Graduation and Football at USC highlight the April edition of The Month in Review
There’s plenty that occurred in the news during April. Donald Trump is on trial plus he’s ranting about everyone from Michael Cohen to Jimmy Kimmel. Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks the Eclipse was a sign from God to repent plus she wants to get Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s job. And the Golden Bachelor couple divorced after three long months of marriage.
But the big news is what is happening on college campuses across the nation. Protests over the war in Israel and Gaza have taken over at schools everywhere from Columbia to UCLA. But the focus today is how one school handled some controversies over this and their football program—and did it badly.
Here’s what happened on the campus of the University of Southern California. Each year the school picks a valedictorian from its graduating class. Students with a qualifying grade point average can apply for the award, which comes with a three to five-minute speech at the ceremony. This year’s winner was Asna Tabassum. The biomedical engineering student has a 3.98 grade point average. Due to the conflict in Israel and Gaza, Tabassum, who is Muslim, the selection came off as controversial.
Jewish groups on campus felt the views they saw on her social media sites were anti-semitic. The USC administration reacted by canceling her speech. This was before they even saw a draft of what she planned to say. This led to pro-Palestinian groups complaining about a lack of freedom of speech.
How did the school respond to this—-they canceled everyone’s speech, which included an appearance by tennis legend Billie Jean King.
Tension on campus between pro-Jewish and Palestinian students grew even more tense.
How did the school respond to this—-they canceled graduation altogether. What was school president Carol Folt’s response to this? She blew off reporters’ questions and moved to football and Reggie Bush getting his Heisman Trophy returned: "I am so happy for Reggie and the entire Trojan Family. He won our hearts during his illustrious career and deserved to have his well-earned honor restored." Yeah, that’s how I want my school’s leader to respond during a crisis.
So the USC students, who pay about $85,000 per year in tuition, spent their first year in college taking Zoom classes while everything was on lockdown and now end their college careers without having a graduation celebration. When these kids talk about their college experience, they’ll have quite a story to tell—and all it cost them and their parents was 400K.
Now on to football, as I mentioned above football legend Reggie Bush had his Heisman Trophy reinstated. Because we’re now in the era of Name, Image and Likeness, college football has changed so much from the Bush years that it’s almost unrecognizable. Players are now making money, in some cases such as USC Quarterback Caleb Williams, millions of dollars. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, just that it’s different—and long overdue.
The Heisman Trust felt with the current college football landscape it’s okay that Reggie gets back his trophy. That’s all fine and good, but he’s now welcome back on the SC campus as a conquering hero? Please! The money that Reggie Bush and his family took from an SC booster caused the NCAA to hit the school with sanctions so hard that they haven’t recovered yet. It also caused the NCAA to rescind the school’s last national championship title.
So maybe we should take this down a notch—but not likely. I’m sure we’ll see Reggie Bush on the USC football sidelines this year being celebrated by the school and its fans.
Talking about Heisman winners, USC legendary running back O.J. Simpson died of cancer. Horrific human being and a great athlete—in that order. Yes, you can be both. We’ve been seeing this more often than we like. In his case, it’s not even complicated.
How did the school respond to his death? Not a word! That’s atypical for how they usually treat their stars that have died, but that’s exactly how the relationship between SC and Simpson has been for the last three decades. But then head football coach Lincoln Riley decided he needed to say something:
“Certainly as, a head coach here, you obviously know about his history and his legacy, the kind of player that he was here. We definitely recognize that, and obviously extend our sympathies to his family on their loss.”
Lincoln, dude—your school’s president said nothing. Your boss the athletic director said nothing. Maybe you should have followed their lead? Just shut up and worry about your defense.
That’s all for April. Hopefully, I never have to talk about this school again. See ya with another edition at the end of May.