As the United States and Israel’s war worsens in Iran and Lebanon, Yara Rizk, a Lebanese and Egyptian freshman majoring in political science whose mom is a journalist reporting from Lebanon, said she feels silly going to class when bombs are falling on her hometown. Rizk is not alone in this — across campus, students feel the weight of the war.

Since February, Israeli and American military action have killed over 1,700 civilians in Iran and nearly 2,300 people in Lebanon, with more than one million people displaced. 

In USC’s past three fall freshman classes, there are over 910 international students from Middle Eastern countries, according to USC’s Facts and Stats page, many of whose families are subject to the constant U.S. and Israeli bombing. 

The University has failed to issue direct statements, support USC’s Middle Eastern North African Student Assembly events or even give students an adequate student lounge. The Middle Eastern and North African student lounge — which had 2,805 independent student check-ins in the 2025-26 school year — is hidden within the Center for Black Cultural and Student Affairs and seems smaller than a freshman dorm. 

Rizk said Arab, Middle Eastern and Persian students are involved in campus culture and give so much to USC, from serving in the Undergraduate Student Government to club executive boards. Despite their involvement, USC seems to remain an unsupportive obstacle to their attempts to highlight their communities.  

In April 2026, MENASA released a statement regarding the University administration’s last-minute removal of a student reciting a poem at an Arab American Heritage Month event. 

“We want people to experience the richness of our community and our culture,” Rizk said. “But the University doesn’t, maybe, appreciate it.” 

In a statement to the Daily Trojan about the Arab American Heritage Month events, the University wrote, “USC is home to students from the Middle East whose families are living through an extraordinarily difficult time, and we are committed to ensuring a supportive environment for them. Resources are available through Campus Support & Intervention, the Office of International Services, and the Office of Religious & Spiritual Life, and we encourage students to reach out.”

Yet, USC’s silence is rooted in a deeper truth: It is an institution before it is a place of education. With the appointment of President Beong-Soo Kim, USC’s strategy was clear — it needed a lawyer, not an educator. 

During the Spring 2024 encampments, MENA students watched as the University remained silent about the atrocities unfolding in their home countries. When students took action, the University called the Los Angeles Police Department, turning peaceful protest into a space surrounded by law enforcement in riot gear. 

“It’s very important that the University do some soul searching about the way students were treated,” said Tara McPherson, the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation-endowed chair for the study of censorship in media and professor of cinema and media studies at USC.

McPherson said she spent many hours in the encampments after they were established and witnessed students displaying “exactly what organic education should do.”  The open outrage seen in 2024 — as we witnessed a genocide ruthlessly killing children and shattering families — was a sign of a student body with a willingness to make the world a better place. 

The aftermath of the Spring 2024 encampments was a moment when students and faculty across the country expressed deep disappointment in how universities handled largely peaceful protests. The University’s silence and suppression of student voices isn’t new; it’s a pattern.

Laurie Brand, professor emerita of political science and international relations as well as Middle Eastern studies, said the students who are concerned with the ongoing genocide, as reported by Amnesty International, in Palestine must feel “that this is not a particularly friendly campus, and that’s extremely unfortunate.” 

As Israel’s war has continued, their military has killed over 75,000 Gazans. Now, as Israel and the U.S. continue to strike civilians across the Middle East, the University’s refusal to even acknowledge the fear so many of its students are living in is unacceptable. 

“The way universities are situated within the mechanisms of capitalism globally,” McPherson said, “means particular conflicts will be recognized and others will not, because the levers of commerce and capitalism support warfare.” 

As a consequence of appealing to this system of capitalism, the University is failing a diverse and significant part of its student body.

“They’re not recognizing how many students are being affected by this.” Rizk said. “It’s not just Lebanese students, it’s not just Palestinian students, it’s Iranian students, it’s Israeli students, Jewish students. So many people have a stake in this war.” 

It is for those reasons that the Daily Trojan Spring 2026 Editorial Board calls upon the University to actively support MENASA and its efforts, as well as release a statement in solidarity with its students in the face of global conflict and dismissal of its impacted students. 

The Daily Trojan Editorial Board is a group of diverse editors and staffers from the print Opinion section. The views of the Editorial Board do not reflect the Daily Trojan staff as a whole.