The Beacon Project

The Beacon Project is a student journalism initiative supported by the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism to report on USC. It is independent of the university’s administration.
Indicted USC administrator’s side business spotlights the university’s oversight
The indicted senior associate athletic director ran a thriving side business that was tightly entwined with her duties at USC and involved more athletics department personnel than has been publicly known.
    Kaidi "Ruby" Yuan Ashley Zhang
  • December 5, 2019
More USC staff accepted bribes and helped admissions scam, feds say
Prosecutors confirmed that these new figures who they allege assisted Donna Heinel are not the three indicted coaches,
    Kaidi "Ruby" Yuan Ashley Zhang
  • December 4, 2019
How USC fired one dean, hired another, and kept itself mired in controversy
A faculty member on the nine-person advisory search committee told the Beacon Project that the committee had a list of more than 50 possible candidates for the Marshall deanship, but he was only given one person to interview: Geoffrey Garrett.
    Sam Kmack Consuelo Cifuentes
  • October 22, 2019
Why Students At LA’s Richest Public Schools Are Far More Likely To Get Extra Time On The SAT
Part of the college admissions scam was getting extra time on the SAT & ACT. In LA, experts say wealthy families may be exploiting the system to get that benefit, leaving poor kids at a further disadvantage
    Austin Peay Sam Kmack
  • August 29, 2019
USC benefit helps children of employees earn free college degree
    Consuelo Cifuentes
  • August 27, 2019
“Like The Kremlin”: USC’s broken promises of transparency
The contrast between USC’s promises of transparency and its actions has fueled mounting criticism.
    Austin Peay
  • August 19, 2019
48 male patients say campus doctor sexually abused them — and USC was warned
Five of those patients, all of whom were students, say they told the university that Dr. Dennis Kelly subjected them to invasive exams and made sexual remarks.
    Sasha Urban
  • August 8, 2019
A former UCLA student said the doctor accused by 48 USC students sexually abused him too
The former graduate student said Dennis Kelly subjected him to invasive procedures during two visits.
    Sasha Urban
  • August 17, 2019

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Latest News

Amid coronavirus, USC is requiring facial recognition scans of students living on campus, but the technology sparks controversy

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, USC has deactivated the fingerprint scanners in its residential halls, requiring students remaining in some dorms to use facial recognition technology to gain access to their rooms. While the university said its facial recognition system “doesn’t store data,” the product description of the device involved says that its “massive memory” can store 1 million identity templates, 10 million event logs, and 20,000 image logs. And experts say that in order to recognize specific faces, any system must store data.
Katherine Lippert
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