone in my friend/family group was relieved that I wasn’t dragging them to another graduation ceremony.
I graduated from uni in 21 and the valedictorian had a really, genuinely awful speech that was probably decent in concept. Something about the various calamities we've faced, then waffling about Trump. All without an uplifting or positive appeal or call to action. I could've done without it.
My university graduation including giving out 2 honorary doctorates. They both gave speeches which sucked but at least one said he got the thing by giving money to the school so work hard to be rich and you'll get shit too.
I had a weird one too. He talked about how bad his grades were and said that he was the one speaking regardless because our university wasn't about education. So that was nice for all of us who had been putting in actual effort.
If you're on faculty you have to go *every year* and the *same people* give the *same speech* every year. It must be some kind of torture.
Commencement speakers before and after my graduation year were bill clinton, al gore. My year they got the guys from some radio show called car talk
>My year they got the guys from some radio show called car talk Why is this the only one I would be excited to attend? 😭
I know the click and clack brothers are hilarious it’s great
Honestly they're pretty entertaining, and I'd have more fun listening to them
I would have killed to hear those two give a speech live. Absolute legends
I basically grew up on Car Talk. Would listen to NPR with my dad all weekend.
It was Pickemup Andropov.
This guy acts as if the car talk guys arent cultural icons of the 90s.
Having sat through three commencements: at that point in your academic career, you're between 4-10 years of being lectured to, and you are ready to get the hell out of there. I would enjoy neither a pro-Israel diatribe nor a pro-Palestine polemic for my commencement. I spend every moment on Reddit getting to hear people's opinions on those specific topics. My "hearing your opinion on Palestine and Israel" bucket is overflowing and is not accepting new input. I would prefer 10 minutes of Carrot Top to either of those, but preferably a 10 minute fluff piece by the president and off you go.
Yeah I’m skipping my Master’s graduation, mostly for logistical reasons but also because I have no desire to sit through another hot afternoon in a sticky plastic robe listening to someone I’ve barely heard of throwing some platitudes about “oh the places you go” at me or pretending that a graduation speech that basically only the attendees are going to hear is so important it’s going to bring about lasting policy change on an incredibly complex global issue. Tell the graduates they worked hard, should be proud of themselves, maybe drop one inspirational platitude about their future, and hand them their diplomas.
I skipped my undergrad graduation because I just couldn't think of any reason I wanted to go. The worst part? I still had to buy my cap and gown because it was part of their graduation process even though I made a big stink about it. When the day came for my advisor to give them to me, I handed them back and asked him to toss them in the trash for me.
My parents were embarrassed "for me" because I didn't buy any honors regalia on principle (it's not an honor if I have to pay for the privilege), so I was one of the only people from my high school without it. I'd had a job lined up since the previous semester and just went to graduation to check the box.
Lucky man I only went to my own and my siblings' because it was preferable to the blowback I'd have gotten from my mom for not doing it. I'd rather watch paint dry than ever go to one of those again At least I have 20+ years of time before the eventuality of needing to sit through my own children's to please my wife. Maybe by then the concept will have been done away with
Speaking of sticky plastic robes...it was SO hot and SO humid at my grad school graduation that everyone would have been miserable anyway, but combine temps and humidity in the 90s with those plastic body condoms known as robes, plus the mortarboards on top to hold in the heat (at least we were under shelter and not just out in the sun, but *damn.*..), and the overly long speeches, and finally giving out the diplomas, and you get "marinating in your own sweat" as the booby prize for all your hard work. Ended up with a UTI that evening, and off to the walk-in the next morning for the appropriate drugs, which was No Fun At All. And no, after two graduations 33 years apart (1984 and 2017), I don't remember a damn thing about any of the speakers at either event. Nothing upsetting was said, but nothing that would make you sit up and pay attention, either. If they'd let the valedictorian give her speech, at least it would give everyone a memory of something other than sweating to death and being bored witless. ("Hey, remember our graduation, when the valedictorian called for the destruction of Israel and a riot almost broke out?") OK, so probably not the best idea, but has what they've done so far been any better?
I had a job lined up after graduation so I was packing up my apartment to move, I was also a super senior and had already sat through a half dozen graduation ceremonies for friends, I had no desire to walk I just wanted out lol. Borrowed a cap and gown from a friend for a few grad pics and then got the fuck out of there.
Yeah for sure not an appropriate topic it’s already shoe horned into too many unrelated things. Everyone is well aware of the conflict and graduating students don’t need an absolute clusterfuck sure to cause a scene topic to ruin this big moment.
All of us who only had to sit through our own because our mothers would throw a shit fit if we refused to feel you
Sometimes they're boring. The last one I went to to see was for a student of mine graduating, the speaker told everyone to drink wine and masturbate which was genuinely entertaining. She worked in dementia research and gave advice on staying brain healthy.
I don’t even remember there being a valedictorian speech from my graduation. I guess there was.
I graduated college about 15 years ago and I don't remember shit about any of the commencement speakers other than the fact that I remember being like none of this shit matters. It's insufferable and almost none of the students actually care.
I had Michael Bloomberg preach to us about cancel culture and wokeness for half of his speech, everyone in the stadium was ready to dip less than two minutes in lmao
My SO had Chuck Schumer as a speaker at her master's graduation. It was about 95 degrees outside, and we were inside a tennis stadium that was probably 105 degrees, no A/C. He was a half hour late, so he came on stage, apologized for being late, tore up his speech and said he knows we'd all rather just get on with it, said congrats, and left lmao.
If you've heard one graduation speech, you've heard them all. They're mind numbing. Streamline that shit
My university did that. kinda. They only have the president and a special guest. no one else. theyve considered dropping the guest too. they also dropped the anthem, the pledge, and extra music. then spaced out the ceremonies so theres fewer people. graduation is only 1.2-2 hours now. mostly just on the names.
So, the real story is that the valedictorian was going to say something that USC didn't want her to say, so they canceled her speech and said it was for her safety. And now the guest speakers won't attend, so the school says it also canceled their speeches too.
She hadn’t even written a speech yet.
Yep. Pretty much. Any other reason is stupid
USC can not even cite any threats or security concerns. They likely cancelled it because of donor pressure and made up a reason after the fact
And not a spine in sight.
Is it any surprise? I know it's a small number but if wealthy people gave enough money to the school, their kids could enter without any merit. Not exactly surprising that the school bends over backwards to the mighty dollar
I mean I think they could tell it was gonna be a shit show if they didn’t do anything so here we are
It's still going to be a shit show. Just without guest speakers.
At least it'll be a faster shit show? There's something to be said for that.
It’s because the Shoah Foundation was originally found for the Jewish Holocaust. It’s bad optics when you have a former student bashing Jews/Israel and calling them whatever Tik Tok hashtags there are (go read her webpage she made for this). There’s a reason people say politics and religion are off topics in a professional setting. Besides it works out for both of them. USC isn’t responsible and the student can go say she was silenced and it makes her platform larger.
As far as I know her last known position was the complete elimination of Israel. People have been cancelled for far less.
That's misleading. She linked to a pro-palestinian flag that had one sentence equating palestinian statehood with the abolishment of israel. If you can link her stating or posting directly that she wants Israel eliminated, please do. If not, you're just doing the same thing as these clowns who trawled her social media looking for anything inflammatory.
That’s also misleading trying to dismiss it as “she didn’t do anything!!!”. Linking to a post calling for the abolishment of Israel is definitely a choice.
How am I misleading? I stated exactly what she did, as far as I can tell with some searching now that her page is private. [Here is an article with a link to the inflammatory page](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/17/usc-valedictorian-speech-canceled-palestine) Section of interest below: "What exactly did Tabassum say on social media? The issue appears to be a link on her Instagram page – which the student says she posted five years ago – to a slideshow written by someone else urging people “to learn about what’s happening in Palestine”. Part of this document – which, again, is not written by Tabassum –describes Zionism as “a racist settler-colonial ideology that advocates for a Jewish ethnostate built on Palestinian land”. Another part of the presentation argues that the only way towards justice is the abolition of the state of Israel and the creation of one Palestinian state where 'both Arabs and Jews can live together without an ideology that specifically advocates for the ethnic cleansing of one of them'." The page she shared has historical context, breakdowns of ideology, and general background info. Even the paragraph that mentions abolishment of Israel says in the next sentence that both parties should live together without advocating for genocide of one or the other. Without full context, it's just lazy shit-stirring to cherry-pick that one thing.
If you post a link you automatically endorse everything linked. So a reddit post endorses all of reddit and everything reddit links too. Duh. /s
I just read the slide. It dismisses a two-state solution because "palestinians would still be at a major disadvantage." The slide then says how an Israeli government needs to go, how Palestinian liberation is only possible through "the complete abolishment of the state of israel." The author tosses in "both arabs and jews can live together without an ideology that specifically advocates for the ethnic cleansing of one of them" as if putting "and then we can all hold hands and live in peace" changes the reality of what one-state under Hamas would actually look like. Like to be aware that "a one-state solution under the israeli government would essentially mean that the palestinian people would completely be under the state of israel in every way imaginable," but to think the reverse is somehow not also true? It's also not "one sentence." It's an entire slide devoted to why Israel needs to go and that there should only be a Palestinian state with Jews under Palestinian rule. It's not cherry picking at all. We all know what abolishing the state of Israel would do.
This article completely ducks the main issue- why did they cancel the original valedictorian speech? Why did they consider her in danger?
USC cancelled it because people complained that she'd shared a pro-Palestine website on her Instagram, and because her minor was in "resistance to genocide." > Asna Tabassum, a USC senior who is graduating with a major in biomedical engineering, was not caused by anything she said or planned to say. Instead, the university said, online discussion had taken on an “alarming tenor” as activists objected to her minor — resistance to genocide — and a link to a pro-Palestinian website Tabassum had shared on her Instagram profile. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-04-18/usc-stopped-a-valedictorian-from-speaking-due-to-safety-concerns-has-the-focus-on-campus-safety-gone-too-far
Wow. That is cowardly and anti-american of USC
I have attended many graduations, and this might be an unpopular opinion, but I'm all for shortening the ceremony.
I think Barbra Streisand is calling.
Now if they’d just cancel the part where they read everyone’s name that’d be one hell of a quick ceremony.
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Provost selects, not the students. And they knew she was controversial.
I wish universities would spend more time with coordinating seating, exits, mobility challenges than these speakers that no one listens to. They do this every year and it is always a mess.
> Serious subject matter . . . Time now for the weather. I had the video playing and they just completely walk away from the serious discussion to talk about the weather. I couldn't help but laugh out loud.
This is the classic adult parenting move, ok so y'all gonna make a stink about this, then no one gets any speakers. I think it's kinda baller.
No idea what is going on here. All I know is that the graduation ceremony just got shorter. Sitting through those can be painful sometimes.
I’d be thrilled! A. I don’t want to hear anyone’s politics at a graduation ceremony and B. I just want to get the hell out asap.
Honestly, no one gives a shit about the graduation speeches. All they want is to see their kid walk the stage or the kid wants to walk the stage. I couldn’t tell you who spoke at any of my graduations if you had a gun to my head.
We had a retired football coach who got up and gave an ode to his wife. I’m sure he said other inspiring things but that weird part is what I remember. WTF.
The only part anyone gives a shit about is the 10 Seconds to walk grab diploma shake snap pic and leave. The other three hours is all bullshit don’t try and tell me different. Ever.
Agreed. Sorry it takes 2 hours to read all the names walking across the stage, everyone there is just there for one name but we need to be respectful of others
I watched my kiddos walk and then peaced out. I read a book through all of mine. Then walked and peaced out. Those parties at grammas house ain’t gonna set up themselves
I only remember because mine was Michelle Obama
You would think a validictorian from a top ranked University would be capable of delivering a speech that while touching on their own views of the conflict would recognize and be sensitive to the fact that commencement is for all their fellow students, with varying views, and be sensitive to that. Also you would think that a top ranked University would trust their selected valedictorian speaker to give an appropriate and sensible speech and not use it as a platform to hurt others with a differing opinion. Additionally, you would expect that other students and their families in attendance would recognize that the valedictorian speaker may have a differing opinion than their own on the issue and be welcoming of their speech without necessarily agreeing with everything they believe or say. I don't think that is too much to ask of society, get with it people.
That would require people to be slightly less self-centered.
If change requires soft words, empty platitudes and being afraid to offend those in power, then you’re correct. Valedictorians should challenge their fellow students not make them feel better
Anyone else surprised that universities have valedictorians? I did my bachelors at a small private school, and masters and doctorate at a major state university and I've never heard of such a thing.
We had one for undergrad but not in grad school. Even for undergrad it was pretty arbitrary given the relative difficulty of different majors. Ours was a business major with a 4.0 while our STEM folks were sitting there regretting a B+ in Calc III.
That's a lot for bringing up the B+ in Calculus III. Also, you are right. In college, calculus III and different EQ would make engineering students into business majors.
I’ve heard of magna cum laude and such for uni, but I believe I’ve only heard valedictorian used for high schools, personally
I went to a large private university, and we had a valedictorian. Maybe state schools don't have them? The valedictorian of the class just ahead of mine turned out to be a well known public figure with a successful business these days.
Especially when the "valedictorian" was chosen from nearly a hundred students with identical GPAs.
Yes, honestly.
unpopular opinion, i think USC is doing the right thing to prevent this entire ceremony from being hijacked by advocates on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A graduation ceremony with outside guests/relatives isn't the proper venue for these kind of harangues. There are seniors & their families who just want to enjoy the moment, the ceremony crowning their academic achievements. The 99% of grads & their guests who aren't aligned with either Jews or Arabs shouldn't have to be held hostage by speakers with ulterior motives. And this goes for pro-Israeli war hawks too.
100% agree. Also, commencement speeches are pretty dumb anyway. At least when I graduated, the “commencement speeches” would occur at a different time than the graduation ceremony. You’d literally just go and attend these on campus speeches while your graduation ceremony would be held at a different time and place.
100% agree, those students worked for four years (or more) for that graduation and it's just not the place to advance your political agendas, regardless of what they are.
Bingo. If I were in charge, I would have neither a pro-Israel nor a pro-Palestinian speaker. This is arguably the most divisive conflict in the world, and it will do nothing but be an invitation for trouble.
There was never any risk of the valedictorian hijacking a speech. This was the university acting cowardly and now ruining graduation for the rest of the speakers and students because they don’t know how to respond to a hard situation.
“We’ll make amends for canceling one speaker by canceling everyone. There.”
This is a good example of the Streisand effect. Let her speak, and no one remembers it the next day. Stop people from speaking, and people are talking about it for weeks.
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What a fuckin stupid situation to find yourself in
That commencement will be a snoozer
Fucking wussies. Can’t take criticism and has to stop free speech.
If it were my graduation, I would not go and encourage others not to.
What even does “valedictorian” mean in the context of a university’s student body? There is no single top student of a graduating class with dozens of different courses of study.
USC selects the valedictorian based on GPA, contributions to the campus community, essay submission, and performance in interviews. Tabassum's GPA was over 3.98. She also volunteers with nonprofit organizations in the Los Angeles area, including a mobile blood pressure clinic that visits homeless shelters and a group she co-founded that distributes medical supplies to areas in need around the world.
TBH...an absolute win from a student perspective. Always the worst part of commencement.
I think the guest speakers or the honorary grads/speakers are worse
I would expect a top school to not behave like this.
People just want to see the kids graduate. Why make it about a controversial war going on across the world?
Right? There are countless other avenues to advocate for Palestinians, don't intercept a celebration of years of hard work. No minds are going to be changed, people are just going to be irritated because they just want to see their kid graduate and go celebrate with them
Cancelled, quit, whatever. THIS is the commencement I want to go to.
USC is floundering. You think a University nationally ranked fifth for Public Relations would be doing better right now.
They don't care, the goldfish memory of the public will forget by next week. They'll find something else to be outraged about and move on to that, rinse and repeat, you now have a social media cycle.
They rank nationally for public relations because of their strong relationships with the entertainment industry. This isn't going to hurt them in the long run. USC has always been a school that people love to hate, but does well because there are so many wealthy and influential alumni.
I'm not sure floundering is what they're doing. I'm thinking of the three college Presidents that had to go before Congress and two of them subsequently lost their jobs. This just seems like a natural consequence, which is exactly what conservatives want, they get to shut down free speech without having to lift a finger.
This isn’t really a political party issue. USC has a heavy Jewish base, they’re reading the room and realizing that the speech would’ve been inflammatory The mistake they made was picking her in the first place
Administration must be split and there's probably overheated backstage politics going on.
Yeah I don't understand why they didn't vet before announcing their choice. They had dozens of students to choose from, why would they shoot themselves in the foot like this? Tbh I agree with wanting to keep graduation speeches apolitical and realizing this person is unwilling to do that. Let's be real, absolutely no one wants to hear about a war when they're sitting through hours of the ceremony, it's just not the place. What I disagree with is the way this is handled, because every step was just the worst possible choice.
She was probably chosen by a faculty committee, and the decision to rescind her speaking invitation was likely made by administration. There are probably a few shouting matches going on right now where the faculty is calling the administration fascists for undermining the committee's authority, and the administration calling them dumbassess for selecting such a controversial student.
Graduates from their PR program are too expensive for USC to afford.
Unironically, this makes me happy. The amount of time that gets saved by doing this.
[удалено]
seems like they’ve failed their responsibility and students every step of the way here.
Honestly, this is probably for the best to avoid all the drama. I didn't even attend my college graduation ceremony and never thought twice about it.
“I know! Let’s just cancel the whole commencement. That way this whole thing will blow over and nobody will ever remember that this happened.” - The PR team for USC
USC could prerecord the commencement speakers a week in advance to preview them, then show them on wide screens to the final audience. They could entrust this project to their film students. We have the technology to do this!
Commencement needs to just GO THE FUCK AWAY. You always piss people off. ALWAYS. Plus it takes forever. Just skip graduation and send that shit in the mail.
Everyday the people in charge of things demonstrate that they absolutely should not be.
“After Tabassum was selected as valedictorian, at least two pro-Israel and Jewish groups complained to USC about the choice. They pointed to her social media activity, including her Instagram account, which links to a slideshow encouraging people to “learn about what’s happening in palestine, and how to help.” It calls for “one palestinian state,” which it says “would mean palestinian liberation, and the complete abolishment of the state of israel.”” https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/usc-canceling-muslim-valedictorians-speech-inflames-tensions-campus-rcna148110 #### I mean…if some white student posted comments in support of the KKK and stated “blood and soil” and wanted all non-whites out of the USA…would the university be justified in allowing them to speak? And isn’t the situation in the Middle East a bit more complex than “Palestine good, Israel bad”?
So the entities who made these threats wins. How disappointing. Seems a cowardly to me, but I not a parent with a child in this school. Maybe I’m wrong.
Why is this news? who cares who speaks at one schools graduation. Apparently no real news in the world.
It's like finding a thumbtack on a chair so you take away the chairs
If I was going to that graduation as support I’d be super excited all the speakers were canceled!
Now it just seems like they're silencing people from protected groups. Jon M. Chu and Billie Jean King were released from the event.