7:43 p.m.: Students are now able to enter campus through the McClintock Avenue gate, Annenberg Media confirmed with DPS.
7:37 p.m.: The crowd has stopped in the intersection of Figueroa Street and Jefferson Boulevard. Protestors are chanting messages arguing that USC is complicit in genocide. One truck from the Los Angeles Fire Department successfully attempted to get through the crowd.
7:33 p.m.: Some protestors from the May Day march carrying signs are approaching the Trousdale Parkway gate. A few protestors are protesting outside the entrance, while the main crowd keeps moving.
7:26 p.m.: A crowd chanting, “In our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians,” is approaching campus. Annenberg Media estimates that there are hundreds of people in the crowd. The crowd is turning towards the Trousdale Parkway campus entrance.
7:15 p.m.: DPS has changed its policy. The University Park campus will be closed to all entrants, Annenberg Media confirmed with DPS. People currently on campus will be allowed to leave.
7:06 p.m.: “Demonstrators unaffiliated with USC” may arrive on the University Park campus this evening, according to an alert from the University. DPS confirmed with Annenberg Media that the May Day parade may attempt to make its way onto campus. The campus will remain open to “students, staff, faculty and registered guests.”
6:52 p.m.: DPS officers have gathered at the Trousdale Parkway campus entrance.
6:49 p.m.: As 16 DPS officers walk down Trousdale Parkway past the encampment, protesters shout, “LAPD, KKK, they’re all the same.”
6:40 p.m.: The Office of the Senior Vice President for Administration sent a “campus update” via email. According to the message, a new entry process for UPC will begin Thursday: All parking garages will remain open, and the McCarthy Way and Figueroa Street, Watt Way and 34th St, McClintock Street and Childs Way entrances will be accessible “by car, public transit, or on foot.”
The email also stipulated that entry will continue to be restricted to students, faculty, staff, registered guests and “known vendors with confirmation of work.” All bags will be subject to search under the new entry process, and those with “face coverings” will be requested to pull them down for ID verification. Student, staff and faculty ID cards will be scanned upon entry to campus.
6:26 p.m.: A media liaison for the encampment addressed the remaining crowd, “the students are not alone, the faculty are with us.” In a statement to Annenberg Media, the liaison said: “[The administration is] scared, they’re scared of us. They’re scared of love, they’re scared of life, they’re scared of peace.”
6:19 p.m.: The march concluded at approximately 5:55 p.m. Some faculty entered and remain inside the encampment talking with students, but participants in the march have dispersed.
6:17 p.m.: Annenberg Media approached Vice President for Student Life Dr. Monique S. Allard, but she declined to comment on the march.
6:12 p.m.: A small group of about three counter protesters walked by the encampment, stopping for a few minutes beside it.
6:09 p.m.: Gould Professor of Law Jody Armour has addressed the crowd at the encampment. “President Folt dropped them [the LAPD] in here to nail our students,” Armour said, going on to ask that Folt address “her mistakes.”
5:57 p.m.: Faculty and encampment members have begun to chant statements like: “Free, free Palestine,” “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free; from the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever,” and “disclose, divest: We will not stop, we will not rest.”
5:50 p.m.: Some faculty members are making their way inside the USC Divest From Death Coalition’s encampment in Alumni Park. Others are waiting outside holding signs.
5:45 p.m.: The group is walking back down Trousdale Parkway in the direction of Bovard Auditorium while chanting, “hey hey, ho ho, LAPD has got to go” and “no justice, no peace, protect our free speech.” Some of the signs members of group are holding read “QED not LAPD,” “LSAT not LAPD,” and “Professors for peaceful assembly.”
5:33 p.m.: Faculty organizer and associate professor at Dornsife Devin Griffiths has made a statement at the Trousdale Parkway campus entrance. He stated that the faculty are marching in protest of the university’s “disproportionate and proportionate actions” against students, as well as the “restricted academic freedom on our campus” and “unjustly restricted political speech.” They “demand” that President Carol Folt, Provost Andrew T. Guzman and other administrative figures “publicly apologize both to our valedictorian” and “those students and faculty whose safety has been compromised.” The speaker went on to affirm the faculty’s support for the valedictorian.
5:23 p.m.: The group have made their way to the Trousdale Parkway entrance gate to campus, which is closed for all traffic.
5:20 p.m.: DPS officers are stationed outside of Taper Hall.
5:18 p.m.: The march has begun. Faculty, dressed in their academic regalia, have started to move towards the main gate.
5:10 p.m.: A media representative from the USC Divest From Death Coalition addressed the crowd.
5:05 p.m.: A faculty member addressed the crowd of fellow faculty and student supporters. They say the march is being done in protest of the university’s actions “over the past two weeks.”
USC faculty members have began what they have titled a “March to Protect Our Students.” The march is scheduled to begin on Wednesday at 5 p.m.
The march comes just two hours after an USC Academic Senate meeting took place via a Zoom webinar. President Carol Folt and Provost Andrew T. Guzman responded to questions submitted by faculty. During the meeting, they confirmed that metal detectors would be utilized to enter campus during commencement gatherings, offered clarification about the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) presence on campus and reaffirmed the decision to cancel the main ceremony due to “safety concerns.”