The Power of Protests
College is supposed to be a place that cultivates critical and free thinking. It’s a space that encourages debate and questioning the status quo. It’s a place where young adults go on a journey of self-discovery, fostering their values and beliefs through interactions with peers and professors. These beliefs ultimately dictate their future contributions to the world, shaping the legacy they will leave behind.
So, what happens when these students are punished for standing up for what they believe in? What happens when their desire to enact social activism is met with disregard and in some cases, violence, from administration in the institution to vowed to give them a space to learn, grow and express themselves?
Student protests over the Israel-Hamas war have forced administrations of colleges across the nation to not only decide where they stand on the issue, but also determine how they will address dissenting student voices. Despite student activism serving as the cornerstone of engagement on college campuses for decades, the systematic approach to silence these student-led protests contradict the fact that college campuses should be a space for freedom.
To date, over 30 campuses across the nation have student demonstrations with the protestors calling for universities to separate themselves from companies that are advancing Israel’s military efforts. As someone who has dedicated their career to contributing to the interrogation of the status quo not only through research, but through my interactions with my students, a huge part of me is proud of these students have found a cause they feel is worth fighting for, another part is worried about the potential negative outcome.
The way our society thinks about college protests shifted after the deadly attack against Kent State students in 1970. What was once a safe way to express dissent, turned deadly for student activists, changing the way college administration addressed student demonstrations. The Washington Post recently published an op-ed highlighting what they described as an “American tragedy” when Ohio National Guard soldiers shot into a crowd of protestors at Kent State, killing four and wounding nine unarmed college students, leaving one of those nine paralyzed for life. The article details a Guardsman’s account years after the event who asked, “Why would you put soldiers trained to kill on a university campus to serve a police function?” Good question.
Surely no one wants to relive that experience nearly 55 years, but given the tense environment between students, administration and the police officers policing these demonstrations, history repeating itself feels inevitable. Are our nation’s academic institutions so obsessed with control that they’re willing to silence students by any means necessary?
College campuses allow students a safe space to peacefully demonstrate as a form of free speech and expression – in theory. Today, we see these student-led protests posing a threat to university administration and on a larger scale our government. The strategic effort to silence students goes against the ideological freedoms that serve as the foundation of “the college experience,” and that experience has often been reflective of public opinion on divisive topics. Academic institutions should be encouraging passionate views and dialogue and there are broader implications for suppressing dissent and restricting free speech on campuses. We should be encouraging civic engagement and open dialogue, so these students can continue contributing to driving social change.