Why is USC still celebrating wife-beating, convicted felon and alleged murderer O.J. Simpson?
Meanwhile, the university considers Reggie Bush the real villain
Although the advent of the Trojans return to the Rose Bowl rightfully brings about much reason for celebration, it’s also a worthy time for some honest self-reflection: in the age of ‘woke’ activism and a constant need for causes célèbres, why the fuck do we tolerate USC not just declining to condemn, but actively celebrating O.J. Simpson?
Walking through the Coliseum on game days unites the Trojan family more than nearly anything else. Be it the unity of a shared enemy or the communality of making the day-drunk trek from tailgates to Exposition Park, game day is almost the single most defining trademark of the USC experience. I’m not going to lie and pretend like seeing the giant #32 leaves me “literally shaking” every moment I’m in the Coliseum. But it does make me question the moral integrity of the school’s authorities. It does make me wonder what has corroded our community’s moral code so deeply that we still consider such a public, official endorsement of a violent, sexist felon at all acceptable.
Once upon a time, the most famous Kardashian was a middle-aged lawyer named Robert, and he represented a former USC running back and Heisman trophy winner O.J. Simpson in a trial. The charges? Murdering his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, who he had also been arrested for multiple times previously for repeatedly beating the shit out of her, and murdering her friend Ron Goldman. Although the jury found Simpson innocent, public opinion has been near total consensus that like a million wealthy and powerful men before him, Simpson’s status protected him from the justice system.
USC took down Bush’s jersey from the massive, peristyle steps of the Coliseum and formally un-retired his number after it was discovered that he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars of gifts while playing at USC, thus violating NCAA standards. Meanwhile, Simpson’s jersey remains on the steps, red as blood and guilty as sin, smearing the moral integrity of USC which did not hesitate of erase the legacy of Bush, a good man who did a bad thing, while continuing to celebrate that of Simpson, an objectively bad man.
After the NCAA investigation regarding Bush, President C. L. Max Nikias announced that the university would remove all representation of Bush’s career, asserting that the “Trojan Family honors and respects the USC sporting careers of those persons whose actions did not compromise their athletic program or the opportunities of future USC student-athletes.”
That’s right. In 2011, the university considered the non-violent offense of taking some illicit money more “compromising” to USC athletics than convicted domestic violence, conspiracy, kidnapping and alleged murder.
The Coliseum peristyle steps prior to Bush’s jersey removal
No, the school did not hand out 50,000 O.J. Simpson bobbleheads at the Coliseum as they did with Marcus Allen earlier this year. And no, it’s not as though Nikias has made public declarations of Simpson’s innocence. But by publicly denouncing Bush, the school has chosen to play moral favorites, and the fact that the most egregious crimes against women (and men) have not been lambasted as the worst possible offenses is astoundingly ignorant, evil or both.
Celebrity status buffering powerful men from social consequences is nothing new. Despite Amber Heard behaving as a textbook plaintiff in her domestic violence allegations against her now-ex-husband Johnny Depp, media headlines performed the most fallacious mental gymnastics to exonerate Depp, denying the validity of Heard’s bruised face and citing “ear witnesses” contradicting Heard’s claims. Yes. Ear witnesses. After beating Rihanna to a bloody pulp, Chris Brown’s music career has continued to thrive, with most criticism centered around Rihanna’s decision to date him after the violence because obviously victims of domestic violence can always escape the gaslighting and emotional abuse of their significant others. Just ask Nicole Brown Simpson!
Josef Stalin may have murdered over 30 million people, but at least his Soviet Union had 100 percent employment. Women may be killing themselves in Aleppo to avoid being raped by Bashar al-Assad’s forces as he retakes the city, but at least he’s a formidable leader on the world stage. O.J. Simpson may have beat and murdered his wife, but he was really, really good at football.
Trojans should be able to feel unabashedly proud of our often overblown obsession with our football team. Girls should be allowed to shamelessly don basic song girl skirts and Instagram too many Coliseum photos without a physical reminder of our school’s sexist tolerance for Simpson’s woman hating legacy. As members of a respected institution, we have a right to call for our school to behave respectably, but so long as USC continues to endorse this “maybe he murdered but also football” ethos, USC will be neither respectable nor respectful towards approximately 52 percent of its student body.
As the school hopefully embarks on a new renaissance of Trojan football, perhaps it’s finally time to take down the jersey, un-retire #32 and retire this disgraceful chapter in our school’s past.