‘FAILURE TO PROTECT STUDENTS’

Former USC President Got $7.7M Payout After Sex-Abuse Scandal

C.L. Max Nikias, who remains a professor at the institution, also received a $3 million interest-free housing loan.

Former University of Southern California President C.L. Max Nikias received a nearly $7.7 million compensation package after resigning in August 2018 in the wake of a sex-abuse scandal involving a campus gynecologist, according to financial records obtained Thursday by USA Today. The package amounted to more than three times what his prior annual compensation had been. The USC Board of Trustees wrote in a statement that the board decided to honor the former university president’s contract and granted “certain other provisions to accelerate his departure.” The university also reportedly granted Nikias, who remains a professor at the university and was not directly involved in the abuse, a $3 million, interest-free housing loan. Nikias had resided in the president’s home on campus until the end of 2018. The gynecologist, George Tyndall, had 35 charges against him filed July 9, including six counts of sexual assault and battery.