The Censure of USC President Folt, OC Homelessness & Pageantry Drama

ICYMI: Hour One of ‘Later, with Mo’Kelly’ Presents – Thoughts on the censure of USC President Carol Folt, and Provost Andrew Guzman over what the University of Southern California’s Academic Senate deemed a “mishandling of the issues leading up to the cancellation of commencement” …PLUS – A look at Orange Counties skyrocketing homeless population AND the reasons behind the current Miss USA and Miss Teen USA stepping down - on KFI AM 640…Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app

Episode Transcript

(00:21):
Okay, IM six forty is laterwith Mo Kelly. We're live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app. Got a hugeshow for you tonight. I'm gonna talk
about how Occidental College Occidental they arevoting on divestment. If there's any college
or university which may have been makingheadway as far as protesters are concerned,
Occidental has made this. I shouldsay the student protesters have made one step

(00:46):
forward. Let's see if they endup with two steps back. We'll talk
about that next segment. And LaCounty is not the only county having a
real issue with homelessness, as OrangeCounty. The homeless poppy has skyrocketed over
the past two years. And I'mgoing to talk about I would say the
evolution of Miss USA and Miss teenUSA in the wake of not one,

(01:11):
but two resignations by crown holders thisweek. So much to discuss tonight,
but let's start with the news.All of these protests on campus as it
relates to what has been happening herein southern California, can be traced back
to USC and I distinctly remember,in fact, I'll give the credit to

(01:34):
to Walla Shark. He was theone who called it out first. USC
is handling this all wrong. They'redoing everything wrong, if only because it
had to do with a school valedictorian. Nothing had transpired as of yet,
nothing had escalated. And then USCdid a preemptive strike and shot themselves in

(01:57):
the foot by saying the valedictorian cannotwill not speak at graduation. And then
it escalated from there. And itis not all USC's fault because part of
that escalation was due to outside forcesand agitators, completely unrelated to the university,

(02:20):
completely unrelated to the valedictorian asked offto Boston, completely unrelated to any
of the issues connected to USC.It got hijacked. But nonetheless, I
would say it was put in motionbecause of poor decisions made by the university.
To that end, the University ofSouthern California's Academic Senate, that's the

(02:44):
body that represents the school's faculty.It's not a student by the organization,
it's a faculty organization voted to censurePresident Carrol Foult and the Provost Andrew Gusmann
yesterday over what they said was themishandling of the issues leading up to the
cancellation of commencement we've talked about.It is going to be at the coliseum

(03:08):
or some form of commencement. It'sa party. They're going to have bands
playing and doves flying, stuff likethat, but it's not going to be
what was originally intended on the maincampus. Members of USC's Academic Senate and
I understand this to be the studentorganization, were also reportedly upset with the

(03:31):
quote the posture of administrators toward proPalestinian demonstrators on school grounds close quote.
About ninety three people were arrested byLAPD. The academic senates twenty one to
seven vote for a resolution censuring Foltand Guzman cited quote widespread dissatisfaction and concern

(03:53):
close quote over the way the recentcommencement related controversies were handled. Did you
see that consistent theme? It wasmishandled. It wasn't It wasn't a thing
until they made it a thing.It didn't become something major and newsworthy until

(04:13):
they made it newsworthy. I don'tthink anyone was even thinking about USC and
what was going to happen at commencementuntil they preemptively shocked themselves in the foot
and said, hey, you knowwhat, we know you had a great
academic career, miss valedictorian Austin toBOSTM, But we think given your academic

(04:33):
h off campus activities and things yousaid publicly, it'd be a good idea
if you just sat this graduation out. I know you're the valedictorian. I
know it's a big night in yourlife and academic career, but you know
there is this concern about violence.What a violence? We're not going to
tell you. We just were concernedabout the possibility of there being some sort

(04:55):
of social unrest on that day.What unrest? We just take our word
for it. They didn't even andtell the general public. And I think
Twaala, you're the one who saidthis. If you said to us,
hey, we've been receiving threats,so we know that this is a possibility
or that's a possibility, maybe peoplewould have been more willing to buy the
story that they were selling, butthey didn't, and we were left with

(05:18):
we were concerned about the possibility orsomething happening graduation. So you, individually,
you, specifically, you definitely willnot be speaking of graduation. What
about everyone else? No? Justyou? But what are just you?
But why only me? Because you'rethe only one who might be pro Palestinian.

(05:39):
I'm Ron Burgundy. They messed itup. We told you they messed
it up. And now what isthe censure. Well, I think of
it as a sternly worded reprimand that'sbasically, no one's going to lose their
job, no one's getting fined,no one's going to get suspended from their
position. But publicly it does goon the and confirms what I believed and

(06:02):
other people had believed. I thinka reasonable person could surmise that this was
the wrong way to go about it. I will listen to the argument that
this the protest, the unrest,given what has happened on other campuses,
eventually would have hit USC anyway.I'll listen to that argument. But that's

(06:25):
not what actually happened. That's ahypothetical. We will never know. What
we do know is the university kickedall this in year, all by themselves
for no discernible reason. It's notlike they can point to an incident on
campus that there was a fight,there was a threat, there was anything

(06:48):
untoward, which suggests that we haveto nip this in the butt. And
it was directly connected to the valedictorian. If that were the case, then
we could have that different conversation,but we didn't have that. It did
not happen, and USC decided todo what they did for no discernible reason.

(07:09):
And the rest, they say,is history. But let this be
a lesson to all universities. Youdon't have to make the wrong decision.
You don't have to get in frontof a problem that does not exist.
It seems like they made this decisionin a vacuum, didn't really ask anybody,
didn't consider the consequences, didn't considerthe possibilities of where it may go

(07:30):
from there. And it's snowball.But we can say it's snowball because of
the university and nobody else. We'regoing to talk about Occidental when we come
back. You're listening to Later withMoe Kelly on demand from KFI AM six
forty. Occidental College struck a dealwith protesters. There will be a vote

(07:54):
on divesting from Israel linked companies Occidental. Occidental Students for Justice in Palestine's encampment
started about a week ago, hadabout fifteen tenths, but it has grown
to well over one hundred. Theirdemands that the college should divest from any

(08:18):
first, investigate, disclose, andthen divest from any investments in Boeing,
Elbit Systems, Caterpillar, and LockheedMartin. This is according to the Los
Angeles Times, and in exchange,in this agreement, demonstrators agreed to vacate
the encampment. The agreement is centeredaround having this vote not necessarily the result

(08:45):
of the vote. Now get tothat in just a second. And depending
where you're from, you may notbe familiar with Occidental College. It's a
small school. It's a well regardedliberal arts college. It has about two
thousand students. The campus is justnorth of downtown. In a size since
it's about when I looked it up, it was about maybe one hundred and

(09:07):
twenty acres, which is about halfthe size of the campus of USC UCLA
has like thirty five forty thousand students. You can use that as a comparison
point. We're not talking about alot of students, we're not talking about
a large university. But I canconcede Occidental those protesters they've gotten further in

(09:33):
their endeavor than just about everyone elsein the nation. I don't know whether
it's going to be material in naturein the sense of what they will be
able to get out of this.But they've made some inroads, but we're
only talking about two thousand undergraduate students, not a lot. But here's the
thing. I don't see any realacknowledgment that the vote will not go the

(10:00):
student's way. If the vote doesn'tgo your way, what does that mean?
Well, even if the vote doesgo your way, what type of
enforcement provision do you have? Isthat total disclosure and total divesting or is
it something else? How do youknow that the university will keep its into
the bargain if there is a bargain. Those are the things that I would

(10:22):
want to see and hope they haveready in place in the event that the
vote does or does not go theirway. It's not clear on any of
that. But the vote is supposedto be held by the Board of Trustees
by June sixth, not so coincidentally, that's probably after graduation, I think.
So, I don't know how muchOccidental is risking here, And I

(10:46):
don't know if these protesters are currentstudents, graduating students, former students.
Think about it. If you're gettingready to graduate and you do graduate,
how connected are you to the protestat that point, what leverage do you
have? But no, do youhave any leverage at all if you're a

(11:07):
student. The only leverage you have, honestly is to keep protesting for a
school term, which would be overat that point. And if you are
no longer a student. Even ifyou are a student, what leverage do
you have outside of withholding your tuition? Got news for you? Occidental has
an acceptance rate of about thirty eightpercent, meaning that there are a lot

(11:31):
of people, a lot of studentswho potentially would like to go to Occidental.
They won't miss your tuition. Youare replaceable, And that's what I
think some of the protesters don't understandin viewing this big picture, and there's
something else. This is more philosophicalin nature. People sometimes forget it's not

(11:54):
enough to be right in your mind. You also have to be righteous in
how you go about it. Foxto Watten, we stop at being right.
What's happening in Palestine and Gaza,that's wrang. The right thing to
do is X, Y and Z. I'm not even gonna argue that,

(12:16):
but I know a lot of peoplefeel that way. It's not enough to
be right. You also have tobe righteous and how you go about it.
That's why the civil rights movement wassuccessful. It took a lot of
years. In fact, it tookmore than twelve years. It started in
the mid fifties and did not fullybecome successful until the late nineteen sixties.

(12:39):
That's a long continuum. It's along time to be marching, it's a
long time to be protesting. Imake that comparison because you can't necessarily expect
that because you set up a tentin May, you're gonna get everything you
want come June of that same year. It's not enough to be right.

(13:01):
You also have to be righteous inhow you go about it. Occidental congratulation
students there in the sense of youhave made a positive step, But I'm
not so sure you have an enforcementprovision. If you should lose the vote,
and I have a sneaking suspicion,you probably will lose the vote because

(13:24):
these colleges and universities ultimately are dependentupon money endowments they fund the university,
and you're asking these colleges and universitiesto forego millions of dollars with nothing to
replace it. I don't know howthe vote's going to go but I suspect

(13:46):
it probably won't go the way youexpect it to go, and you better
be prepared for the vote not goingyour way because you backed yourself into the
corner, I would say, respectfully, because you said the deal was predicated
on the vote, not the resultof the vote. The deal was will

(14:07):
remove our tents if we have thisvote. You have the vote, and
what happens if you lose? Doesthat mean you bring the tents back?
No, because then you would begoing against the agreement. You would have
lost at that point. These arethe things that all the protests and all
the protesters got to think about,because at this point nobody has won yet.

(14:28):
Are you committed for the next twoyears, three years, five years,
ten years, or is it onlya matter of if nothing else happens
in Gaza, does all this goaway? Or are you going to take
the lessons of the civil rights movementand be willing to fight for this for
more than a decade if need be. You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly

(14:52):
on Demand from KFI AM six forty. Yesterday, I had a fantastic conversation
with La County Supervisor Catherine. Ifyou missed it, please check it out.
On the podcast, I mentioned thatbecause part of what we talked about
was the overlap in issues from LosAngeles to city to Los Angeles County,

(15:13):
and I was making the point that, you know, problems don't stop at
an imaginary, non physical border.The same is true when we talk about
La County and Orange County. Someof the policies and the politicians may be
different, but the problems aren't relegatedto just one area or another. Homelessness

(15:35):
is one of those issues. Didyou know that Orange County homeless population has
absolutely skyrocketed in the past two years. The county said the amount of homeless
people in the county has risen twentyeight percent, or by about six teen

(16:00):
hundred people in two years. Sixteenhundred more homeless people in just two years.
There was a thirty seven percent increasein the unsheltered segment of the unhoused
population during that same timeframe. Thereare people who are homeless who may be
living in their car, they're notunsheltered. That's the distinction. Also,

(16:25):
according to the report, there areseventy three hundred homeless people in Orange County.
Overall, Santa Anna and Anaheim,we're far and away. This is
according to KTLA dot com. We'refar and away the top two cities with
the highest homeless populations Anaheim. Kindof a big deal given our previous conversations

(16:49):
about what Disney expansion Anaheim arguably nodisrespect to Newport Beach, no disrespect to
Huntington Beach, Lagoon, no disrespectto any other cities in Orange County.
But Adaheim's kind of the crown jewel, if only because Disneyland. That's all
I'm saying. I know I starteda fight with that, but but thirty

(17:12):
seven percent increase in Los excuse me, Orange County and Anaheim and Santa Anna
top two cities with the highest homelesspopulations, Santa Anna fourteen hundred and twenty
eight and Anaheim fourteen hundred and seventeen, respectively. In Anaheim, since we

(17:33):
were talking about Anaheim, more thanhalf of that fifty seven percent of that
population is sheltered, so it mightbe the working homeless, but still homeless
by definition. Part of that largerdebate we were Catherine Barger and I supervisor
Barger. She was saying that wewould not be able to just build our

(17:56):
way out of the homelessness issue.It's not about just building shelters. If
she's correct. Check this out.Orange County is saying that it's still working
to add more shelter beds as thecurrent capacity is just shot of four thousand
beds. No one has an answerto this. Here's why. Because you

(18:19):
can't treat all of the causes forhomelessness. You can only treat the homeless
person, for the most part,after they're homeless, after they're unhoused,
when they're out of work, whenthey're dealing with mental health issues, when
they're dealing with substance abuse issues.You encounter them when they're homeless. We're

(18:41):
dealing with them as they're already homeless. It's kind of difficult to deal with
the factors which may lead to homelessness. Of course, one of the reasons
that people do end up homeless.Cost of living in California, especially in
Orange County, is sky high.I would believe just about nine out of

(19:02):
ten people listening right now, andI'm not trying to exaggerate, I'm being
absolutely serious. Nine out of tenpeople listening right now are probably one or
two paychecks away from being homeless.Most people don't have adequate savings to last
month after month after month. Ilove my job, but I don't know

(19:26):
how long I could exist without it. Two months, maybe three at top
tops. I don't know, MarkRonner, what about you? You don't
even want to know, Okay,but the majority of Americans are like a
four hundred dollar emergency expense away fromcatastrophe. This has been true for years
now, right right, those arethe things you can't treat. We say

(19:51):
we gotta stop homelessness. Well,you're gonna have to fundamentally change the whole
economic structure of America for that case. That's the only way, because people
who are going to be homeless twomonths from now, there's nothing you can
do to prevent that. There arethings happening right now in people's lives.
There are medical emergencies, there arefinancial emergencies. People may lose their job,

(20:11):
people may have an unexpected expense likeMark was talking about, and then
all of a sudden you're on thedoorstep. No pun intended of being homeless.
Well, the thing is that there'ssuch a massive spectrum that you would
need to address that it's hard toget a grip on any one place.
And that ranges from mental health treatmentto not letting corporations jack up the prices

(20:32):
of residential homes yep, and everythingin between. That it's a massive amount
to tackle. And I've said thisbefore and I have to say it again
because since we're so angry about homelessness. It's weird how we're so angry about
homelessness, but we voted twice againstrent control. You know those things are
connected, right, You do knowthat if rent can rise unfettered, there

(20:56):
is a greater propensity for people toend up on the street. Right,
There is a connection. There's acorrelation. It's a causal relationship, not
a correlation that's causal. Higher therent, more likely people gonna end up
homeless. You mean, we can'tjust wish for things to go away and
they disappear and we don't have todeal with them. What are you saying.
I'm saying the cognitive dissonance is astounding. We complain about higher gas prices,

(21:22):
we complain about higher prices, wecomplain about fast food workers making twenty
dollars an hour, But at thesame time we complain about people ending up
homeless because the cost of living continuesto increase. But we don't want people
to make more because what we'd haveto pay more for certain goods and services.

(21:45):
It is all connected. And yes, it started out with a conversation
about homelessness in Orange County, butit's applicable all across the state. I
got Newstreet, I was talking toproducer Keianna and we were having this discussion
about where the Orange County border beginsand ends. Is it at Long Beach
or is it like Los Alamados.But it kind of highlights the point it

(22:10):
doesn't really matter when you're talking aboutthe ills of society, if you're talking
about crime, if you're talking abouthomelessness, you're talking about safety, if
you're talking about all the things thatwe're trying to improve here. It doesn't
stop at the county border. Butif we actually want to do something about
homelessness, there are two facets toit. There's dealing with the issue of

(22:32):
people who are already on the street, their issues rehousing them, and there's
also the larger picture of dealing withthe factors and variables which lead to homelessness.
Not everyone is ending up on thestreet because there's a mental health issue
or a substance abuse issue. Sometimesit's just straight good old economics garden variety.

(22:55):
Can't afford life in California now wheremaybe the pre maybe this month they
could. And there's nothing I hatemore than say, well, they should
move, they should leave California.I don't think most people were planning to
be homeless. I might be wrong. I might be wrong. Maybe they
had it on their calendar. Youknow, it's it's May ninth right now.

(23:15):
In July, I'm gonna be homeless. And that's my plan. That's
my life goal, that's my lifeplan. I don't think it actually works
like that. I think life happens. I didn't expect to go through foreclosure.
I didn't expect to almost lose myhome. Life happened, lost my

(23:36):
job unexpectedly, tried to tread waterfor about six months, and I did
all the things that you're supposed todo. What did they tell you supposed
to have like maybe two three monthssave? I did all that. That's
easy to say, right, butI'm saying I did all the stuff that
I was supposed to do, andstill I was knocking on that door.

(24:00):
It's nice to talk about, well, if we would elect this person,
the problem would be solved. No, it doesn't work that way. The
problem is much more than just notliking the site of homelessness. And I
believe most people just don't like seeinghomeless people. If you could bust them
out to Victorville and put them onsome compound where you wouldn't have to look
at them, you would be justfine. You would not care about them,

(24:22):
their livelihoods, their families, rebuildinganything. You would not care about
that. You just don't want tosee homelessness. But you know, congratulations
Orange County, you just like LaCounty in that regard. Oh who said
that? I know that, Hurt. I know that Hurt. I know
you moved to Orange County so youwouldn't have to deal with the stuff in
La County. But the borders,Dear imaginary, you know you're susceptible too.

(24:48):
When we come back, we're goingto talk about Miss USA and Miss
Teen USA and this evolution of societyregarding women. You're listening to with Moe
Kelly on Demand from KFI AM sixforty. It used to be unthinkable for
a winner of a major pageant tostep down on her own, be it

(25:15):
Miss USA, Miss America, MissWorld, Miss Teen USA. It was
very prestigious. Once once upon atime, I think we're at another point
in which our society is evolving,as Miss teen USA has resigned just days
after Miss USA has resigned, andthey both gave just about the same reason

(25:37):
that their personal values no longer fullyaligned with the organization. Tierras and turmoil.
Miss teen USA Uma Sophias Rivostova ofNew Jersey resigning just days after Miss
USA did the same. The Missteen USA organization responding to the news by
saying, we respect and support ortUma Sophia's decision to step down from her

(26:02):
duties. The well being of ourtitleholders is a top priority. All this
happening just two days after Miss USA, Noelia Voit resigned herself citing mental health,
writing, never compromise your physical andmental wellbeing. Our health is our
wealth. Respected pageant coach Tom Brodoor, who worked with Voight, talking to
ABC News exclusively, saying the MissUSA organization created an environment where contestants could

(26:29):
not advocate for themselves. I've hadsix of my clients in the last forty
eight hours back out. They've completelycanceled any further training that they were planning.
Fans online noticing a cryptic pattern inVoid's announcement, the first letters of
some of the sentences, appearing tospell out the phrase I am silenced voight
finding support among a majority of herfellow class members. Let me just stop

(26:53):
it right there. I think it'smore than just mental health. It's more
than the rigors of the expectations ofa crown title holder. I think that
as a society the United States andaround the world, we're evolving. And
I remember when my mother told methat she couldn't wear pants to church.

(27:17):
I remember historically learning about how womencouldn't vote. I remember Mark, you
probably remember this in a historical stentsense, that women couldn't get a mortgage
on their own credit callsurres and theirbank accounts. After a certain point,
society evolved. I would say thatwe evolved in a positive way. Maybe

(27:41):
we're let me just spitball here,Maybe we're at the point where we've outgrown
these pageants. Even Miss America gotrid of the swimsuit competition years ago.
Well, look at what these thingsreally are. They really are just ancient
fertility rights. Really thinly disguised iswhat talent contests. It is not even

(28:02):
a talent contest, because talent supposedlywas one component of the competition. It
wasn't even majority talent, and eventhen it was, it was questionable some
of the talent which was on display, Yeah, Findley Finley disguised. Can't
we just go ahead and say growthis good? Can't we say we've looked

(28:26):
at history as a general guide inour views about women, how we've treated
women. They've come a long way. And maybe, and this actually goes
back to the Boy Scouts of Americaconversation, these pageants are trying to adapt
or they're going to die. AndI don't know if even adaptation is going
to save these pageants. I thinkwe passed them and I don't want to

(28:51):
be, you know, just abunch of men talking about women here,
Producer Kianna, I actively want youin this conversation. Growing up in your
peer group, what were these pageantsperceived as I growing up, I never
found any kind of interest in pageantry. It just felt like showing off who

(29:14):
is the prettiest and who is thebest woman around? Did it matter in
your peer group? No, notat all, at least the group that
I surrounded myself with. We neverlooked at pageantry as what we aspired to
be when we were older, growingup, and so it I don't know.

(29:36):
It leaves a bad taste in mymouth whenever I think of pageantry and
all that. Times changed. Iremember growing up watching the Miss America and
the Miss UA pageants, sitting onthe floor. My whole family would watch
it. It was a big deal. Ridiculous looking back now, but it
was a big deal. But America'schanged, the world has changed. I

(29:57):
think that we probably are putting thesepageants in the rear view. Ye are
y'all? Are you okay with that? Let's let me just say, is
Jen why gen Z and the Millenniusare they okay with that? I'm I'm
pretty sure we're all okay with it. I don't think i've unless it's my

(30:18):
parent putting their child through toddlers andtiaras and going through pageantry as in a
young age, I don't. Idon't see it continuing in my generation and
the generations that come after me.I don't. It has no interest,
there's no no stakes. I talkabout this not only is the person who's

(30:40):
just on the radio talking about thenews. I talk about it as someone.
One of my best friends is ChrisWilliams. So I went to college
with younger brother of the Nessa Williams. The the Nessa Williams, the horror
stories that I've heard about not onlyher history first black Miss America and she
had to give back her crown becauseof that scandal, but the horrors of

(31:03):
just what it takes to even getto that point. It seems like it
has no place in society today.I have another friend who's a prominent broadcaster.
Won't use her name, but shewas Miss North Carolina in the Miss
USA systems. So I hear thesestories firsthand, stories of what it's like,
the whole pageant universe, and howit's completely out of step with what

(31:29):
we think of womanhood today. Idon't see myself in any of these women.
If if I truly look at thesewomen in a lineup and it's a
beauty pageant, I don't see myselfas you know, your typical person at
Target shopping around for Target clothing,Like I don't see myself in it's unrealistic

(31:56):
like looks. And because I asa young girl looking at these women,
that's not who I see in myself, because I don't look like that,
And so it's why are we holdingthem to a higher standard? And why
is the Miss America Pageant Corporation whateverthey're called, like making these women feel

(32:20):
like they have to be something thatthey're not. Well, once upon a
time there was value in that andthere were careers made out of winning these
pageants. This is a conversation Ithink we're going to continue in the long
course of news. It's not goingto be just these pageants. It's going
to be pageants in the future,and you're going to see more and more
women, I believe, not evenpursuing these pageants and also advocating their role

(32:44):
as pageant winners. We'll see it'slater with mo Kelly k IF. I
am six forty Live Everywhere on theiHeartRadio app stimulating talk for independent thun k
s. I'm kost HD two LosAngeles, Orange County Lives Everywhere on the Actor Radio