When/ where did the current crop of student protests originate?

Factual Questions
1

Over the past few years there’s been an increase in protests by university students (mostly over environmentalist concerns, as far as I can tell) at a level that, although not on par with what was seen during the Vietnam protests of the late 60’s and early 70’s, is still a heckuva lot more protesting than was done in the intervening years.

I’m curious as to why and how this latest wave of protesting got started: the first major student protest I can think of was the Seattle WTO protests back in 1999 (?), and I remember hearing about students going on hunger strikes for various causes back in '98 or so. Did the children of the former hippies just grow up and decided they wanted a piece of the action, was there a protest subculture at universities during the 70’s and 80’s that we just didn’t hear much about, or is this just a freak thing?

Thanks,

  • tsarina.
2

My buddies and I have up to this point blamed the death of Jerry Garcia on this current crop of protesters. The Grateful Dead stopped touring, and the kids had nothing left to do but perfom lewd acts at 18th and K.

I’m looking forward to the real answer.

3

There has always been a protest subculture on college campuses. It waxes and wanes in popularity.

Waxing now, obviously.

4

I attended college (SUNY Buffalo) from 1982 through 1987. The main protest issues then, from what I remember, where divestment (meaning making sure none of the University’s endowment was invested in South Africa, or in companies doing business in South Africa which was then still under the apartheid system) and nuclear disarmament. There was also protests over US support of various regimes in Central American countries. The overall level of activity and interest, however, did not approach the level seen during the Vietnam war, or even the level that is apparently seen today against the WTO. I remember student “leaders” writing editorials in the campus papers chastising the student body for not being more concerned with these issues. There was more support for school related issues, such as protesting tuition increases and the like.

5

Some random thoughts that occurred to me as possible reasons behind greater protests at the moment and since the early 1990s:

[1] Increasing availability of ‘alternative’ news sources and the ease with which they can be set up (the web)

[2] Student travel seems to be the norm now: travelling during holidays and after university. I don’t have figures to support this, or my suspicion that travel is cheaper.

[3] The general rise in visibility of real-time global news.

[4] The rise in visibility of, and reportage of the sneakier tactics of, ‘big business’ – hence the popularity of books like ‘No Logo’.

[5] Greater disposable income: it’s easy to protest when you’re not having to work and study at the same time (I’m not convinced by this point. Most people I know still worked while studying, and it does imply that protests aren’t principled, which just isn’t true for most people)

I studied from 1993 to 1997, and there just wasn’t much of a protest culture at my university. The running joke was that people were more concerned about what to rename the student union building than any real issues. It was only from about 1995/1996 that there was more active protests: anti-Nazi marches became common, the Nestle boycott campaign made headway and so on.

6

I go to school in Baltimore. Last year there were large protests and rallies on campus about the enviroment and the wages of school employees. Several protesters chained themselves to the main staircase in the administration building.

Now guess how many of those protesters were really students.

Maybe 5-10. The rest were mostly adults, and they came down here on buses from New York and New Jersey. The few students involved got to feel like they were hippies, without much sacrifice (you should have heard them screaming about the professors who wouldn’t let them make up exams and work they missed while having their slumber party in the administration building).

At one of the protests, a student fell down, and one of the campus cops tried to help her up. The NY protesters yelled police brutality and hit him, breaking his glasses. Our campus cops are nice old men, and I’d say that more students were outraged that he was hurt than were interested in protest speeches.

Today, I passed an anti-war demonstration on the street across from campus. There wasn’t a single person my age there, but there were plenty of adults who really should have something better to do.

From everything I’ve seen here, I think political groups try to stir things up on campuses, and small groups of students invite them in. I guess they think their cause gains more media attention and some credibility from being linked with a respected university.

7

Maybe these ‘adults’ thought protesting against war was a better thing to do than put on a suit and go to work for a company that doesn’t give a shit about you and is just worried about money. I do.

peace,
JB

8

I don’t think it is possible to identify social causes of activism, student or otherwise, except those that the activists themselves identify as being the problem.

It would be like trying to identify the causes of firemen arriving, without mentioning the fire.

One student’s opinion, at least.

-Short

Should this thread be in GD or IMHO?

9

The protesters of the 1960’s and 70’s had kids. Those kids are just now grtting old enough to be in college.

10

There are plenty of companies that DO give a shit about their employees, and don’t require a suit. Some of the best paying jobs, BTW, fall into this category. If you are treated like shit, and you do nothing about it, you have noone to blame but yourself. Unfortunately, whether you like it or not, money is what enables us in today’s society to obtain certain basic needs (food, shelter, etc).
At any rate, I’ve always found protests to be simply organized bitching/complaining. My high school reminded me of the movie “PCU”. During the Gulf War, all these nitwits were out there screaming “No blood for oil”–that is, until their parents came to pick them up in the Volvo.

Wouldn’t it be a little more productive if these groups of bitchers all got together somewhere and simply brainstormed to the tone of “What can we actually DO about this?”, rather than getting up in my face as I went to get a burger from the roach coach. But that’s me–I’ve always felt that actions speak louder than words, and protests, IMHO, are words, not actions.

11

I go to school in a town where protesting is an official passtime. As far as I know we’ve been protesting since the sixties and haven’t stopped yet. Sure, some of the protests are worthless (I mean, are they really gonna free Mumia because a bunch of hippies in Santa Cruz beat their drums by the clocktower?) but I have also seen (and taken part in) some very effective protests.

Once when they were holding a vote to destroy a much-loved grading (actually non-grading) policy with no student input on the matter, the students first held a silent protest to symbolize our lack of voice in subjects that affect us greatly. When that failed to gain us some input, we went to more drastic measures. Before they held the final vote, we set people up in the building to chain the doors shut so that the academic senate could not get in to hold the vote. We formed a shield around the building and talked to the proffessors that came to the meeting in a reasonable way…politely telling them why we wern’t going to let them have this meeting. Through those conversations I think a lot of students and faculty got to understand each others posistions better. Because of beareucratic regulations, they could not move the meeting without informing at least two thirds of the academic senate of the new locations. Of course plenty of voters just got back in their cars and went home after seeing all the students, so we managed to stop the vote. Because this was within a few weeks of the end of the year, and you cannot schedule a new academic senate meeting without a one month notice, we effectivly delayed the disasterous vote and saved another year of students from the foul regulations.

This is the sort of protest that I see as action. We also hold lots of teach-ins and that sort of thing that educates, not just enrages. A lot of the protests in this town lead to action- but then again we have a remarkably responsive city government and a very vocal electorate.

While some of these protesters are rich kids with nothing better to do than rebel against their parents values, a lot of these college kids don’t fit the profile. A lot of us are poor, and try to fit in volenteer work between working and classes. College students here have set up some charitable orgainizations that have caused real change and greatly improved our community. These people work tirelessly for social change and I think we need to recognize that.

And remember, universities have a liberalizing effect. People get exposed to new people and new ideas. Suddenly people are jolted out of the comfort zones of their hometowns. They are stuck between rich (hey, they are going to college) and poor (hey, going to college is expensive) and are forming new ideas about money and society.

12

This is a good point. Protesting something that directly affects your or your community’s situation (trying to change local policy)is justified in many cases, because it is a result of thinking about the situation. I neglected to specify that I was referring to protests that are very unlikely to affect anything (your example about Mumia and hippies drumming in SC, for example.)

13

UC Santa Cruz. Fight the power! Glad to see that some things never change.

What else are you going to do? Punk rock died by the mid 80’s, skateboarding ain’t the counter culture rebellious lifestyle it used to be, most people don’t live close enough to the ocean to surf, so hey let’s do some student protests.

Color me cynical.

14

ok, some random thoughts from a 22 yo white male:

i personally find protesters funny. if someone were protesting where i had to work, or do business, i would not change my daily routine. in fact i would probably see it as an amusement that broke up the otherwise boring trip i had shopping at wal-mart.

i was driving on I-95 a few weeks ago, and got behind a vehicle with numerous “save the earth, whales, trees, etc.” bumper stickers, and “end the WTO” painted on the rear window. it was an early 80’s chevy suburban type vehicle. doing 85 mph. hmmm…not very environmentally friendly. what do those things get…3 gallons to the mile? it is sort of like that interview of usama bin laden (protester, albeit extreme) condemning the attacks on afghanistan…he was wearing a timex watch. or like the fight against “big tobacco”. all of those truth.com ads depicted 20-something liberal’s making a statement against cigarette companies. how many of them do you suppose went and smoked a joint after a hard day of protesting?

the leaders and organizers of protests in washington, seattle, etc…how much do you suppose they are paid? they cant be doing this for free. i am sure if some of their loyal followers saw income figures, they would probably join another group…only to find it was the same there.

100 people, 1000 people, or 1 million people protesting, will not stop hunger in africa, save the rainforest, or keep a whale alive. the money they spent for food, lodging, and travel might.

“we are creating a human chain around the white house to raise awareness about the G8” Bulls**t. 2 of you might be, the rest are there because: a) there might be a riot, and i am still pissed at the cops for writing me a ticket…might as well throw a few rocks. b)im in college, and i cant afford the latest of the “quake” series…this will have to do. or c)my friends told me i was “one of them” when i said how ridculous i thought it was.

finally, to answer the question of “why are there so many protests”…it has been happening throughout history.
wherever there is a group of people with nothing better to do than sit around, and ponder the shortcomings of the world…there will be protests. and who has the most time to sit around and ponder the shortcomings of the world? early 20-something’s that havent decided on a career, or 40-50 yo men and women who still havent.

15

There were many protests at that time. They got plenty of press then too, if what I saw was any indication, although I’m not surprised that you don’t hear about them any more.

The main points of protest in the late 1970s and early 1980s when I was at the University of Toronto involved nuclear weapons and ending apartheid in South Africa. Remember, this was at a time when the US was testing cruise missiles over Canada and deploying nukes throughout Western Europe, while the Soviet Union was deploying SS-20s throughout Eastern Europe. The nuclear situation was getting tenser, and buoyed by news of such things as the Greenham Common protests and the No Nukes concert, there were many anti-nuclear protests on and off campus.

As for South Africa, there were many protests demanding that the university divest itself of interests in South Africa, as well as many calling for an end to apartheid and the freeing of Nelson Mandela.

And if no anti-nuclear or anti-apartheid protests were occurring on a given day, you could usually find a protest against rising tuition. Oh, and there were occasionally rallies against American intervention is Central America too: “Support the Marxist Freedom Fighters in Central America;” that sort of thing.

Part of it was the student newspapers. I recall that the news portion of the school newspapers (we had a few) usually dealt with news about anti-nuke/anti-apartheid protests, while the editorials blasted Ronald Reagan, the American military-industrial complex, cruise missile testing, South Africa, big business, and the status quo in general. What to name the new school library or how the football team did? Look at the back of the paper; that’s where those things were, assuming they even made it in.

But now, the Cold War is over, the USSR has fallen, American and Soviet nuclear arsenals are nowhere near as big as they were, and South African apartheid is a distant memory. And so, today’s protestors are dealing with different issues than those. As a result, it’s not surprising they don’t realize that there were protests twenty years ago also. But those were over issues that are no longer a concern today.

16

I think this defies a General Answer.

This thread is closed.