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In a major shakeup at the University of Southern California, which already is replacing its president, the school has announced that top legal officer Carol Mauch Amir and its academic provost are leaving on June 30.

The Tuesday announcement leaves three holes at the top of the school's executive leadership team as it struggles to deal with two crises that carry major legal implications—the recent admissions cheating scandal and the allegations by some 600 students who say they were sexually abused by a former campus gynecologist. Both scandals remain under criminal investigation.

The first void will be filled July 1 when president-elect Carol Folt takes over. Interim president Wanda Austin said in a letter to the campus community that she and Folt would work together to fill the other two openings.

In her letter, Austin said the other two executives were retiring and she would appoint a search committee to replace them. “Our search for both positions will be national in scope and exhaustive in reach,” she stated.

Carol Mauch Amir.

Mauch Amir, as senior vice president for legal affairs and professionalism, was leading the school's legal response to the scandals. This scenario has played out before, at Michigan State University and Penn State University, where those schools replaced their presidents and general counsel after scandals broke. Mauch Amir was not available for comment Wednesday.

Austin's letter said she would name an interim provost in the coming weeks. School spokesperson Leigh Hopper said whether the top legal post would be filled on an interim basis “is to be determined.”

The university has an office of general counsel, which is supervised by Stacy Rummel Bratcher, vice president and managing general counsel. Bratcher reported to Mauch Amir.

Last fall Austin created the office of professionalism and ethics, at least in part in response to the sexual abuse scandal last year, and named Mauch Amir to oversee it as senior vice president for legal affairs and professionalism. Then the admissions cheating scandal involving eight schools, including USC, broke last month.

Mauch Amir's job description states that she provided “strategic leadership for the university's investigative, compliance, audit, legal, and risk management functions. The offices of professionalism and ethics, compliance, and audit services, as well as the office of the general counsel all report directly to [Mauch] Amir.”

Wanda Austin, interim president for USC. Photo: Karen Ballard/USC

Austin's letter praised Mauch Amir, saying, “Her strategic thinking and expertise have been instrumental in a number of efforts, including the consolidation and acquisition of the Keck Hospital from Tenet Healthcare and the subsequent growth of the health enterprise, support for the transformation of Exposition Park, and the ongoing legal defense of the university.”

In the past year, the letter said, Mauch Amir “has overseen the establishment of the office of professionalism and ethics, which for the first time creates a central location for investigation, monitoring, and tracking of all types of complaints at the university. She helped formalize our initiatives to advance culture change, including structuring the president's culture commission and the working group on culture, and recruited a chief ethics and compliance officer.”

It said Mauch Amir also worked with the audit and compliance committee of the board of trustees to increase the scope and substance of the reporting and monitoring undertaken by that committee. Her “leadership in building the division of the office of legal affairs and professionalism has been important to the future of USC,” it added.

Mauch Amir joined the university in 1999 and became associate general counsel in 2001 and general counsel in 2008. Prior to joining the school, she was an associate at Latham & Watkins in Los Angeles, specializing in health care-related corporate transactions.