In a recent interview with the Daily Trojan and Annenberg Media, President Carol Folt commented that she had not heard much opposition to the campus checkpoints that were installed last spring. 

I was one of several hundred faculty signers of a letter to Folt last spring expressing our disapproval of these checkpoints, and I can confirm that many faculty on campus — including many faculty in my department, the Department of Psychology — continue to oppose these checkpoints. 

I will focus on three concerns regarding these checkpoints: their impact on research and departmental activities, their performative aspect and their cost.

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First, impact. Like many faculty who study human participants, my laboratory conducts visits with families recruited from the community who participate in our research. It was already difficult to convince families from the community to come to our intimidating campus, and now it is even harder with a physical barrier restricting their access. 

Our department also runs a psychotherapy training clinic that serves individuals and families from the communities around campus who now face additional obstacles to getting onto campus. Additionally, our lab, and many labs on campus, participate in numerous pipeline programs designed to get underrepresented studies involved in research, such as the JumpStart program. 

When the checkpoints were first installed last spring, many of these junior researchers could not access campus for lab meetings and study visits. Some of these students are undocumented and decided to forego the opportunity to be involved in our research rather than pass through these checkpoints. 

Additionally, many of our students receive clinical supervision from practitioners outside USC. We host colloquium talks and invite these supervisors to attend, but the new checkpoints create an additional hurdle. In short, these checkpoints create a barrier for any public-facing or community-serving activities that faculty or departments wish to conduct.

Moreover, these checkpoints are performative. I am convinced that they do not improve the safety of our campus community. Although drivers entering campus need to scan their IDs, there is no check on passengers or the trunks of their cars. The people working at these checkpoints do not appear to be well-trained in public safety nor have any real authority to stop suspicious individuals. 

I know of a graduate student who brought a large samurai sword onto campus — to be used in a graduation ceremony — that no one on the “security” force noticed. If someone wished harm on USC, the checkpoints would do nothing to dissuade them. They seem to be purely symbolic, which makes it particularly frustrating that they limit the University’s ability to serve our local community.

My third and most significant concern with the checkpoints is their cost. I am writing at a time when graduate admissions are suspended in many departments at USC, given uncertainty about the University’s budget. Moreover, retirement and tuition benefits have been cut.

It is frankly insulting to be told that the University has no money for these programs while walking past a newly constructed checkpoint staffed by dozens of superfluous newly hired employees multiple times a day. Despite USC’s purported commitment to faculty governance, there has been no transparency about the cost of these checkpoints.

I can tell you that I am not the only faculty member who is rankled by the contrast between austerity messages and USC’s ability to mount a large security effort in a matter of days. 

Anyone who has tried to hire research staff can tell you that working with the Human Resources office is extraordinarily slow. It recently took me six weeks to hire a half-time research coordinator for my lab, despite the fact that she had previously worked in my lab at the same pay rate and with the same responsibilities. Due to the hiring freeze, we had to go through many additional layers of justification, not to mention a background check that took weeks. And this is for grant-funded research. Yet, hundreds of workers showed up on campus seemingly overnight to check my ID when I walk into campus. 

Like many faculty members, I am frustrated when I am told that USC must freeze hiring due to lack of funds, but then see this performative security force leapfrogging other University priorities. It costs the University a great deal of trust and goodwill to enact such an obvious contradiction between the belt-tightening messages we receive and the scale of this security theater. 

I hope my letter clarifies the feelings of many faculty who continue to be displeased with the existence of these checkpoints on campus.

Sincerely,

Darby Saxbe, Ph.D.

Professor of Psychology