Wednesday evening in Russell House, students, faculty and staff participated in an open forum discussion as part of Unite USC, in response to the photo showing a USC student next to a racial slur which was posted on Twitter last week.
The forum was split into an open discussion, followed by a reaction session and a solution brainstorm, during which many members of the Carolina community expressed their opinions and feelings in regards to the Twitter picture.
"It's 2015," one student said. "Black people are fed up."
Over the course of the forum, several recurring questions seemed to guide the discussion, with the biggest one concerning the USC administrations response to the situation. Many commended the school on its timely response to the posting of the photo, which occurred last Friday.
Others argued that the response was completely reactionary, and had recent racially-charged events not happened, like the Oklahoma fraternity scandal or the murder of Walter Scott by a North Charleston police officer, they think the university's response would've been much more subdued.
"But the problem we are talking about is outside this room," another anonymous student said. "Everyone who needs to hear this discussion and be a part of it are the ones who aren't sitting here right now."
Inside the Russell House ballroom, though there was only one person actively defending the woman in the picture, other members of the forum argued that while the girl's actions were indeed deplorable, the swift and discretionary action of the university sets a "scary" precedent for the speed, severity and authority from which the school is able to assert its authority.
For others the punishment did not address the real issue at hand.
"The second that picture was posted, it was already too late," said a faculty member when he was passed the microphone. "The school needs to become much more proactive in handling situations like these, rather than just reacting."
Another major grievance outlined the apparent lack of diversity in the school's upper administration, which a student noted could very well be just as much the problem with policies in regards to discrimination at USC.
But the meat of the debate was centered upon a very crucial point raised by the students and faculty in attendance: The girl in the racist photo is not the heart of the issue; the general level of acceptance of racism at USC is.
On a screen overhead, screenshots of racist posts on Yik Yak were cycled through, depicting some of the more extreme posts directly aimed at USC. Numerous yaks contained racist remarks regarding Hip-Hop Wednesday.
By the end of the forum, which ran just over two hours, there was a clear consensus on what everyone in the room felt: USC needs to take concrete, tangible steps towards action in preventing future situations like this, and abandon the seemingly reactionary practices that it has held onto for so long.
But, as far as the mindset of the student body is concerned, it's time.
One student was even able to sum up the forum in one statement.
"In the words of Doug E Fresh, 'Conversation leads to action, and action leads to change.'"