Last spring, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) arrested 93 people on the USC campus, including nearly 50 students, at the April encampment protest due to what USC called “substantial” threats to security.
Earlier this month, a “study-in” hosted by USC Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) on a grassy patch outside of Taper Hall ended with DPS orders to disperse, with officers saying the group did not have a permit.
Students are wondering how, then, they can protest on campus. Annenberg Media has compiled a report to outline the published rules and regulations surrounding campus free speech and assembly — even though USC’s own guidelines sometimes stand in conflict.
Let’s say you want to protest on campus, but you are aware of the recent arrests and dispersal orders. You don’t want to cause campus gate closures for your friends or get arrested by LAPD, but you’d like to speak your mind. Let’s see how you can do it.
You might start with USC’s Freedom of Expression website to familiarize yourself with the current policies. This webpage details USC’s definition of free speech, the Leonard Law, and other policies including a “Demonstrations, Marches, Vigils, and Other Free Expression Events” subpage. This website was also sent to all USC students last year.
The webpage includes a helpful graphic “Peaceful Protest Dos and Don’ts.” With statements such as “chant, sing, shout, use your voice,” and “you have a right to speak your mind and defend your rights,” the graphic is encouraging. Two of the six “Dos” include “Do print your message on posters, flags, flyers, or apparel.” USC asks that protests be within “a location appropriate for expressive activity.”
However, the graphic simultaneously instructs students not to “amplify [their] sound” in a disruptive manner or specify what areas are considered inappropriate.
You might remember an email you received in late August this year about “university policies” and want to consult that, in which you would find Provost Andrew Guzman linking to the student handbook. In Appendix IV: Free Expression of the USC Handbook, the policy is as follows:
“[Students and student organizations] shall be free to support causes by all orderly means, which do not disrupt or substantially interfere with the regular and essential operations and activities of the university, since such disruption or substantial interference violates the responsible exercise of free inquiry and expression.”
You may wonder if your protest will interfere with the “regular and essential operations and activities of the university.” Does standing outside Tommy Trojan obstruct another person from standing outside Tommy Trojan? Does studying on the grass obstruct another person from studying on that patch of same grass? Does loud negate orderly? What is the difference between interference and substantial interference?
You may scroll down on the Freedom of Expression site and find the “Planning Your Event” tab so you can request a permit to gather on your own campus. The page states that “these rules apply to anyone wishing to use a reservable university space,” but does not define what spaces on campus are reservable or not. Given that DPS dispersed the SJP event due to lack of permit, it seems the grassy areas outside campus buildings fall within those definitions.
A University Event Permit Application (UEPA) must be submitted “at least three weeks prior to the event date.” So your civil disobedience must be scheduled, not spontaneous.
The “Planning Your Event” page directs you to the reservation request forms available on the Trojan Event Services webpage. That link includes all of Trojan Event Services. Underneath the tab Venues> Outdoor Venues> Freedom of Expression, you are redirected back to the original site you came from. Under general Outdoor Venues, there is an “Outdoor Venue Request Form.” The form has 39 required questions, including if your event includes “props (i.e., fake weapons, swords, etc.).”
You might wonder if this is the same permit DPS was referring to. On DPS’ own website, there is an Events Permit Application, however this “is not a request for space.” It is unclear if the Outdoor Venue Request Form above is a request for space. This form has 76 required questions. This form includes definitions for:
- Event is a “scheduled gathering of 25 or more people”
- Meetings “where food is served to 25 or more people require a permit. Meetings where no food or beverage is served are considered meetings and not gatherings or events, and do not require a permit, unless it meets specific criteria or requires FPM services. Meetings that have snacks (limited food & beverages such as donuts, coffee, cookies or other simple snacks) do not require a permit.
- A University event is “any event that is organized, sponsored or funded by the university, USC students, faculty, staff, schools, departments, units or a university sponsor would qualify. This includes events on USC’s campuses and buildings, and at all off-campus locations/facilities, whether owned by USC or a third party.
By these definitions, a meeting is anywhere with food being served to 25 or more people, and those require a permit. If there is no food, that is also a meeting. If there is no food, that is also an event. Thus, food seems to necessitate a permit. However, meetings that have snacks (snacks and food are differentiated) do not require a permit.
It is unclear if the members of the SJP protest, which saw around 25 attendees, had snacks with them when they were ordered to disperse from the grass outside Taper Hall.
If you want to inquire further about the difference between an event, a meeting and a gathering, you might consult the Event, Gatherings and Tailgate Fencing Policy webpage, in which you would find a blank definitions section.
With consequences like academic probation, you are determined to protest in line with the rules. You might just want to consult the most recent email notice you have from the USC Student Requirements Team, asking you to complete your Staying Safe Trojan Learn module, which self-describes as providing information on “how students can engage in free expression in ways that support and adhere to the university’s mission, values, and policies.” You’ve found it! A required student training module that specifically states how to protest in line with USC’s rules!
The email also includes that “students who do not complete the module will encounter a hold when attempting to register for classes for the spring 2025 semester.” So you open it up.
The module states: “The university has a policy about posting flyers. This pertains to everyone, regardless of your affiliation with the university. All posters or flyers – regardless of their content – are prohibited in and will be removed from the following areas, among others: trees and hedges, buildings… elevators, Tommy Trojan and all other statutes, trash and recycling cans, all lamp posts, fences, utility poles, parking lots and structures, fountains, on cars, bicycles, or other individual property, and freestanding advertisements such as signs on stands, sandwich boards, and other displays.”
However, given that posters and flyers are encouraged twice in the above Dos and Don’ts graphic, you can understand the confusion.
Annenberg Media asked USC to provide clarity on the contradictions in the University’s resources. These questions were sent:
- According to the attached Peaceful Protest Dos and Don’ts PDF from the Free Expression website, the SJP sit-in last week followed all of the Dos. How should they have prepared to protest if not by consulting University resources? And as they followed all 6 Dos, why were they removed?
- What are the requirements and conditions of an event that are most evaluated when granting access/denying access to a UEPA permit?
- What are the stark differences between a ‘gathering’ or an ‘event’ USC then needs to grant a permit to allow? What conditions make these events so different?
- What is meant by “in good faith”?
- Pg 18 of the Student Handbook under the retaliation section: “...in good faith brings a complaint under any university policy or applicable law; or participates in investigation of such a complaint; or protests in good faith alleged discrimination…”
- Pg 27 of the Policy on Prohibited Discrimination Harassment and Retaliation PDF: “The University will work in good faith to implement the requirements of judicially-issued protective orders and similar orders, to the extent it has authority to do so.”
The university responded: “The students outside of Taper Hall on Wednesday did not have a permit for their gathering. A group wishing to hold an event with 25 people or more are required to apply for an event permit, which is a longstanding practice. Additional details are posted on the events and activities page.”
USC campus has been fraught with free speech controversy for the past year, and these rules fall along a similar path of unclear definitions that seem to result in a gray area between protest and prohibited assembly that results in arrests, probations, and in all cases, students without clear guidelines for expressing their right to free speech, lest we forget the Free Speech Zones of last spring.
“I think implementing free speech zones kind of removes the integrity of what free speech is supposed to do,” said a senior music industry major, Shiloh Gonsky, a founding member of Chavurah, a Jewish group at USC.
“In the new free speech policy, USC recognizes that dissent is an integral part of higher education, but I think that it’s suppressing dissent from its own students by confining freedom of expression to a zone that is kind of out of earshot of most of campus.” Gonsky said. “I think that that kind of removes the whole point of free speech.”
The USC Office of the Provost’s website includes USC’s policy on students’ First Amendment rights, vowing to “[maintain] open communication and dialogue in the process of identifying and resolving problems that arise in the dynamics of life in a university community.” The statement later includes the same language that protests may not “disrupt or substantially interfere with university activities.”
“They’re not really dealing with it in a way that allows students to really challenge the university, in a way that allows for any real conversation or change,” Gonsky said. “I think that they’re trying to keep this power and this stronghold on the student body by implementing all of these rules and then suppressing people who have criticisms of those rules.”
Harlow Raye, a senior studying sociology and the co-founder of USC Jewish Voice for Peace Action, said “these regulations are not only confusing and ridiculous, but they’re also dangerous,” citing what they called “violent” student arrests last spring.
“USC absolutely does not encourage freedom of speech unless it makes the administration look good,” Raye said. “[The administration] keeps adding new rules according to what works for them. We used to be able to use megaphones but now they’re not allowed. We used to be able to sit on blankets in the grass but now that’s not allowed.”
In the first minute of Carol Folt’s inaugural address as president of the university to USC in 2019, students erupted in protest over a confederate statue on UNC’s, Folt’s previous employer, campus. She thanked them. In an interview following the address, Annenberg Media asked Folt her reaction to the disruption.
Folt said, “I really believe that if you are at a university where students don’t protest sometimes, I don’t know what that university is…We want to be open to democracy in our universities, we need to show the world how to do it, protests can take place, there has to be a space…You don’t try to stop protest.”
Lyla Bhalla-Ladd contributed to this reporting.
A previous version of this article mentioned Katherine Contreras Hernandez as an attendee of the study-in. Katherine Contreras Hernandez attended as media. Annenberg Media regrets this error.