Los Angeles-based USC hired attorney Debra Wong Yang, JD, to investigate whether USC executives were privy to information about the alleged "egregious" behavior of former Keck School of Medicine Dean Carmen Puliafito, MD, and when, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Here are six things to know about Ms. Yang and the case.
1. USC Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs Michael W. Quick, PhD, said in a letter last month the university hired Los Angeles-based law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher to investigate Dr. Puliafito's conduct and the university's response.
2. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher maintains "extensive ties to USC," the Los Angeles Times reports. Kenneth M. Doran, JD, the firm's chairman and managing partner, is a graduate of the university's law school and former chairman of its board of councilors. He, along with other partners at the firm, "have been generous donors" to the school, according to the report.
3. Ms. Yang, a partner at the law firm a shortlist candidate to head the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for President Donald Trump's administration, has also represented the university in at least four lawsuits during the past several years — two of which are ongoing. She also served as an adjunct trial advocacy professor at the USC Gould School of Law during the 1990s.
4. She told the Los Angeles Times, the university's board of trustees gave her a "broad mandate" to investigate Dr. Puliafito's behavior and the university's conduct. She declined to discuss the extent of her representation of the university, but said she did not know Dr. Puliafito personally.
"I take my past experience and my responsibility very seriously. It's not the kind of matter I'm going to risk my integrity over," Ms. Yang said. "My job is to take it wherever the facts go."
5. USC President C.L. Max Nikias, PhD, said Ms. Yang would present her findings and recommendations to the executive committee of the USC board of trustees. He did not specify if her findings would be made public, according to the report.
6. While Ms. Yang's past and ongoing representation of the university in a variety of cases does not raise questions of a potential conflict of interest, experts told the publication her association with the university may impede her ability to remain impartial, the report states.