Local, USA

Breach of Trust

By Mishal Mahmud. Produced by Sufian Abulohom and Jack Walterman, in association with University of Southern California.

The high-profile sexual assault scandal at the University of Southern California involving Dr. George Tyndall, the only full-time gynecologist in the school’s student health clinic from 1989 to 2016, first made headlines when journalists Harriet Ryan and Matt Hamilton exposed horrific abuses in a 2018 LA Times, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative report. In Spring 2021, USC announced it would pay $1.1 billion to patients, making it the largest sex abuse payout in higher education history. BREACH OF TRUST, as told from the point of view of the women and sexual assault survivors advocating for change, offers an inside-look at the abuse, as well as the institution’s complicity.

Anchored by stories of the survivors and Gilbert’s whistleblower account, the film offers important insight into an all-too-familiar story of male predators employed by high-profile universities who used their positions of power to target students – and the administrations’ ensuing complicity in allowing the abuse to go unaddressed and unpunished.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted or harassed, support is available. RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) is available 24/7 via chat, telephone and mobile app.