Statement on Zoombombing

The Department of American Studies and Ethnicity condemns the recent racist Zoombombings perpetrated against our faculty and students, and others within the USC community. Our departmental mission is to educate in the comprehensive analysis of race and ethnicity and engage students and the public to understand diversity, the consequences of disparity and inequity, and the enactment of community and citizenship at multiple scales in Los Angeles, California, the United States and the world. While ours has always been a challenging mission, we, like so many others around the country and across the globe, are confronting exacerbated forms of oppression in a society dramatically reshaped by the Coronavirus pandemic. The racist Zoombombings are far more than disruptions to our learning environments; they are bigoted affronts to the very mission of our department. Moreover, because the current crisis has shifted work into our homes, these attacks have invaded the safe havens we all strive to maintain. We appreciate the response from the president and provost of USC and implore them to remain vigilant in determining who was responsible for these acts—hate crimes should not be tolerated in any academic environment. We stand not only with our faculty and students, but also with Asian Americans and all vulnerable groups who are being targeted during this crisis.