'Stronger Than Hate @ USC' Kicks Off Events
'Stronger Than Hate @ USC' kicked off the first virtual event in a four-part series confronting hate at USC, past, present, and future.
USC President Carol Folt addressed attendees of STRONGER THAN HATE "Anti-Semitism at USC: Past and Present, followed by an expert panel moderated by Varun Soni, Dean of Religious Life at USC. Featured panelists included: Steven Ross, Director, USC Casden Institute and Professor of History; Dave Cohn, Executive Director, USC Hillel; Rabbi Susan Laemmle, Dean of Religious Life Emeritus at USC; Rabbi Laura Geller, Rabbi Emeritus, Temple Emanuel and Rabbi Emeritus, USC Hillel; and Claude Zachary, USC University Archivist
Stronger Than Hate @ USC was featured in a front-page Sunday Los Angeles Times article as a University-wide response to the rising tide of identity-based hatred. USC Shoah Foundation Finci-Viterbi Executive Director, Stephen Smith previously detailed incidents on campus in an Op-Ed published in The Forward.
USC Shoah Foundation and USC Museums have come together to form the USC Stronger than Hate initiative. Our collective is dedicated to root out and resist hate in its many forms: antisemitism, anti-Black and anti-Asian racism, islamophobia, xenophobia, homophobia, and the many other ways of othering. The initiative involves staff and faculty, schools and centers, and of course our students. As the streets, social media and physical spaces fill with demands for action and change, our response is to create a robust, inclusive cultural and academic program that represents our diverse community, providing practical educational tools and resources, a new way to map and make visible things that divide us and robust resources for connection, outreach and support.
"In a year in which many of us might say we feel like strangers in our own land and to one another, Stronger than Hate @ USC helps us get to the heart of the matter: what we try to debate as issues in our social and political lives are not merely factual, they are felt," said Dr. Bethany Montagano, Director, USC Pacific Asia Museum. "To nurture change, we must get curious and caring about the other side. As our deepest connection to our own humanity and that of others the arts remind us to look and listen closer to the complexity of another's experience."
Current 'Stronger Than Hate @ USC' Partners include:
- Title IX
- USC School Cinematic Arts
- Experiential and Applied Learning
- USC Educational Partnerships, USC University Relations
- USC Government Programs and University Relations Initiatives
- USC Center for Work and Family Life
- USC Hillel
- ONE Archives at the USC Libraries
- USC Museums
- Hebrew Union College
- USC Equity Research Institute
- USC Campus Wellness and Crisis Intervention
- USC Casden Institute
- USC Price, Safe Communities Institute
- USC Arts in Action
- USC Visions and Voices
- USC Office of Wellbeing and Education
- Center for Religion and Civic Culture
- Critical Media Project
- USC Rossier School of Education
- Center EDGE
- USC Marshall School of Business
Like this article? Get our e-newsletter.
Be the first to learn about new articles and personal stories like the one you've just read.
