In the last two years alone, local journalists have revealed that the University of Southern California kept on staff an allegedly meth-smoking medical school dean, his allegedly sexually abusive replacement, a gynecologist who allegedly spent three decades molesting hundreds of students, the Title IX staff that allegedly protected him, and the Vice President of Student Affairs who allegedly issued a hush-money payout to the now-disgraced doctor and failed to report him to the police.
Students are understandably unhappy. In that context, interim President Wanda Austin is trying to purge the beloved Dean James Ellis — the man solely responsible for bringing the Marshall School of Business to gender parity, the first MBA program in the nation to do so — in the name of diversity, no less. Alumni are livid as well. The termination of Ellis may cost the university millions in donations.