USC and the Education Department’s Largest Sexual Violence Investigation Ever

The University of Southern California agreed to overhaul all of its procedures for reporting allegations of sexual misconduct after a federal investigation revealed that the school failed to protect female students from a gynecologist who worked at its health center for decades.

"The findings are quite extensive," Kenneth Marcus, assistant secretary of education for civil rights, said Thursday during a press briefing. "Some of them are quite graphic. The facts in this case are extraordinarily egregious. It's risen to the level of the most shocking cases we have ever seen."

The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights in May 2018 opened what would become the largest sexual violence investigation it had ever undertaken to determine USC's Title IX compliance regarding the allegations of sexual misconduct by Dr. George Tyndall, who was employed by the university since 1989. Title IX is the statute that protects against discrimination on the basis of sex at educational institutions that receive federal funding.

From 2000 to 2009, five patients reported to USC that Tyndall sexually harassed them. Four additional patients also complained to the university of mistreatment by Tyndall, describing situations in which he made inappropriate remarks about the physical attributes of patients' bodies during pelvic exams.

But federal officials found that the university failed to investigate the allegations or do anything to prevent future sexual misconduct, which the report states "may have allowed female students to be subjected to continuing sex discrimination."

Later, in 2016, the university failed to investigate complaints that Tyndall conducted pelvic exams without gloves and also failed to investigate complaints raised by chaperones and the nurse supervisor when Tyndall penetrated patients with his fingers during exams and full-body skin checks.

That same year, when the university discovered more than 200 photos of patients' genitals in Tyndall's office, it failed to investigate whether taking photos of patients and possessing them constituted sex discrimination. Moreover, the report outlines how the school failed to locate the remaining photographs that Tyndall admitted to taking from 1989 to 2010. Officials even found that USC allowed him to continue seeing patients for a day and a half after the discovery of the photos.

Tyndall resigned in June of 2017, and the Los Angeles Police Department began the largest investigation of sexual abuse it's ever conducted. In July 2019, he pleaded not guilty to charges of sexually abusing 16 patients.

Marcus said that he is disappointed by how uncooperative university officials were with the investigation, though ultimately pleased with the terms of the agreement.

"There are so many problems we discovered with respect to record keeping that it's difficult to determine with certainty whether documents were withheld intentionally or whether they simply weren't brought to the attention of [the Office for Civil Rights]," he said, adding that some the university withheld citing legal privilege.

As a result of what Marcus called "systemic failures" in its handling of allegations of sexual misconduct made against Tyndall, the Education Department is requiring the school to overhaul its Title IX procedures, conduct a formal review of current and former employees to determine whether they responded appropriately to reports of sex discrimination, provide mandatory Title IX training for staff and allow the Office for Civil Rights to monitor its compliance for three years.

Separate from the Education Department's investigation, the university in June 2019 agreed to a $215 million class action settlement for tens of thousands of women Tyndall treated.

"This total and complete failure to protect students is heartbreaking and inexcusable," Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said in a statement. "Too many at USC turned a blind eye to evidence that Dr. Tyndall was preying on students for years."