USC Student Body President Alleges Racial Abuse on Campus

The Indian-born president of USC’s student body was racially abused and had a drink thrown at her as she walked past a USC frat house, it was reported today. Rini Sampath was walking back from a friend’s apartment on Saturday night when a male voice yelled at her, “You Indian piece of s---”, and a drink was thrown at her, the Washington Post reported.

The fraternity was not identified by Sampath, who wrote about the incident on her Facebook page before it was reported by the Post.

Sampath said another member of the fraternity apologized to her.

The Post said Sampath had chosen to publicize the incident to draw attention to what she described as racism on the campus.

Sampath told the Post the slur was “a verbal assault on my identity -- on who I am as a person.”

The university’s Dean of Religious Life, Varun Soni described the remarks as “cowardly and hateful” and said USC had a zero-tolerance policy for such behavior.

Sampath, 21, moved to the United States from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu when she was six years old, the Post reported.

City News Service