Advocacy groups hold rally for Palestine
The protesters established and dismantled a four-tent encampment at USC Village.
By ZACHARY WHALEN
Editor’s Note: This article was updated April 4 at 9:28 p.m. to add statements to the Daily Trojan from USC Students for Justice in Palestine — an advocacy group not affiliated with the University — as well as the University.
Members of USC Students for Justice in Palestine, USC Faculty for Justice in Palestine and USC Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation — all advocacy groups not affiliated with the University — hosted a rally and briefly held an encampment outside of Rock & Reilly’s, which quickly moved to the North Trousdale Entrance on Thursday afternoon.
“We’re here because we’re taking the power back from the University,” said a media liaison for SJP who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. “This is a people’s university. This is our university. This is not Carol ‘Flops’’ university, this is not the Board of Trustees’ university. It’s not Rick Caruso’s university. This is our university.”
The rally concluded at the USC Community House, which a speaker cited as an example of USC gentrifying South Central. There, speakers announced their intent to begin “fighting off campus” and, in response to the Department of Public Safety patrolling the area around USC, mobilizing their own patrols to “watch them while they try to watch us.”
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“Every piece of property that USC owns in this community is open territory for the struggle,” a speaker said. “We’re gonna fight them every place they are … we’ve got to unite the entire community behind us. We’ve got to take up a struggle that could unite the masses.”
The rally was part of USC SJP, USC FJP and USC SCALE’s activities for National SJP’s “Gaza Unbreakable Week of Rage,” including a Wednesday vigil and a Palestine solidarity panel on Monday.
After initially gathering at the McClintock entrance to USC Village, the rally moved outside Rock & Reilly’s. There, USC SJP announced on Instagram that they had “escalated and set up an encampment,” placing four tents outside of the restaurant.
Department of Public Safety officers mobilized in riot gear behind the gates while the advocacy groups continued their rally. (Henry Kofman / Daily Trojan)
Carrying their tents, the rally marched to Herbert Plaza, near North Trousdale Entrance. DPS officers locked the North Trousdale gates, and roughly 20 DPS officers mobilized in riot gear behind the gates while the advocacy groups continued their rally before ending at USC Community House.
The University wrote that attempts by DPS to inform the protesters of policies against encampments were “unsuccessful” in a statement to the Daily Trojan on Friday. The statement read that the University contacted the Los Angeles Police Department in response to the rally, but “protesters left before police action was necessary.”
USC SJP denied that DPS attempted to contact protesters in a statement to the Daily Trojan on Friday.
“[DPS] were ‘unsuccessful’ in contacting protesters because they were busy calling LAPD on their own students,” USC SJP’s statement read. “Throughout our protest, they did not approach our community members in good faith, choosing instead to prepare their riot gear.”
During a speech, one protest leader thanked participants for joining the rally and encouraged them to “invite everyone [they] know” and recalled a story about an elderly Palestinian man killed in an Israeli airstrike.
The demonstrators concluded at the USC Community House, which a speaker cited as an example of USC gentrifying South Central. (Henry Kofman / Daily Trojan)
“We are here to show that the people around us, the powers that be, that we’re not going to stand for them to kill our grandmothers and our baby cousins and our mothers and our fathers and our siblings,” the protest leader said. “I refuse to leave my community [and] the people around me, to be oppressed and suppressed.”
A bystander who requested anonymity for fear of harassment expressed concern that the rally would lead the Department of Justice’s Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism taking away funding from USC, causing students to lose scholarships and workers to lose their jobs.
“There is a task force set up against universities to cut funding, and if people keep this up people are going to lose scholarships, people who work on this campus are going to lose jobs. That will be very disappointing if people start losing jobs, like maintenance workers, what about them?” the bystander said.
The rally was also held in support of the Flower Drive tenants, who have been fighting since 2021 to prevent their apartments from being turned into student housing. A woman who claimed to have lived on Flower Drive for forty years spoke Spanish to the crowd, which was translated into English by another protester. The woman claimed to know 12 evicted tenants who are now homeless and drew connections between the Flower Drive tenants and Native Americans .
“I’m here today because I understand what it means to live through the experience of a genocide,” the translator said. “The same genocide experienced by the native people of this land. It is the same experience that the investors come and reproduce again and again, where they displace people from the land … these genocides are all the same thing.”
