November 11, 2021
Content warning: This message mentions sexual assault.
Dear USC Community,
Recent allegations of sexual violence and misconduct have hit our campus hard. We are committed to ensuring the safety of our students and building a compassionate community. As part of that effort, we are establishing a Working Group on Interfraternity Council Culture, Prevention, and Accountability.
The Working Group is charged with:
- Making recommendations regarding the suspension of IFC social activities, including the conditions that should be met before they can resume;
- Reviewing IFC recognition, education, and prevention strategies and redesigning them as necessary to align with USC’s core values and safety expectations;
- Re-envisioning the accountability process to address failures to act consistently with our values; and
- Tackling the broader issues of sexual assault and misconduct, excessive drinking, and drugs.
The group is focused initially on IFC because the recent allegations emerged from these communities, but it will expand to the broader university to address these issues across campus among other populations.
The working group will be co-chaired by Dr. Monique S. Allard, Acting Vice President of Student Affairs, and Dr. Christopher Manning, USC’s Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer. Membership will be composed of an inclusive group of representatives from the Division of Student Affairs, IFC representatives and fraternity and sorority members, Undergraduate Student Government, USC’s offices of EEO-TIX and the Office of Professionalism and Ethics, violence prevention experts with RSVP, faculty, and academic leaders. We will share the full roster of members soon.
We also want to emphasize that while we will move deliberatively, we want to act swiftly. We expect a report with initial recommendations on IFC by December 17, 2021.
As we move forward together, we urge our community to share their views on this deeply painful subject in the spirit of mutual respect. We are seeking meaningful outcomes that will include strong preventative efforts with the goal of ending sexual violence on our campus.
We will continue to communicate our work and progress on this issue and share any important updates.
Sincerely,
Charles F. Zukoski
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs