Students may have been shocked to see tents, fences and more Department of Public Safety personnel surrounding campus gates on the first day of school. “To ensure a safe, secure environment,” the University now requires the USC community to tap or swipe their USCards before entering campus. The Daily Trojan spoke with students and visitors regarding their reactions to the heightened security. 

For Liam Ervin, a sophomore majoring in journalism, the justification for such security ties in with how the University’s location comes with its own dangers.

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“The safety regulations, I think it’s the right idea of … how to keep the campus safe,” Ervin said. “There’ve been issues in the past with South Central [Los Angeles] — not a great neighborhood. Sometimes, things will happen around or on campus. So it’s easier to regulate who comes in and out, just on a daily basis.”

Maggie McDermott, a freshman majoring in psychology, said these lanes add to her sense of security within the campus for a similar reason.

“I think inside campus, people can walk around knowing that the people on campus are supposed to be here,” McDermott said. 

However, Kunyang Du, a junior majoring in cognitive science as well as public relations and advertising, questions the timing of the implementation of the access lanes. She said the access lanes were a response to the student protests last semester. Despite not being directly involved in last semester’s student protests, she did not think the security was a necessary response to the protest. 

“I didn’t really feel like any protesters [were] doing anything destructive, in a sense,” Du said. “When [USC] set [the Fast Access Lanes] up, it just felt like more of an inconvenience.”

Takeru Saito, a junior majoring in health promotion and disease prevention studies, said he does not believe the scanners provide any more safety, but closed the campus off from surrounding communities. 

“I don’t know about ‘safer’ necessarily,” Saito said. “I really like the concept of an open campus. I think during the day, anyone should be able to really walk in.” 

Christopher Reyes, a USC alum who grew up near campus, said people need to be able to cross the campus to make their way home from work late at night.

“I understand that USC presents themselves as embracing community [but] I feel like this is a new measure that they’ve added to further close themselves off,” he said.

Still, there are members outside of the community who disagree with the idea that the restrictions isolate the campus from outer communities. Mark Peralta worked at USC when he was in high school and visited campus for the Utah State University game on Sept. 7. He acknowledged the University is a private institution, but said he wished it had more events for those who are not a part of the USC community. 

Despite how the scanners may seem to further privatize the campus for others, Peralta did not feel this was the case as he still enjoyed the event. 

“As [I] went through [the scanners], I thought, ‘No, there’s been so many things that have happened’ … like shootings and things like that,” Peralta said, “You hate [the scanners], but then you do feel a little safe.”

During regular school days, Du said the ID scanners do not seem to pose any major inconvenience other than more foot traffic.

“I feel like they’re fine because we have multiple ID scanners, and then usually we go through them pretty fast,” Du said. “In the morning, when students are coming into the campus, it can get a little bit slower.”

The University wrote in a statement that the lanes averaged 45,000 taps per day.

“If we see that there are delays in any of the lines, the staff who work in the customer service tents are available to assist in the lanes with scanning ID cards to speed up campus access,” the University wrote in a statement. 

In preparation for the Utah State game, Ervin raised concerns regarding USC’s guest policy.  

“I already am thinking, when my parents are supposed to come out here, like, how to get them into campus and stuff like that … I think during game days it might be a lot.”

Du raised a similar concern as guests may be restricted for big events, but noted that the campus had improved their security procedures compared to last semester. 

“Last year … my friend was graduating with a doctoral degree, and then he wasn’t able to bring in his mom, that was a bit annoying,” Du said. “But the start of [this] year, I was able to bring in my parents with a good guest pass.” 

USC Director of Transportation Tony Mazza wrote in a statement to the Daily Trojan that game day was “a huge success,” as “all guests entered without any delays and enjoyed a typical game day tailgate experience.” The campus saw more than 22,000 students and guests for the first home game of the season, Mazza said.

When asked if such procedures and inconveniences were necessary to the safety of the school, Evan James Williams, a junior majoring in philosophy, said that students have to continue to observe the protocols throughout the year to understand their full impact.

“If you implement this, and then the statistic you’re trying to [lower] is violent crime — robberies going down — and it does, you can then review it and say, ‘Do we want to sustain this?’” Williams said. “‘Do we think it’s worth sustaining?’ But you have to figure out if the policy is effective or not.”