Pro-Palestinian groups walked off USC grounds Wednesday afternoon after being told by DPS they could not gather during their previous sit-in study protest.
The demonstration, organized by the USC Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation (SCALE), USC Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Divest from Death USC, USC Graduate Students for Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace at USC began at 11 a.m. on the grass of the Amelia Taper Garden across from Phillips Hall. According to a post on SJP’s Instagram advertising the event, the study-in welcomed all students, faculty and staff, and was designed to provide students with a space to “work on midterms, build community, and come together to learn about Palestine and Palestinian resistance.”
LAPD told participants to leave at approximately 1:30 p.m due to a 25-person limit that would require them to have a permit. After standing in place for a moment, they began chanting and walking up to the gate on Trousdale. There, they turned left on West 34th Street and continued walking before exiting campus at the McClintock Avenue entrance.
Participants sat on the grass with banners that had statements such as “USC FUNDS GENOCIDE” and “LONG LIVE THE STUDENT INTIFADA” laid across the ground. Many wore medical masks and keffiyehs to conceal their identities, particularly when USC Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers recorded them.
During the two hours and 30 minutes the demonstration took place, LAPD and DPS officers had cars parked along Trousdale Parkway. DPS officers filmed participants with cameras and cellphones before advising about the need for the permit.
USC’s events and activities webpage defines an event requiring a permit as “any scheduled gathering of 25 or more people.” There are a few exceptions to this definition; if the event serves no food or beverage, it is considered a meeting. The site notes “most meetings that support the academic or business mission are not considered university events.”
In a statement to Annenberg Media, DPS Assistant Vice President and Chief Lauretta Hill said the students outside Taper Hall did not have a permit for their gathering.
Hill added that LAPD officers are on campus regularly and did not specify whether they were called to campus for Wednesday’s protest. The statement also noted that it is DPS’ practice to photograph non-permitted events, but did not explain how these photos are used or stored.
In spring, several student protestors were suspended and risked academic sanctions after encampments led to LAPD coming onto campus and breaking up protests. Students part of pro-Palestinian groups and organizations still fear the risk of suspension.
Annenberg Media reporters watched a DPS officer first approach the demonstrators at 11:58 a.m. with a camera, slowly moving closer as he filmed the group. Many participants took their phones out to record in response. The officer left toward a car parked nearby then came back at 12:03 p.m. to record the group with a phone as well.
An SJP media liaison who requested anonymity for fear of academic retaliation from the university accused USC of showing “moral depravity.”
“Instead of focusing on the demands of students asking us to divest from apartheid and from the genocide, what they would rather do is constrain students and professors who are exercising their First Amendment rights on campus,” the liaison said.
Prior to the sit-in becoming a march, Annenberg Media reporters observed the student demonstrators splintered into three groups. The first stayed put, the second moved to the side about 15 feet away, and the third moved to a nearby patch of grass.
Tara McPherson, a professor at the School of Cinematic Arts and endowed chair in censorship studies, also participated in the sit-in.
McPherson called student participation in protests “the most powerful kind of organic learning.”
“I’ve never been prouder of the undergrads than I am right now and I’ve been teaching a long time,” she said. “Which is what a university would dream to have happen among its students, where students are genuinely interested in geopolitics and the world around them.”
Olivia Harrison, a professor of French and Italian, said she was there to teach students about the similarities of the French-Algerian War and Palestinian immigrants using a play.
The play, “Mohamad Pack your Bags” by Kateb Yacine, was acted out by Harrison and other student participants at the sit-in.
“It sets up a parallel between settler colonial Algeria and settler colonial Palestine Mandate, at the time of settlement,” she said. “Also staging the ground for a critique of the idea of the immigrant as a guest because it is actually a play about the Algerian immigrant in France.”
The Wednesday protest was part of a three-day “Week of Rage,” which began on Monday, October 7, the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ attacks on Israel. The march comes two days after a student walk-out blocked Jefferson Boulevard, east of Vermont Avenue.