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.
Rini Sampath says she 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.
She says it was doubly shocking because she knew the people at the frat house where the insult came from. She had been to parties at the frat house.
She says someone from the frat house later apologized.
"My body just went into shock," she says. "I just couldn't believe it. This apology was being said to me because I'm student body president. I'm Rini. They know me, but what about an international student who's walking down that street who's of Indian origin?"
The fraternity was not identified by Sampath, who wrote about the incident on her Facebook page. She wrote about how it triggered memories of racial slurs from childhood and when she was running and elected USC's student body president.
Sampath, 21, moved to the United States from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu when she was 6 years old.
"Racism is a problem everywhere and I've brought to light personally an instance on our campus and I hope to see more grow out this," she says.
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Sampath says the slur was "a verbal assault on my identity — on who I am as a person."
Sampath says she hopes more students come forward with their own stories. She got a voice mail and an apology from the person who admitted he was the one who said the racial slur. And it was someone she knows.
"He was breaking down over the phone," she says, adding that publicly shaming the person wasn't her intention.
"It's not about me," she said. "We're talking about our society as a whole and how we treat people who look like us."
The university's Dean of Religious Life, Varun Soni described the remarks as "cowardly and hateful" and says USC had a zero-tolerance policy for such behavior.
City News Service contributed to this report.
