The University of Southern California canceled a state gubernatorial debate because it would have included the leading candidates (who happened to be white), and not the minority candidates (who had less support in public opinion polls and had raised less money). USC has not canceled past debates where all candidates were non-white, so its action appears to be racially discriminatory.
USC President Beong-Soo Kim canceled the debate “less than 24 hours before [the debate] was set to take place,” notes the Daily Trojan.
Minority candidates Xavier Becerra, Antonio Villaraigosa, Betty Yee, and Tony Thurman held a press conference last week “urging other candidates to boycott” the debate due to the participation eligibility “algorithm” — which ended up including only white candidates.
Fundraising and polling, weighted 35 and 65 percent, respectively, were the two factors in USC Professor Christian Grose’s “data-driven candidate viability formula,” the Trojan noted.
Becerra and the others claimed this objective formula “rigged” the debate in favor of whites. “We ask each and every candidate who is in this race to recognize that if we can’t have a fair process for a debate, then we should all not participate,” said Becerra, a Latino.
Becerra earlier criticized USC in a “public letter” for not including “any Democratic candidates of color.”
Thurman, who is African-American, said that because “California is the biggest and the most diverse state in the nation,” “To do something that has the effect of excluding the four candidates of color is really just criminal.”
President Kim tried to pressure the local ABC affiliate to include the minority candidates, but it “was unwilling” to do so.
The College Fix says that “campus support for Professor Grouse appeared to be widespread. The Trojan Democrats stated on Instagram that Grouse did not ‘act in bad faith or sought to unfairly shape the debate field to favor or disfavor any candidate.'”
