Inside USC’s battle to get back on track

Good morning, it’s Tuesday, Sept. 8. The weekend’s rain is now behind us, but the humidity remains. Expect it to be hot today (low to mid 90s) and even hotter into the week. 

In June 2024, when I was still an undergraduate at USC, I came across a stunning document that would become a maddening, two-year obsession of mine.

It was an anonymous letter with an almost unbelievable allegation: that USC, unbeknownst to its community, was sinking into an unprecedented financial crisis. And it laid the blame squarely on one person — Carol Folt, USC’s then president.

“President Folt has brought USC to its knees financially, and this letter serves as an urgent call to action,” stated the letter, which ricocheted through the inboxes of faculty, staff, and alumni.

As I would later learn, the letter, which was likely written by an aggrieved USC executive, contained some details that were mischaracterized or unverifiable. (Folt and her fans, certainly, point to the successes of her term.) But the letter was right about what came next: a full-blown retrenchment to solve what was arguably the worst financial crisis in USC’s 146-year history.

When I joined L.A. Material earlier this year, I teamed up with my new colleague Matt Hamilton to take a closer look at how things got so bad for USC, and at what comes next. Matt is, of course, perhaps the best journalist ever to cover the institution: In the late 2010s, when he was at the Los Angeles Times, he and his colleagues uncovered a series of jaw-dropping scandals that toppled the university’s administration.

Today, we published the results of our investigation.

Once the rising star of higher education, USC has been buffeted by near-constant crises for the last decade — in part due to institutional dysfunction that was far deeper than publicly known. A charming new president, billed as the future of USC, is now steering the ship. But the road ahead of him won't be easy. This is the untold story of how USC almost ran aground, and the improbable rise of its new leader.

RETURN OF THE L.A. TIMES ED BOARD? After more than a year of silence, the L.A. Times Editorial Board issued an opinion — a strong condemnation of Proposition 40, the so-called billionaire tax. The newspaper’s’s editorial board, which attracted national notice with a staff exodus last year, currently has just two members, according to the Times website: executive editor Terry Tang and the paper’s billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong. 

SPENDING META’S BILLIONS: California is tentatively set to receive a $2.1 billion payout from Meta’s recent child-safety lawsuit settlement. The question now, as Politico explores, is how the state might spend it. 

SECRET NO LONGER: The hottest movie at the Telluride Film Festival was a surprise screening of a three-hour documentary about disgraced tech founder Elizabeth Holmes, helmed by Angeleno Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim. In an astonishing detail, Fielder moved in with Holmes and her family in the days before her imprisonment. 

LOST AT SEA FOR 15 HOURS: The New York Times has a harrowing depiction of what happened after two longtime friends rented jet skis in Long Beach one evening last month.  

POSTCARD FROM SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY: The Washington Post delves into the battle for the contested California House seat currently represented by Republican Rep. David Valadao. Previous Democratic challengers, all unsuccessful, have tacked to the center, but Valadao’s opponent this cycle is unabashedly progressive. 

For today’s peek inside our member-only forum, @ClancyV elevates airport dining in the #i-was-here channel:

AND FINALLY… A poem to pair with your morning coffee: “Water” by Robert Lowell.