Student Activism in the Academy : Its Struggles and Promise [1 ed.] 9781975500375

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student activism in the academy

Student Activism in the Academy Its Struggles and Promise

edited by

Joseph L. DeVitis  and

Pietro A. Sasso

Copyright © 2018 | Myers Education Press, LLC Gorham, Maine Published by Myers Education Press, LLC P.O. Box 424 Gorham, ME 04038

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Copyright © 2018 | Myers Education Press, LLC

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Contents

Dedication vii Preface ix Joseph L. DeVitis and Pietro A. Sasso Part One: Contexts, Conditions, and Struggles 1. The Promise and Struggles of Campus-Based Student Activism Cassie L. Barnhardt

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2. Communication, Dialogue, and Student Activism Spoma Jovanovic

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3. Social Media: Changing Activism for Better or for Worse Tess Halpern

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4. Social Media and Student Activism: Transformative Moments in Recent History Angus Johnston

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5. Freedom of Speech on the Contemporary Campus: A Bridge over Troubled Waters or a Highway to Hell? Dennis E. Gregory

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6. Debating Equality, Neoliberalism, Normativity, and Campus Rhetoric Peter Halewood

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7. Thinking Beyond Political Correctness Joshua Axelrod

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Part Two: Identity, Political Formation, and Promise 8. The Shift from Internationalism to Identity Politics: From Our Oppressions to My Oppression Michael Soldatenko and Eric Margolis

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9. The Legacy of the Campus Living Wage Movement Ashton R. Cooper and J. Patrick Biddix

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10. Women’s Issues and Student Protest Betsy Eudey

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11. Peter Pan Is White Boy Wasted: The Wanderlust of College Men in Protest Pietro A. Sasso

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12. Navigating the Complex Realities of Campus-Based Sexual Violence: Activism and Resistance Marvette C. Lacy and Terah J. Stewart

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13. Black Student Activism: Ongoing Paradoxes and Past Struggles in Higher Education Victoria K. Malaney Brown

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14. Latinx Student Activism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives Ebelia Hernández and Roberto Orozco 15. Maintaining Equity: Queer Student Community Improvement: Work, Precarity, and Compensation Cris Mayo, with Joshua Stuart 16. College Students with Disabilities and Their Activism J. Mark Pousson and Karen A. Myers

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191 205

Contributors 221

Dedication

To Catherine, Harper, Kai, Leigh, Linda and Silas— with love and gratitude (JLD) To Dr. Anita Tieman and Mario Sasso— with love and gratitude (PAS)

Preface Joseph L. DeVitis and Peter A. Sasso

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. —Margaret Mead Profound change can happen. You don’t realize it until you’ve experienced that kind of transformation; once you do, you’ll never be the same. —Jane Fonda

Student Activism in the Academy: Its Struggles and Promise offers readers a wide-ranging, provocative survey of student protest in America’s colleges and universities. Covering both historical and contemporary perspectives, it critically examines the contentious problems and progress that have stirred public reaction in and out of academe. The text’s fundamental purpose is to engage diverse audiences in both reasoned and passionate reflection and soul searching on vital themes that surround campus activism. The essays in this volume respect the need to consider how to weigh questions of freedom, fairness, safety, and protection inside and outside the walls of ivy. Indeed, the pertinent issues are talked about on Main Street as well as in the academy; they are perhaps as far-reaching as social, economic, and political matters can be. They have become more copious in nature since the first recorded student protest in America. In 1766, Harvard students started the “Butter Rebellion” due to the “stinking” butter served on their campus (Morison, 1936). Moving forward, this collection will consider past and

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present student movements, especially the socially conscious resistance that has often sparked the need for change. Our authors provide the big picture of student activism, including devising strategies for activism; the role of social media and technology; legal questions on campus speech; the dilemmas of political correctness; generational differences among student activists; and various forms of student protest related to race, class, gender, and disability. Both professional and student voices prompt us to better comprehend academic and societal realities. Administrators, faculty, students, and student life personnel in higher education—indeed, all those interested in today’s colleges and universities—are invited to participate in the timely and productive dialogue within these pages.

In the Culture Wars Reflecting the landscape of student activism in the American academy, many of the narratives in this text exhibit admittedly progressive perspectives. They are typically framed with a mixture of reason and emotion, as is the case in any act of political persuasion. Progressive discourse is largely couched in terms of empathy, caring, identity, diversity, and social responsibility (Lakoff, 2006). Likewise, students participating in activism naturally become enmeshed in those ideological frames of reference. Their assumptions and actions are thus rooted in contested concepts in competition with conservative worldviews. Each side faces the other with an unsparing attitude. And each side desperately seeks to emerge as “the winner.” In today’s extremely tribal America, there is little room for political compromise. Free speech issues, covered extensively in this anthology, have been especially problematic. Obviously, they should not be treated lightly. Yet the contours of such debate can be seen to be, depending upon one’s perspective, as almost absolute or convoluted. Many interpreters entertain very few conditions upon which freedom of speech should be abridged. Others argue that some alt-right students use their presumed “stewardship” of free speech as a cover for their own political agendas. In this regard, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) makes a useful distinction: No viewpoint or message may be deemed so hateful or disturbing that it may not be expressed. But threats and harassment differ from expressions of ideas that some or even most may find repulsive. They intimate and silence. (AAUP, 2016)

Meanwhile, more liberal student activists are often derided with the label of “snowflakes” if they seek equity and social justice in a severely flawed world. And, even with myriad calls for more civility (more often proffered by rightists as a way to suppress

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opposition), we must recognize that democracy is typically messy and discordant. Amid these rhetorical twists and turns, Stizlein (2018) offers us wise, sobering advice: It is only with the opportunity to dissent that we can determine if our laws and systems guiding us are good or just. Further, in order to invoke our right to dissent, citizens have to know how to dissent . . . [through] consciousness-raising, coalition building, public demonstration and pursuit of traditional government avenues for change . . . [as well as] how to evaluate the justice of laws, how to distinguish effective dissent from simple rabble-rousing, and how to protest in ways that do not unduly infringe on others. (Stizlein, 2018, p. 1)

Through the arena of activism, students can assess their perspectives and weigh their success or failure. In so doing, they can exercise their voices and develop increased confidence and self-understanding. Simultaneously, inquiry about live issues of race, class, gender, disability, power, and identity become exceedingly important to their daily dialogue (Irwin-DeVitis, 2010). In their experimentation, they are preparing to be engaged citizens—one of the primary intentions of a genuinely liberal education.

In the Arena Student activism can thus be seen as a profound growth experience, especially for undergraduates—and one that is challenging as well. For many students, it may involve an abrupt departure from a safer past. They may well glimpse new elements of pain and suffering, natural frustrations, and unnatural burdens as well as real moments of spontaneous joy and great delight. Activism offers students both individual and group tests. They must face the vagaries of self and an often obdurate social and political environment. They will have to draw upon their capacity for independent thought and action in rapidly developing situations. Throughout the activist experience, they are made more keenly aware of their wider social responsibility as they learn to cooperate with those around them in order to sustain that experience. Ideally, they come to understand the force of both collective voices and deliberative individual judgment. They are building faith in the power they can wield (Parkland, Florida, high school students, Black Lives Matter, and Me Too movements on college campuses and communities are prime examples). As Ross and Delgado (2016) put it, “Student movements as a form of social action allow students to interact, teach and learn from each other as part of an exercise of civil engagement” in both traditional and novel ways. Their wide and often ingenious use of social media can be particularly potent in their efforts to change both the academy and, indeed, the social order.

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Once again, these students are practicing civic education at a deep level of involvement. That kind of learning cannot be easily taught. Student activism allows for a special and unforgettable participation in perhaps the most lively kind of lessons in civics. Self-discovery can be felt more viscerally. Empathy becomes instantaneously more vivid as students join shoulders with their peers in an effort to help “others” who are in need. As student activists separate themselves from more familiar environments and dramatically confront new situations, they may begin to turn away from mere egoism and strictly private interests. That is, they can learn significant lessons for both further identity development and social and political formation. In particular, they are engaging in critical analysis of unjust power relations and social inequities as well as working to overcome hierarchical institutional practices in both the academy and community. In brief, student activists experience discourse in action—a form of praxis, a profound effort toward social, economic, and political progress. Yet, importantly, they must take heed that their adopted commitments not be tied to a kind of group-think or herd mentality. Blind tribalism, left or right, negates considered judgment. (Several chapters in this volume pointedly serve as cautionary narratives in that regard.) Instead, their goals should include movement toward mindfulness and openness, as opposed to dogmatism or fanaticism (Hoffer, 1951). Activists need to ascertain that their commitments are reflectively developed. If college personnel are truly invested in student development, they should actively encourage the student’s self-conscious decision making, i.e., that she think seriously about crucial issues in an attentive, thoughtful manner before acting upon them. To do otherwise is to skirt the university’s key mission of searching for truth. At the same time, student activists need to accept their moral and social responsibilities with courage and foresight against a maelstrom of ambiguity, complexity, and uncertainty (Perry, 1970). This is no easy task, especially in the college years. Academically speaking, student activists are mining, once again, whether their liberal-arts preparation has passed the test in difficult times. If it has, there may be many student activists who rise above the darker clouds of bigotry, hatred, and authoritarian tendencies that weaken today’s version of politics in America. With that imagery in mind, this generation of college students can look ahead with cautious prospects for the future. While facing continuing struggles, they owe a debt of gratitude to those many student activists, past and present, for giving them a sense of promise and hope.

References American Association of University Professors (AAUP), 2016. The atmosphere on campus in the wake of the elections. AAUP.org, November 22. www.aaup.org/news/atmospherecampus-wake-elections#. WP-oOMaltPb. Hoffer, E. (1951). The true believer. New York, NY: Harper.

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Irwin-DeVitis, L. (2010). Framing adolescents, their schools and culture: Contested worldviews. In J. L. DeVitis & L. Irwin-DeVitis (Eds.), Adolescent Education: A Reader. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Lakoff, G. (2006). Whose freedom? The battle over America's most important idea. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Morison, S. E. (1936). Three centuries of Harvard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Perry, W. G. (1970). Forms of intellectual and ethical development in the college years: A schema. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Ross, E. W., & Delgado, S. (2016). Students in revolt: The pedagogical potential of student collective action in the age of the corporate university. Knowledge Cultures 4(6), 141–158. Stizlein, S. (2018). Teaching students how to dissent is part of our democracy. Retrieved from https://alternet.org/activism/teaching-students-how-dissent-part-democracy

Part One: Contexts, Conditions, and Struggles

Chapter 1

The Promise and Struggles of Campus-Based Student Activism Cassie L. Barnhardt

Today’s college campuses are a penetrating mirror of the cleavages in contemporary society. Like decades before, the field of higher education, and the nation, are in the throes of tremendous cultural and political conflict that only holds parallels to periods of the past. While the deaths of Treyvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Sandra Bland serve as epicenters of civic discourse about race and racism in the U.S., these tragedies (and others) reside in an overall epoch reflected on campuses. Universities are experiencing countless die-in demonstrations, #BlackLivesMatter rallies and vigils, and campus-specific versions of larger themes such as the #ITooAmHarvard campaign, the story of Black Bruins at UCLA, and Being Black at Michigan (#BBUM). Calls for racial justice are reflected on campus as ΣΑΕ (Sigma Alpha Epsilson) fraternity members at the University of Oklahoma invoke the n-word and nooses are prominently hung around the statue of James Meredith at Ole Miss and Duke University. Racial matters are not the only issue evoking activism. Campus campaigns for economic justice abound concerning student indebtedness, who deserves/qualifies for residency tuition pricing (often referencing undocumented immigrant students), the ethics of college endowments invested in fossil fuels, and fair/living wage initiatives for campus workers, including contingent faculty and service employees. All the while, perennial activism continues from student groups such as the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) group that advocates against affirmative action policies in higher education or maintaining the Western curricular cannon (Binder & Wood, 2013). Also,

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extremist groups motivated by racial antipathy are taking action on campuses with renewed enthusiasm to promote White nationalism (Anti Defamation League [ADL], 2018; Spencer & Stolberg, 2017). All these campus-based issues hold parallels to the broader movements situated in racial politics, globalism, climate change and fossil fuels, and federal immigration policy, as well as longstanding battles over labor organizing and unions, minimum wage, healthcare benefits, economic inequality, and racial and religious politics.

Students’ Activism Coincides With Contemporary Political Sentiments Any consideration of college student activism or freedom of expression and association must be considered within its contemporary social, political, and cultural context. From the earliest historical accounts, campus-based activism has reflected grievances based in the political dynamics of a nation (Boren, 2001). In the process of student protest, broad social grievances are projected and transferred into more precise, localized calls for transformation on campuses. American examples of the relationship between the general social issues of the day and student activism demonstrate the ties between generalized sentiment and campus organizing (see Table 1.1). The campus-based movements of the 1960s are often the reference point for the connection between student activism and social change. However, a pre-1960s perspective shows that each period of structural and cultural transition from the nation’s founding to today has a corresponding story of campus protest and dissent. From the earliest origins of American higher education, student activism contributed to campus life. During the revolutionary era (the end of the 18th century), popular sentiments fueled anti-British and anti-Stamp Act feelings and desires for greater religious freedom. People translated these views into boycotts of British goods; they used religious symbols (Bibles and mock lord’s suppers) to rail against any imposition of religion in their lives, and they called for the ousting of college presidents tied to religious doctrine (Broadhurst, 2014; Rudolph, 1990; Rudy, 1996). During the reconstruction years and into the early 20th century, national sentiments focused on the plight of the working class, desires for more social and cultural freedoms, and tensions based on race. On campuses, students elaborated these sentiments to rail against the norm of in loco parentis, to organize in support of unionization, and to resist militarization (Braungart & Braungart, 1990; Wood, 1974). With respect to racial dynamics during this time, White students engaged in racial violence against Black students, and Black students organized for off-campus civil rights and used strikes and petitions to assert greater control of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) (Braungart & Braungart, 1990; Broadhurst, 2014; Rogers, 2012; Wood, 1974). Additionally, Black students advocated that campuses better represent them, with calls for White HBCU presidents to be replaced with Black ones (Rogers,

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2012). In some respects, students’ demands that the university better reflect the racial demographics of the student body at the start of the 20th century serve as a prologue to similar current student demands (Chessman & Wayt, 2016). Table 1.1 Selected pre-1960s examples of Student Activism and Social Change Ambitions Time

Description of General Social Issue/Sentiment

Campus Activism Reflecting Social Issue

Sources

Colonial times

Prevailing political concerns of the time related to having to “obey an unjust sovereign.”

Riots in the campus commons—notably Harvard’s Bad Butter Rebellion—escalated into debates with board of overseers about students having their campus life governed by an “unjust sovereign.”

Moore, 1997

Revolutionary era

National politics included widespread anti-British and anti-Stamp Act sentiments. Students displayed a penchant for deism, atheism, and religious indifference, views that countered the traditional theological orientation of most colleges.

Multiple commencement protest rallies occurred throughout the colonial colleges; there were boycotts of British goods. Students hosted mock lord’s suppers, burnt Bibles, gathered in secret at night for revolutionary readings and chants, and called for the ouster of college presidents in favor of one who was freed from religious indoctrination.

Broadhurst, 2014; Rudolph, 1990; Rudy, 1996

Antebellum period/pre-Civil War

Students’ concerns mirrored national issues, either advocating for antislavery or state’s rights. During the war itself, students became vocal with their anti-conscription concerns.

Sentiments manifested as students focused on local issues such as expressing problems with the university president, problems with the town’s authorities, or having a say in university decision making. Abolitionist and antislavery movements had a presence on campuses, with Black students cultivating the cause with campus speeches and periodicals.

Lipset, 1971; Rogers, 2012; Rudy, 1996; Wood, 1974

Reconstruction: Early 20th century

Students desired for more social and cultural freedom and held larger concerns about the plight of the working class. Racial tensions were widespread and growing nationally. The women’s movement gained momentum.

Students resisted in loco parentis parentis—where colleges sought to monitor or proscribe the morality and behavior of students. Chapters of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society formed at 70 campuses, working to form unions and pursue anti-militarism on campuses. Female students engaged in rallies for suffrage. Groups of White students engaged in racial violence against Black students on campuses. The New Negro Campus Movement focused on securing off-campus civil rights, wrote publications and engaged in strikes; Black students resisted White leadership of HBCUs, including demanding that Black presidents be installed at HBCUs, and they engaged in petitions and strikes and pushed to assert influence over college control at HBCUs.

Braungart & Braungart, 1990; Broadhurst, 2014; Rogers, 2012; Wood, 1974

1930s

Drawing on the sentiments of the progressive era, students held concerns about an overly materialistic culture; the threat of fascism and war fostered a larger peace movement. Racial division remained prominent.

Students organized into political groups reflecting national concerns/affiliations, staged antiwar rallies, staged walkouts of class, and participated in national peace meetings. Black students pushed for changes at HBCUs with rallies, strikes, class walkouts, and advocacy to oust White paternalistic leaders (in favor of replacing them with Black college presidents) and advocated for fewer social restrictions and more influence over curriculum.

Braungart & Braungart, 1990; Broadhurst, 2014; Laufer & Light, 1970; Rogers, 2012

1940s/1950s

National concerns reflected both a trend toward conservatism associated with the WWII patriotism and the McCarthy era, and national sentiment was highly charged around race, especially desegregation in education.

Some students organized local community programs with YMCAs and YWCAs. Racial violence by White students directed toward African American students (cross burnings, personal attacks) manifested on campuses; African American students organized and worked to promote desegregation.

Astin, Astin, Bayer, & Bisconti, 1975; Broadhurst, 2014; Rogers, 2012; Rudy, 1996

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In the modern academy, patterns of translating national sentiments into specific campus-based movement activity have arguably contributed tangible changes on campuses and in society. For example, following the tumultuous campus protest years of 1967–1969 (Harris, 1969) U.S. states adopted statutory restrictions on dissent (Gibson, 1989). The policies varied by state but were codified in laws such as enacting restrictions on accessing campus, prohibiting interference with campus governance, exclusions on admissions for disrupters, minimum weekly teaching hours, policies that established campus security or peace offices, restrictions on having weapons on campus (even licensed ones), riot statutes, and regulations on sound amplification and prohibiting advocacy for unlawfulness (Gibson, 1989). The decades-long student activism focused on extending civil rights causes into gender, area, and ethnic studies curricular offerings (Arthur, 2011; Crossley, 2017; Rhoads, 1998; Rojas, 2007) that achieved structural changes in the academy. Minnich (1990) regards the adoption of gender, ethnic, and area studies as an expansion of the academy’s epistemic capacity by offering additional avenues of knowledge dissemination and discovery accessible to faculty, students, and the public. New majors, minors, academic journals and scholarly societies were established and remain (Proietto, 1999). However, the degree of implementation of such curricula varied from campus to campus. In these two examples, it is evident that campus activism can spur activists’ desired changes (curricula); but it can evoke unanticipated changes (statutory restrictions on dissent). The examples further reflect the realities of activism where social change pursuits generate intended and unintended consequences (Giugni, 1999). As we consider historical and contemporary displays of campus activism, it is important to elaborate on the relationship between education and activism and the accompanying promises and struggles of addressing these enduring ties.

The Promise: Education Drives Meaning Making, Knowledge, and Action/Activism There exists an inevitability of student activism in higher education. Activism is a phenomenon that has persisted across centuries because, for some students, the learning process cultivates a burgeoning sense of agency and can translate into activism. Further, the routine manifestation of campus activism serves as a reminder that the university, as a social institution, is a place that cultivates free thought and is where learners have the latitude to think about and envision alternative solutions for the functioning and structure of their communities or society. Foundationally, the process of learning enables knowledge discovery, dissemination, and application—these processes are never static. As a social institution, defining qualities of higher education include teaching, learning, and innovating. When done well, universities’ activities cultivate transformation—transforming what is known and what

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is knowable and creating new understandings, practices, and inventions that align with these transformations. As students engaged in the processes of analysis, critique, and active deliberation, these activities stimulate cognitive dissonance. Such dissonance transforms how students understand phenomena, the world, and their selves. When information, analysis, and critique allow students to learn about systems that touch lives (government, education, finance, commerce, health, public safety, or defense), students contemplate the worthiness and functioning of these systems. Through the surfacing of dissonance—as students compare their and their peers’ experiences inhabiting these social systems, with the ideals and aspirations of what the systems could or should accomplish—students ponder why any gaps exist between how the systems are currently functioning and what these systems should be accomplishing. Students are then tasked with the question of what to do about these gaps by applying knowledge, innovation, or further discovery aimed at problem solving. Habermas (1970) describes these processes by noting, “Students are not only preparing for roles that have political significance, the university itself is an agent of social change . . . a university provides an impulse toward entering the struggle against the traditionalism of inherited social structures” (pp. 13–14). Inevitably, in reasoning about the complexities and nuances of the current state of affairs, education prompts a sense of agency as students discover alternatives or acquire new information. Learning is profoundly social; students learn as they share impressions and critiques, consider multiple perspectives, and challenge one another’s interpretations, explanations, and proposed resolutions (Foley, 2004). Correspondingly, education holds the promise of activating students’ collective sense of agency. They see more together and draw energy from collective resources by making sense with one another. The Association of American Colleges and University’s (AAC&U) (2002) Greater Expectations report describes how college learning enables students to become informed, empowered, and responsible by putting their knowledge and skills to good use. For some students, applying skills and being responsible for knowledge includes pursuing collective action to seek the changes they desire to see in society (or on campus). Transformative features of education, and their links to subsequent agency or collective action, are not new ideas. Freire (1997) is typically regarded as an educational scholar noted for characterizing education being a tool for conscientization, which is an essential component for individuals and communities feeling empowered to take action to improve conditions. Additionally, models of transformative learning and scholarly discourse on effective pedagogy articulate the relationships among instruction, methods of inquiry, epistemology, and the interplay of cognition and affect in how learners ultimately integrate, decipher, and apply what they have learned to society (Habermas, 1970; Merriam, 1993; Mezirow, 2000; Minnich, 1990). As such, transformative learning is routinely tied to civic virtues, commitments, and action, as students make sense of rights, freedoms, and responsibilities in the context of political and social life.

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The relationship between learning and activism is present across the ideological spectrum. Binder and Wood’s (2013) analysis portrays how students’ conservative activism manifests through the development of their political identities in distinctive ways that mirror the local campus culture. Similarly, Crossley’s (2017) research highlights how students’ feminism manifests through their student organization involvement, courses, and interactions with educators. Each study concludes by emphasizing that it is shortsighted to suggest that conservative or progressive student activism is merely about individuals’ dispositions or a phenomenon that is simply cultivated by external conservative/progressive advocacy groups. While personal characteristics play a role in students’ activism, as does the influence of external ideological organizations that target college students for participation, these authors each emphasize that students’ activism connects to their collegiate learning experiences and to the unique educational climate offered to its students. A recent report from the National Survey of Student Engagement (Center for Postsecondary Research, 2017) compliments this conclusion, where data reveal a strong relationship between students’ tendencies to participate in activism and their being engaged in learning experiences that foster reflection, critical thinking, having an interest in ideas, and envisioning change. The promise of student activism is that it provides opportunities for students and campuses. Student activists organize to activate ideas and/or learning. They work to advance collective ambitions for their campus, the community, or society. When the campus experiences student protest or activism, such expressions should be construed for what they are: a display of cognitive dissonance. Activists are communicating that the current state of affairs doesn’t meet their collective aspirations. Student activists lodge their grievances to foster greater attention on an issue or to recruit supporters, and/or they mobilize to pursue organizational or structural changes to policies or practices that could result in closing the gaps between their current experiences and their unmet ideals.

Why Activism? Why Not Change by Another Means? Any form of political action manifests along a continuum of potential behaviors and actions that people pursue to address their political, social, and cultural challenges or grievances. The particular behaviors pursued are regarded as activists’ tactics (Tilly, 2004). On the individual end of the spectrum, conventional political tactics include such things as voting, writing a letter or telephoning an elected representative, and following the issues (Dalton, 2008). Collective conventional approaches include more active engagement, such as attending a community meeting, volunteering for a campaign or community organization, or participating in a standing committee (Dalton, 2008). On a campus, conventional political problem solving is implemented through student governing groups, committee processes, student-initiated proposals, and providing feedback

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on university practices or policies. Independent of activists’ particular ideologies and political positions, activism tends to emerge when conventional processes have fallen short of either conferring attention on an issue or of bringing about an adequate resolution to the matter being raised. Moreover, displays of activism are, by definition, actions taken to assert political power through process mechanisms outside of the conventional political procedures. For decades, college students have been communicating their concerns and grievances to student affairs and administrative professionals through established, conventional political processes on their campuses. Students share concerns in routine conversations, advising appointments, and committee meetings or in survey responses. For example, students have alerted administrators to the problems with college costs and debt accumulation, being treated unfairly by the campus’s or town’s law enforcement, experiencing fearful racial animus in their living spaces, being harassed in laboratory and learning spaces, being dismissed or overlooked in important campus decisions, and so on. Across the array of issues, students have looked to student affairs staff and other campus administrators to address problems related to material resources, human dignity, freedom from coercion, and safety. They have asked administrators to assist them, to get things done, to speak truth to power. Accordingly, concerned students have engaged in campus committees or working groups, participated in search processes for new administrative leaders (seeking greater empathy for their concerns), or used student governing groups to communicate problems and initiate solutions. All these things have been happening for years, even decades, using established mechanisms designed to address the conditions and concerns of students. The established modes of making changes on campus are steeped in an institutionalized set of norms and power dynamics. Schneiberg and Soule (2005) note that institutionalized processes reveal established ontologies about the authority of the organizational actors, imposing parameters “cognitively, by constituting categories of thought, problem solving, and identity, and rendering only certain problems or solutions thinkable, or normatively, by delineating structures and practices to which organizations must confirm to be validated as legitimate” (p. 125). Part of students’ intent in pursuing activism flows from their dissatisfaction with the predictable (limited) range of potential outcomes produced by the aforementioned conventional means. More simply, activism often becomes a political alternative because the conventional political processes have underperformed for students. From one perspective, students’ activism is an attempt to reorder collective meanings, rendering new categories and practices legitimate and valued, with the aim of creating a change in the structure or allocation of social value or resources (Zald & Useem, 1987). For example, a student hunger strike communicates (a) a substantive grievance (e.g., student activists decide not to eat to shed light on problems with matters such as tuition pricing, free speech, racial justice, or accountability for labor conditions in procurement contracts), and (b) the hunger strike signals that prior means of redress to the substantive issue have had limited effect.

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Effective activism—that is, activism that gets noticed and becomes a matter of public attention—is part reason and part art. The reason side of activism coincides with a traditional deprivation view of interest-group politics, where the chances of activism increase based on the scale of the problem or the lack of attention to it (Zald & Useem, 1987). This is why campus activism is a likely outgrowth after the limited effect of conventional political approaches to garner attention or evoke change. Aggrieved parties (students, in this case) tend to form interest groups and pursue activism to seek greater attention, or issue salience, for their positions or concerns (Burstein, 1999). The “art” side of activism is the extent to which organizers are skillful in transforming existing taken-for-granted cultural meanings and communicating them when they are likely to have an impact (Barnhardt, 2014). For example, the “Cocks not Glocks” campaign at the University Texas at Austin (Dart, 2016) involved activists invoking a set of rhetorical questions about what sorts of items are worthy of prohibition in a campus educational environment. They were contrasting the policy exclusion of a sex toy from campus because of its disruptiveness to the educational environment compared to the relative disruption created by a policy to allow firearms on campus. Klandermans (2007) explains that mobilization is fueled by collective sentiments and emotions; effective organizers activate symbols, cultural meanings, moral codes, or narratives. He writes: Emotions that are politically relevant are more than other emotions located at the social construction end of the scale. For these emotions, cultural, and historical factors play an important role in the interpretation of the state of affairs by which they are generated. . . . [Activists] weave together a moral, cognitive, and emotional package. (Klandermans, 2007, p. 365)

As such, political activism acquires poignancy by coinciding with contemporary social debates and cultural trends to secure sympathizers for the cause, or to solidify political positions (McAdam, McCarthy, & Zald, 1996). Artful activism is therefore attentive to the opportunity structure of ideas, carefully elaborating the poignancy and relevance of particular ideas in contemporary social context. We see these dynamics in the example of students’ activism focused on their campuses’ (mis)handlings of sexual assault that extend from instances such as the “Carry That Weight” campaign, initiated by survivor Emma Sulkowicz at Columbia University, who carried a mattress around campus (Bogler, 2014), and questions about the appropriateness of a judge’s sentence of a Stanford student athlete who was convicted of multiple counts of felonious criminal sexual misconduct. Other issues gainied attention outside of the campus context with the self-described non-consensual kissing and “grab ’em by the pussy” comments from Donald Trump while a 2016 U.S. presidential candidate (Savidge, 2016), as well as sexual harassment and assault allegations against many prominent figures in entertainment and media (Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer, etc.). These all fuel sustained attention to the ways powerful people or institutions contribute to the problem of sexual

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harassment and assault. These events prompt campuses and community members to allot attention to the topic because of its popular resonance. At more settled times in popular culture narrative, campus activism against sexual assault may have included awareness campaigns. Now, however, with a greater focus on the issue outside the academy as well, it gives students a different political opportunity structure to voice their long-standing concerns such that campus leaders and the public are ripe to legitimate the problem and take action. Some evidence of such a phenomenon is the Association of American Universities (AAU), which is taking steps to understand the scope of the problem of sexual harassment and assault on its member campuses as a means of asserting leadership in being responsive to the issue.

The Struggles: The University Response to Activism A university’s template for responding to activism is shaped by how it has approached prior episodes on campus, the current political climate, and the university’s resource dependencies (Manning, 2018). Hopefully, however, the organizational response is guided by the organization’s mission and values. A campus’s response to activism is also influenced by the individual university leaders’ personal tendencies and/or biases about activism, the students doing the organizing, and their perspectives about conflict, power, and authority more generally. With the inevitability of student activism, campuses must prepare for the eventuality that the university’s activities, policies, or partnerships will be the subject of public debate and critique. As such, it is wise for university leaders to contemplate whether the management team sees activism as something to be dealt with, suppressed, avoided, encouraged, championed, or reviled. Further, how will the university engage public critiques of its actions? Will such critiques be addressed through negotiation? public relations? risk management? Will activists’ claims or demands be met with debate, deliberation, evidence seeking—as assertions are addressed in the classroom? Being realistic about the university’s tendencies and clarifying a set of principles to guide the organization’s response will assist it in navigating the inevitable episodes of student activism. Colleges, as social institutions, are inclined to operate in ways that allow them to maintain their power, prestige, and freedom of action (Scott, 1991, 2007). Given these tendencies, when student activists advance movement claims about their university as acting in ways inconsistent with its mission or values, or if students make claims that reveal systemic patterns of mistreatment or unfair (potentially discriminatory) practices or institutional bias, colleges are inclined to resist these portrayals. The risk-averse tendency for the campus is to respond to student activists’ claims in a way that preserves the university’s autonomy and stops the public critique. In so doing, the university limits its public responsibility/culpability for perpetuating the problems raised by the activists.

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The typical scope of university responses to student activism consists of a handful of approaches. Lammers (1977) characterized universities’ goals in responding to student activists as working to either eliminate, appease, or dissolve the activism, or to achieve a copartnership with the student opposition. These goals are enacted by responses geared to “fight off,” “buy off,” “stand off,” or “buy into” the students’ activism, respectively. Depending on which of these goals the university seeks to achieve, the strategies and tactics a university uses, or how they interact with, view, and conceptualize student activists, will also vary. Although contemporary cross-case comparative empirical analyses of university administrative responses to student activism are quite rare, Lammers’s typology remains a resonant conceptualization of the patterns administrators employ in current student activist episodes. We have seen universities respond to activists using (a) policy enforcement to suppress forms of activism or the activists themselves (eliminate, fight off), (b) small concessions to the activists’ complaints such as identifying a scapegoat (a version of appeasement, buy off), (c) a tactic of neutrality or abstention from position taking (dissolve, stand off), or (d) a new or existing organizational structure, often a committee, to review and make recommendations to the claims expressed through students’ activism (copartnership or buy in).

Enforcement: Fight Off Legally, campuses have been granted statutory authority to regulate the time, place, and manner of expressing dissent on campus (Kaplan & Lee, 2009). Accordingly, some campuses respond to students’ activism by invoking their authority to stop, censor, or silence expression, using the student conduct process or enforcement of other campus policies. In the fall of 2017, students from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) staged a peaceful protest during a donor event to express their concerns regarding the administration’s efforts to exercise more control over the student union facility (Parslow, 2017; Robarge, 2017). The university constructed a physical barrier around the union to try to eliminate or squelch activism. After a protest occurred outside a donor event, campus administrators gathered investigatory data and decided to initiate student conduct investigations as a means for adhering to campus safety (Kochman & Parslow, 2017). Administrators’ attempts to make disruptions more difficult to implement and to decide to enforce student conduct policies were used to fight off other forms of dissent and to dissuade students’ future efforts at such claims making. This administrative approach served to reinforce the authority of RPI’s administrative leaders to make decisions about the union facility over other stakeholders’ preferences. The enforcement approach presents a risk to the educational and democratic values of free expression. If or when the campus succeeds in redirecting the controversy away from the substantive topic students raise (at RPI, the topic of students influencing decisions about the union facility, or, in other circumstances, topics such as tuition costs, racial bias, failure to address sexual misconduct, etc.) to a public debate over how the

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students raised their issues, the university eliminates facing the claims against it. The activists’ cause may disappear, or it becomes subverted by being transformed into a new controversy about who on campus can dissent and how. The “fight off” approach may or may not suppress subsequent activism, depending on the relative commitment of the activists to their cause (Tilly, 2004).

Concessions or Scapegoating: Buy Off Another response to student activism can involve administrators conceding a small measure of responsibility in the problem the student activists asserted by identifying a specific person (administrator, faculty or staff member, sometimes student) or activity of a particular office (registrar, admissions, etc.) that can be used as a scapegoat for the institutional problems raised. Such identification functions as a means to contain the problem. Once the problem is isolated and identified, the university can make modest changes (discipline or fire the offending employee or change organizational monitoring or activities) to appease student activists. Keeping the students’ grievances contained to a person or a few people allows the university to resist the narrative that the organization is systemically flawed or in the wrong. Admittedly, sometimes the substantive claims of student activists are demands that a particular administrator, such as the president or dean, be fired, as was the case at Clarement McKenna College (CMC) in the fall of 2015. CMC students demonstrated and issued demands to express the concerns of students of color about racism and a negative campus climate (Bramlett, 2015). Activists called for terminating the dean of students and made threats of a hunger strike if such action were not taken. The dean subsequently submitted her resignation. Making discrete concessions or identifying a scapegoat can serve as a step toward resolving the problems activists raise. However, the buy-off or concession approach can also short circuit any broader efforts to pursue systemic organizational changes. When concessions are made, the burden shifts to student activists to recruit allies for their cause and to expand their movement numbers. Increasing numbers will sustain commitment over time from adherents, even in light of small concessions made by the university.

Appearance of Neutrality Toward Dissolution: Standoff One approach universities have used with student activists is a de facto stand-off of sorts. This is the approach of pursuing a position of neutrality and largely waiting out the conflict through little or no organizational action on the activists’ substantive claims. This approach can communicate that any form or topic of protest or activism is ineffectual, which may ultimately facilitate dissolution of the contention. In a political climate that routinely involves movement and counter-movement dynamics, where campuses

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have cadres of student activists willing to organize on oppositional sides of any given issue, the stand-off can be a tactic of disengagement or conflict avoidance. At present, racial conflict on campus is often characterized as a binary issue. For example, in the fall of 2016, a student group at Texas A&M, the European Aggies Alliance, sought to bring to campus an alt-right speaker, Richard Spencer. The TAMU Anti-Racism group organized in response to express their discontent with Spencer’s ideas and presence (Morse, 2016). In such a situation, where activist groups are organizing around different positions on a similar issue, the university itself may pursue the stand off approach to avoid being the target of activism. Even if the university isn’t the organizers’ singular target (in the Texas A&M example, recruiting sympathizers to the cause was a primary target of the organizing), it is still a secondary target of activists’ pursuits. The university as a social institution is intimately tied to the reality that ideas and information have consequences—which is why the integrity of the educational process is based on weighing evidence and critique and evaluating the observable personal and collective impact of any phenomena. Contestations over ideas in university spaces are battling for legitimacy—and the legitimacy comes with the fight over how ideas are subjected to scrutiny and analysis. When activists encounter a stand-off approach of university officials, organizers’ approach might become a bit more expansive. That is, student activists may continue critiquing the oppositional organization, but the activists might also more directly tie the university’s public statements and behaviors as evidence of the university’s already established positions on the contested topic. In doing so, they reveal the limits of the university claiming neutrality and point onlookers to how the university supports or undermines the activist groups’ assertions.

Review Process: Buy In University efforts to buy in to activists’ claims typically come in the form of a committee or by the university designating a unit or person to serve as the point of contact for the issues raised by activists. At a cursory level, this may simply look like universities granting official recognition to an activist student group, which then imparts access to university staff, facilities, and resources. Sometimes buy in or copartnership presents as renewing efforts in existing shared governance processes where the university has its staff members more deliberately partner with a subcommittee of the campus student government to examine the problems students are raising through their activism. Copartnership is also exhibited through the establishment of a blue ribbon or presidential-level committee that is charged with the task of addressing a topic connected to activists’ claims. Such was the case with University of Arizona President Ann Weaver Hart’s creation of a diversity task force in 2016 following several student protest events that included issuing a list of 20 demands for improving the racial climate on campus (Jacquette, 2016). Somewhat similarly in 2018, Harvard President Drew Faust initiated

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a review committee following student activism and their issuing demands. However, at Harvard the president emphasized that the committee formation was not in response to the students’ demands, but was explicitly an effort to address matters coming from “many different corners of the University” (Faust; cited in Guillaume, 2018). In such a case, it is evident that the formation of a committee alone doesn’t constitute a buy-in organizational response. In Harvard’s case, the formation of a committee served as more of a buy-off approach, since it only made a modest concession to students’ demands. Ultimately, however, the formation of a committee has the potential for buy-in, depending on how things proceed and whether the university views itself as trying to partner with concerned activists. It is worth noting that, in universities’ copartnership or buy-in response efforts, student affairs professionals are often tasked with interacting with student activists to calm, resolve, quell, or mediate the activism. If not a specific student affairs administrator, it might be a subunit or office that serves the aggrieved student group. It is important to recognize that student affairs staff members’ efforts can be encumbered by suspicion, where the different parties involved (student activists, the general student body, senior administrators, the public or media, board of governors) wonder whose side the student affairs professional is seeking to advance. Any suspicion hinders the quality of the partnership. The values and ethics of the student affairs field (ACPA & NASPA, 2010; ACPA, 2006) require that student affairs staff simultaneously advance students’ interests and the campus’s organizational interests. Is this really an achievable goal? On account of their formal employment relationship to the university, campus practitioners’ economic self-interests will always hold a connection to the campus’s organizational interests. Further, independent of the personal relationships and the relative quality of any previous advocacy or prior support extended to students, student affairs professionals are “functionaries” of the university (who are typically not eligible for tenure, who seldom work with the employment protections of a collective bargaining agreement, and who typically don’t have the assurances of academic freedom). These structural ties can create struggles for campus educators who aspire to selflessly advocate for students’ interests. When student activists are presented with copartnership opportunities through university committees or staff liaisons, students tend to deescalate their protest activity, at least in the short term (Barnhardt, 2012). As students engage with university partners, it is important for them to pursue this work by not only advocating for their cause, but by communicating how the partners also have a stake in the cause personally. The partnership will progress swiftly if it transforms toward being an alliance rather than a transactional relationship. So much of this transformation depends on developing authentic personal relationships between student and university partners.

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Conclusion With the inevitability of student activism, campus leaders and activists alike need to make sense of it. We live in an interconnected world where instances of campus dissent, and any corresponding administrators’ response to it, signal interested parties in a matter of moments. These realities are both helpful and hazardous to the cause, the participants, and the targets of campus activism. The immediacy of our interconnectedness encourages swift attention by onlookers and actors, but such speed and ease of dissemination does not always have the sophistication or reliability to separate falsehoods and rumors from facts and evidence. The promise of student activism is really the promise of education to liberate thinking and to find community through learning and discovering. The hope of education is that through deliberate and expansive study, students can solve enduring and thorny social problems. Activism is one tool in a large repertoire of options to assert political power. Campuses should pay careful attention to displays of activism because they serve as a sort of flashing red light, denoting that the campus should stop, take notice, and navigate the situation with acute attention, deliberate discourse, and reflection on its institutionalized values and practices. University leaders should be careful not to simply mimic the response of other campuses, but choose an approach that is compatible with the issues, as well as with the organization’s resources and values. It is important to acknowledge that campuses are always responsive to activism—even if it comes in the form of passive nonaction or a stand off approach that just waits out the controversy. Finally, education can unleash human potential by enabling people to be more skillful in asserting public critique, offering dissenting views with precision and evidence, and feeling informed and empowered to take action. All these skills can be perceived as threats to existing power holders or power structures—whether the powerful entities are universities (or their leaders), corporate interests, governments, religious organizations, school districts, law enforcement, financial interests, or powerful individuals or identity groups, among others. If conventional political processes become ineffectual, history tells us we can expect activism within universities as nuclear sites for students to advance their aspirations and goals through free expression and dissent.

References Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). (2002). Greater expectations: A new vision of learning as a nation goes to college. Available from http://greaterexpectations.org/ American College Personnel Association (ACPA) & National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA). (2010). Professional competency areas for student affairs practitioners. Retrieved from https://www.naspa.org/images/uploads/main/ ACPA_NASPA_Professional_Competencies_FINAL.pdf

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ACPA. (2006). Statement of ethical principles and standards. Retrieved from http://www. myacpa.org/sites/default/files/Ethical_Principles_Standards.pdf Anti Defamation League (2018). With hate in their hearts: The state of White supremacy in the United States. Retrieved from https://www.adl.org/education/resources/reports/ state-of-white-supremacy Arthur, M. M. L. (2011). Student activism and curricular change in higher education. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Astin, A. W., Astin, H. S., Bayer, A. E., & Bisconti, A. S. (1975). The power of protest. San Francisco, CA: Jossey- Bass. Barnhardt, C. L. (2012). Contemporary student activism: The educational contexts of socially-responsible student activism (Dissertation). University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Barnhardt, C. L. (2014). Campus-based organizing: Tactical repertoires of a contemporary student movement. In C. Broadhurst & G. L. Martin (Eds.), Radical academia? Understanding the climates for campus activists, Vol. 167 (pp. 43–58). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Binder, A., & Wood, K. (2013). Becoming right: How campuses shape young conservatives. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bogler, E. (2014). Emma Sulkowicz’s performance art draws support from campus activists. Columbia Daily Spectator. Available from https://www.columbiaspectator.com/ news/2014/09/02/emma-sulkowiczs-performance-art-draws-support-campus-activists/ Boren, M. E. (2001). Student resistance: A history of an unruly subject. New York, NY: Routledge. Bramlett, M. (2015, November 12). CMC dean resigns after protest over racial issues. Claremont Courier. Available from https://www.claremont-courier.com/articles/news/t17367-cmcprotest-spellman-resigns Braungart, R. G., & Braungart, M. M. (1990). Political generational themes in the American student movements of the 1930s and 1960s. Journal of Political & Military Sociology, 18(1), 79–121. Broadhurst, C. J. (2014). Campus activism in the 21st century: A historical framing. New Directions for Higher Education, 2014(167), 3­­­–­­­15. Burstein, P. (1999). Social movements and public policy. In M. G. Giugni, D. McAdam, & C. Tilly (Eds.), How social movements matter. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Center for Postsecondary Research. (2017). Engagement insights: Survey findings on the quality of undergraduate education. NSSE National Survey of Student Engagement. Available from http://nsse.indiana.edu/html/annual_results.cfm Chessman, H., & Wayt, L. (2016). What are students demanding? Higher Education Today. Available from https://higheredtoday.org/2016/01/13/what-are-students-demanding/ Crossley, A. D. (2017). Finding feminism: Millenial activists and the unfinished gender revolution. New York, NY: New York University Press. Dalton, R. J. (2008). Citizenship norms and the expansion of political participation. Political Studies, 56(1), 76–98. Dart, T. (2016). Cocks not glocks: Texas students carry dildos on campus to protest gun laws. The Guardian. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/25/ cocks-not-glocks-texas-campus-carry-gun-law-protest Foley, G. (2004). Introduction: The state of adult education and learning. In G. Foley (Ed.), Dimensions of adult learning (pp. 3–18). London, UK: Open University Press. Freire, P. (1997). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum.

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Gibson, J. L. (1989). The policy consequences of political intolerance: Political repression during the Vietnam era. Journal of Politics, 51(1), 13–35. Giugni, M. G. (1999). Was it worth the effort? The outcomes and consequences of social movements. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 371–393. Guillaume, K. E. (2018, May 1). “Review Committee” not a direct response to student demands, Faust says. Harvard Crimson. Available from https://www.thecrimson.com/ article/2018/5/2/faust-committee-not-direct-response/ Habermas, J. (1970). Toward a rational society: Student protest, science, and politics. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Harris, D. (1969). Staff study of campus riots and disorders, October 1967–May 1969. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Jacquette, M. (2016, March 23). Hart forms team to support diversity. Daily Wildcat. Available from http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/article/2016/03/hart-plans-out-a-new-team-tosupport-campus-diversity Kaplan, W. A., & Lee, B. A. (2009). A legal guide for student affairs professionals (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Klandermans, B. (2007). The demand and supply of participation: Social-psychological correlates of participation in social movements. In D. A. Snow, S. A. Soule, & H. Kreisi (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to social movements (pp. 360–379). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Kochman, S., & Parslow, B. (2017, November 9). Dean of students office begin judicial inquiries into protest participation. The Polytechnic. Avaialble from https://poly.rpi.edu/2017/11/09/ dean-of-students-office-begins-judicial-inquiries-into-protest-participation/ Lammers, C. (1977). Tactics and strategies adopted by university authorities to counter student opposition. In D. W. Light (Ed.), The dynamics of university protest (pp. 171–198). Chicago, IL: Nelson–Hall. Laufer, R. S., & Light, D., Jr. (1970). The origins and future of university protest. In D. Light, Jr., & J. Spiegel (Eds.), The dynamics of university protest (pp. 1–22). Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall. Lipset, S. M. (1971). Rebellion in the university. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Manning, K. (2018). Organizational theory in higher education (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. McAdam, D., McCarthy, J. D., & Zald, M. N. (1996). Comparative perspectives on social movements: Political opportunities, mobilizing structure, and cultural framings. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Merriam, S. B. (Ed.). (1993). An update on adult learning theory: New directions for adult and continuing education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning to think like an adult: Core concepts of tranformation theory. In J. A. Mezirow (Ed.), Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory (pp. 2–34). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Minnich, E. K. (1990). Transforming knowledge. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Moore, K. M. (1997). Freedom and constraint in eighteenth century Harvard. In L. F. Goodchild & H. Wechsler (Eds.), The history of higher education (2nd ed.) (pp. 108–114). Needham Heights, MA: Simon and Schuster. Morse, B. (2016, December 4). Student “alt-right” organization plans counter protest. The Battalion. Retrieved from from https://texags.com/forums/16/topics/2817985/9

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Parslow, B. (2017, October 18). “Build bridges, not fences”: Despite RPI’s denial of protest application, students made their voices heard outside Friday’s capital campaign launch. The Polytechnic. Available from https://poly.rpi.edu/2017/10/18/build_bridges_not_fences/ Proietto, R. (1999). The Ford Foundation and women’s studies. In E. C. Lagemann (Ed.), Philanthropic foundations: New scholarship, new possibilities (pp. 271–284). Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Rhoads, R. A. (1998). Freedom’s web. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Robarge, M. (2017, November 12). RPI protesters face disciplinary action. The Saratogian. Available from http://www.troyrecord.com/general-news/20171112/rpi-protesters-facedisciplinary-action Rogers, I. H. (2012). The Black campus movement: Black students and the racial reconstitution of higher education, 1965–1972. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan Rojas, F. (2007). From Black power to Black studies: How a radical social movement became an academic discipline. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Rudolph, F. (1990). The American college and university: A history. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Rudy, W. (1996). The campus and a nation in crisis: From the American Revolution to Vietnam. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses. Savidge, N. (2016, October 30). Case reflects wider trend—Student facing 11 charges becomes part of national narrative, sexual assault. UW allegations parallel growing awareness. Wisconsin State Journal, p. B1. Schneiberg, M., & Soule, S. A. (2005). Institutionalization as a contested, multilevel process: The case of rate regulation in American fire insurance. In G. F. Davis, D. McAdam, W. R. Scott, & M. N. Zald (Eds.), Social movements and organization theory (pp. 122–160). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Scott, W. R. (1991). Unpacking institutional arrangements. In W. W. Powell & P. J. DiMaggio (Eds.), The new institutionalism in organizational analysis (pp. 164–182). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Scott, W. R. (2007). Institutions and organizations (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Spencer, H., & Stolberg, S.G. (2017, August 11). White nationalists march on University of Virginia. New York Times. Available from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/us/ white-nationalists-rally-charlottesville-virginia.html Tilly, C. (2004). Social movements 1768–2004. Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Wood, J. L. (1974). The sources of American student activism. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company. Zald, M. N., & Useem, B. (1987). Movement and countermovement interaction: Mobilization, tactics, and state involvement. In M. N. Zald & J. D. McCarthy (Eds.), Social movements in an organizational society (pp. 247–272). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.

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Chapter 2

Communication, Dialogue, and Student Activism Spoma Jovanovic

Students, by the nature of their roles as students, ask questions. One question that sometimes takes a bit of time to form, but eventually emerges as they learn of collective actions making headlines, such as the women’s march or the Black Lives Matter movement, is, “Where and how do social change processes start?” The follow-up question they pose is perhaps the more important one: “How do social change movements persist against the backdrop of threats, criticisms, and worse?” The answers to these questions can be found in the work and impact of ordinary people, to whom we owe a debt for the myriad progressive reforms they have championed throughout history. Yet, in many, if not most educational settings, the lessons to be gleaned from involved, knowledgeable citizens have been largely omitted from formal teaching, leaving too many students without important history and classroom instruction to help them become active participants in promoting justice in our democracy (Zinn, 2015). Imagine if our youth in elementary school, high school, and college discussed the ways in which people have confronted the roots of racial injustice, gender inequality, labor struggles for fair wages and working conditions, immigration policies, and the long overdue corrections required to combat disabilities discrimination. Imagine how students could learn to discern important facts and values in those conversations that bring history alive by learning about collective action efforts. Activist history, too often maligned for its trouble-making qualities and sidelined from mainstream academic instruction, deserves to be lifted up for the lessons and skills

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it provides to students. Such knowledge allows students to build and improve on the work of people who dared to challenge injustices where they existed in favor of a more compassionate, equitable, and fair world. Activists, in this country and around the globe, join together to advocate for a world where we are connected in “a community woven together from sharing and mutual care; a community of concern and responsibility for the equal right to be human and the equal ability to act on that right” (Bauman, 1998, p. 150). Activist history, in addition to providing essential political and contextual grounding, necessarily examines how communication is the ethical expression of our humanity that emerges as the most essential resource for social change. It is communication that builds enduring relationships vital to every broad-based movement. It is through our interactions that we learn to include and appreciate multiple perspectives as an avenue for bridging differences, which is so necessary for democracy. Communication propels us to express our care for others and invite deliberation on important decision making. Indeed, “Language is one of the most potent resources each of us has for achieving our own political empowerment” (Allen, 2014, p. 22). Communication is the starting point for learning of, talking about, and remedying through social change the struggles, discrimination, and unfairness others have faced. It is educational work that is rewarding, fulfilling, and meaningful. Of the many invaluable peak experiences in school, at the top of the list often cited by my former students are the times when they met new people of different cultures or when they engaged in discussions about social, political, and economic issues, or when they discovered previously unknown stories and histories that activated a desire to make the world better. When education serves as midwife to democracy’s realization in everyday life (Dewey, 2008), the learning experience is transformed from a passive consideration of disconnected facts into an active, robust space where students exchange ideas and investigate the means by which we can all live together peacefully and productively. In that vibrant setting, educators can introduce students to stories and present-day experiences that demonstrate how profound community change arises from the collective action of people to influence other constituents, including government officials and community groups. This chapter offers an overview of challenges to democracy that influence the modes and means of inspiring student activism through communication and drawing on the resources embedded in dialogue, public deliberation, collective action, and protest events. There is renewed interest to encourage student voting and political participation after decades of decline (CIRCLE, 2008); thus the time is right for a deep consideration of and teaching about the many forms of democratic expression vital for ensuring a strong democracy. When students can discern the various routes to activism and see themselves as part of a rich history, they will learn how to join people—one, two, three and more at a time—to introduce new ideas powerful enough to move minds, hearts, policies, and laws.

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21st-Century Challenges In the 21st century, students are familiar with crises that are rife with moral consequences. Students feel the impact of climate change conversations, economic downturns, calls for police accountability, assaults on voting rights, and escalating gun violence in schools. They see as well both the robust and feeble attempts by their elected leaders to mitigate the impacts of these calamities and the grassroots organizers who often pose alternative solutions. If we are lucky, we see students’ ethical sensibilities awaken as they consider their roles and responsibilities in the controversies. Students have witnessed the devastating impact of environmental disasters on historically underrepresented communities. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina shed light on how policies of the Army Corp of Engineers contributed to the disaster that flooded New Orleans, leaving more than one-quarter of the city’s residents in dire straits, particularly those who were poor and without transportation to evacuate as ordered. Five years later, in 2010, the unprecedented British Petroleum (BP) oil spill off the Gulf Coast generated public outrage and action over unchecked drilling practices. Following a United States District Court ruling that BP was guilty of gross negligence and reckless conduct, the company agreed to pay $18.7 billion in fines, the largest corporate settlement in U.S. history. Students notice these predicaments, care about them, and in some cases take action. For other students, the situations described here seem beyond their reach to do anything worthwhile. Economic declines, too, have made headlines repeatedly, impacting the opportunities and hopes students could consider. The recession of 2007 implicated criminal banking practices that led to record bankruptcies, home foreclosures, and plummeting savings accounts. Corporate greed was at the root of the problem. It lined the pockets of financial executives but left the cookie jars of ordinary people empty. Students—most of whom fell into the 99%, which the Occupy Wall Street worked to bring attention to—wondered how such an economic disaster could happen and how the top 1% of the nation’s wealthy could continue to amass fortunes while their families lost ground. For the first time in our country’s history, these students were among those who would likely have a future less secure than the previous generation (Allison, 2017). Students learned at a tender young age that their elders were not going to be able to ensure a more prosperous future. Police practices have also galvanized student attention as unarmed Black people were killed, often without provocation, shocking a nation that witnessed so many of the events on cellular phone footage. Trayvon Martin (2012), Miriam Carey (2013), Tamir Rice (2014), Eric Garner (2014), Michael Brown (2014), Walter Scott (2015), and Keith Lamont Scott (2016) were just a few of the country’s citizens who lost their lives at the hands of the police, along with 266 unarmed Black people in 2016 alone, according to The Guardian’s interactive tracking system (2017). Students responded with protests and despair. Three young women did more. In response to what they considered a

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state-sanctioned attack on Black people, the three started Black Lives Matter in 2013 to call attention to the crisis in modern militaristic police action. Voting rights have been under renewed assault in the 21st century, prompting rage and action of faith-based and community groups. From the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina (Schradie, 2018) that galvanized a multi-racial, multi-generational alliance to lawsuits filed against gerrymandering around the country to protests against required photo identification in the voting booth, students were often put in the middle of the controversy. In some states, parents were threatened with legal action and fines if their college-bound students voted outside their hometown precincts. In other locales, student voting booths on or near schools were eliminated in an attempt to limit the influence of student voices (Liebelson, 2014). Students would not be silent, however, as gun violence in schools escalated, which started with the 1999 Columbine Massacre in Littleton, Colorado, that left 15 dead and 24 wounded. Since then, according to the Washington Post, more than 150,000 students attending at least 170 U.S. schools have been victims of gun violence on their campuses (Rozsa, Balingit, Wan, & Berman, 2018). In the aftermath of the most tragic and visible of the shootings, including Virginia Tech in 2007, Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, parents and other activists have called for comprehensive gun reform. However, most efforts for meaningful change stalled until the Parkland, Florida, teenagers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School turned their grief into activism with their campaign, #neveragain. Within three weeks of their unyielding, coordinated effort to march on Washington, lobby state officials, coordinate national walkouts, and respond to media interviews, Florida signed into law new gun safety legislation. Florida raised the minimum age for buying guns to 21, mandated a waiting period for gun purchases, and provided funding for increased school security and mental health services (Astor, 2018). Though the bill did not achieve all the goals the Florida teenagers advocated for, it was the first successful gun reform in that state in more than 20 years. More importantly, the work of those teenagers launched a national conversation in defiance of the well-funded political influence wielded by the National Rifle Association. Of note is that all these crises have taken place amidst a declining faith in democracy, not only in the United States, but also worldwide, according to leading researchers of democratic governance: “The public spheres of informed and engaged citizens seem to be weakening across countries, even in those with well-functioning media landscapes and relatively high levels of political awareness and participation” (Anheier, 2017, p. 15). In thinking of how to better care for democracy, scholars increasingly point to our youth as the ones on whom we must rely to disrupt the status quo in favor of transformational change needed to enhance citizen engagement, improve institutional practices within government, and effect a culture shift that results in people more deeply discussing and debating the fate of our future.

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Still, student activism faces its own challenges. Increasingly, the noble views of responsible citizenship have slipped away with the fervor of consumerism taking root in its place to relegate education as simply a by-product of market-driven values (Giroux, 2012). Absent concerted instruction on what it means to be an involved person in the community—one who can effect change for the good—this most recent generation of college students finds itself asking, “What can I do?” These students wonder how it is possible that the most basic of human needs—health care, employment benefits, a living wage, public education, and voting rights—seem to be dwindling before their eyes. Critical educator Richard Brosio (2017) says teachers often are complicit in hegemonic conceptions of education beholden to market-based capitalism despite the national call to provide more civically engaged studies: The capitalist economic imperative requests that the schools produce competent, willing workers; whereas, the democratic-egalitarian imperative requests that public education develop critical, well-rounded citizen-workers who are committed to complex roles beyond work—and who may use their critical skills to analyze capitalists work relations, and command of the economy. (p. 569)

Thus, schooling itself is a contested site, where students are compelled through their studies to uphold the hierarchy and inequities that are pervasive in society while also (sometimes, though not often enough) being asked to question and challenge the injustices they witness. Ensuring the health and vibrancy of our democracy requires an entire community’s effort, to be sure, but there are many, many small and large projects contributing to this goal that are most often started by just a few. It only requires a handful of people who are persistent and clear in their vision to provide the opportunity for more people to be included in determining their collective fate. Admittedly, the elected establishment and even school administrators may not (always) agree with the creative and courageous actions inspired by “people power.” Those leaders may even resist the intrusions, but students are often wise to join with ordinary people struggling simply to secure the most basic human rights. Despite the racism, economic exploitation, gender inequities, and other persistent injustices—or perhaps because of them—students can gain a sense of the moral outrage worthy of pause and applause (Purpel, 1999).

Speaking Out: Modes and Means of Inspiring Activism Social change begins with a conversation or dialogue among people who care about an issue in their community. Their talk proceeds to decision making about what to do next, oftentimes transforming disparate conversations into a spirited story of the need

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to right an injustice. Next, organizing efforts intensify to expand partnerships and build momentum among not a few, but many, people. Finally, the work culminates with speaking out through varied actions to achieve a new vision. The pattern for advancing positive social change is there, and the examples are easy to locate among the activist communities. The challenge for educators is to make those activist stories widely available to the uninitiated. Faculty can provide important learning experiences for students by including social change readings in the curriculum, inviting community leaders into the classroom, pushing students to do research and take action with the community, and in other ways bridging course content to activism so students can understand fully how social change happens and how academic studies provide a strong basis for students to contribute to communities’ efforts for change.

Dialogue For activists—students and community members alike—conversations that matter revolve around and reflect political matters. As James Baldwin (1963) said in his famous “A Talk to Teachers,” “The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it—at no matter what risk” (p. 42). The starting point is in having a conversation that serves to illuminate injustices worthy of intervention. Throughout history, we see many examples of how dialogic moments provided the impetus for protracted struggle leading to important social change. For instance, the battle to secure women’s right to vote was won in 1920 with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, more than 70 years after conversations about that needed change began at the landmark Seneca Falls Convention in New York in 1848 (Williams, 2009). The 8-hour workday was standardized and implemented into federal law by the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1937, based on conversations Philadelphia carpenters had in 1791 that continued in various forms and fashion for 146 years before culminating in a labor victory (King, 2004). We applaud now the value of the American Disabilities Act that was enacted in 1990, but students need to know that the conversations and advocacy for people who had been institutionalized and systematically excluded from their communities spanned over five decades (Krahn, Walker, & Correa-De-Araujo, 2015). Though time intensive, dialogue that emerges in conversations provides important spaces and occasions for people to engage deeply with one another, reflecting on new voices and views that can lead to fresh understandings. Philosopher Martin Buber (1970) noted that dialogue is a critical feature of public life demarcated by a recognition of others as unique, complete beings. For Buber, dialogue is steeped in authenticity, not obfuscation, and respect for the other, not command or control of the other. Mikhail Bakhtin further considered dialogue as a multivocal rendering of the human condition

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in which our own voice is moderated and strengthened by the words and utterances of others (1986). Dialogue in the classroom is the critical first step needed to activate student voices. Doing so requires handing over time and control to students to engage in talk that reveals their values, beliefs, and understanding of the world. Dialogue is an inclusive pedagogical practice that communicates to students that they are active participants in their own learning, rather than passive receptors of information (Freire, 1992). By engaging in dialogue in the classroom, students experience communication as a collaborative method by which to demonstrate mutual commitment, even when the dialogue predictably becomes uncomfortable. Alphonso Lingis (1994) says it is precisely when we are feeling exposed and vulnerable in the presence of another that a sense of community can emerge. Within these genuine relationships, rather than ones predetermined by power dynamics and roles we assume in society, dialogue becomes the medium by which students can reach new understanding (Makau & Marty, 2013). That is, conversations allow us to build and sustain positive relationships in the community. It is a collective task for which we all have a stake and a responsibility (Jovanovic, 2012). It is through dialogue that people can start to imagine and give words to better ideas that alone they may not have been able to conceive. Once a new understanding emerges, the next step is deliberation wherein students make decisions about what needs to be the focus of their action steps.

Deliberation Activism of any sort in a democracy depends on coordinated action, communication, and decision making among people, which accommodates their diverse voices. Public deliberation, then, is the process by which we can “carefully examine a problem and arrive at a well-reasoned solution after a period of inclusive, respectful consideration of diverse points of view” (Gastil, 2008, p. 8). Making deliberation practical in our democracy rests on four requirements of equality: inclusion of different voices; thoughtfulness or genuine consideration of competing claims and arguments; the ability to impact the larger public conversation; and, finally, open and trusting social and political conditions in which deliberations can take place (Fishkin, 2009). Deliberation, thus, thrives on dissenting views as much as it does on the ethical commitment to stay engaged with others in the hopes of arriving at the most just solutions possible. It would be difficult to find a more perfect arena in which to practice both dialogue and deliberation than a college classroom. There, diversity abounds as students enter with varied backgrounds, experiences, and cultural identities. They are not brought together under the guise of shared backgrounds, as is the case for most social situations in life. Students, in fact, often find themselves for the first time coming face to face with people different from them in virtually every way. While disparities in wealth define

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many social relations that in turn limit the participation and possibilities of public deliberation (Swartz, Campbell, & Pestana, 2009), there are fewer of those inequalities in the college classroom. Still, critical pedagogues would argue that our educational institutions, policies, and practices continue to reward privileged students (Oakes, Lipton, Anderson, & Stillman, 2018). So, while the college classroom provides a glorious space for students to explore new ideas and heretofore unknown facts, a critical orientation is needed to support the development of activism. Considering the history and conditions that give rise to current educational practices is one way to do so, as well as weighing current socio-political concerns. When students are granted the opportunity for meaningful communication, they encounter each other as worthy colleagues in the struggle over what “ought we to do” in advancing justice in our democracy (Mouffe, 2000). Deliberation requires adjudicating among competing claims. In the classroom, we point to critical thinking as the pedagogical tool for teaching students how to examine, critique, and defend claims based on facts, history, reasons, stories, and other evidence. Just as necessary is teaching students to recognize their own and others’ belief systems that shape how we see and understand the world. By being attentive to how these larger worldviews influence talk and decision making, students can be better prepared to address obstacles to deliberative processes and framing of the issues under consideration (Makau & Marty, 2013). Ernesto Cortes (2007) reminds us that our democracy was built on conflict, and thus we need to teach students skills for argumentation and deliberation for them to consider the options surrounding contentious public issues so that they can reach good decisions. To do so, students need to learn their disciplinary content, but they also need to develop the capacities to engage, question, argue, interpret, and contextualize experiences and encounters sufficient to challenge authority when needed. Doing so in tandem with others offers the greatest opportunity for success.

Collective Action Just as cooperative learning is designed to improve learning outcomes, collective action is intended to coalesce disparate voices to improve the chances of securing social change. The parallels between cooperative learning and collective action are noteworthy. First, both rely on students working together to solve a problem, investigate a concept, and propose solutions. Second, both have increased chances of success when participants inject themselves fully into the process with open-mindedness and creative thinking. Third, when students recognize the power they have to effect change in the classroom and in the community, they are more likely to accept greater responsibility and leadership in future actions. Marshall Ganz, former farmworker organizer, civil rights activist, and consultant to President Barack Obama’s 2008 grassroots campaign efforts, now advocates in his role as a professor for students to consider the merits of organizing through relationship

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building, developing common understanding, and taking action (Ganz, 2010). Ganz affirms the power of dialogue to deepen understanding and relationships among people strong enough to withstand inevitable frustrations and questioning that arise from allies and opponents. Dialogue and deliberation teach students confidence. Collective action teaches students that there are others on their side, ready to support them and stand with them. With those essential competencies in place, students can first prepare to assert a voice interconnected to one another to perhaps address smaller objectives to see how progress toward a larger goal is possible. Stories are powerful ways to organize others toward a social change goal. Stories provide a conversational base to encourage understanding and build community. Undocumented youth, for instance, use their stories as a political tool in the face of deportation to touch people’s hearts: Dreamers who came out transformed themselves from stereotypes or projections into fleshed-out characters with wounds and hopes and universal values. . . . Increasingly, social movement strategists and leaders from across the spectrum—from immigration rights to marriage equality to climate justice—are making narrative a core part of their strategy. (Moe, 2004, p. 47)

Students who share and listen to stories anchored in powerful experiences and connected to structural problems find their imaginations soar to connect with others as a base for collective action. Strengthening civic participation in this way entails, as well, three other elements: empowering and activating leaders and networks, assembling varied participation building blocks, and offering systemic supports (Nabatchi & Leighninger, 2015). That is, teachers need to tap into the potential of student leaders in their classes and support them in convening other students to reach out to community leaders and organizations. Teachers and students together can look to websites, social media, apps, and games as newer participation mediums. Finally, educators need to consider what supports they can offer to students to foster activist identity development. To do this important work, teachers might reasonably ask, “Who can we introduce students to within our colleges and universities where they will be warmly received and nurtured in activism? How can we likewise introduce students to community members engaged in advocacy work so that students can join a solid support structure to help them deepen their learning about activism?”

Speaking Out Through Protest and Other Actions Once students have learned about an issue through in-depth dialogue and discussion, deliberated the merits of various positions, and organized collectively around a common approach to tackling injustice, the work turns toward speaking out, starting or joining

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protests, leading petition drives, attending legislative action committees, and in other ways confronting what requires change in visible ways. Leading up to and engaging in speaking out benefits from the support, encouragement, and guidance of teachers, who themselves are learned and practiced in such forms of activism. This way of teaching advances parrhesia or free speech and fearless speech (Foucault, 2001). Epicureans in Greek times steered students to self-discovery of the truth by dialogic means in the hopes that students would in turn develop the courage to speak out publicly (Foucault, 2001). This guidance requires, among other instruction, the retelling of stories of success and failure to offer students a glimpse into the challenging work that undergirds the spectacle of many protest actions. Too often, students assume that marches and sit-ins are designed only to gain media attention. They assume that protests and marches are absent in the infrastructure required to gain traction in solving real problems. Those students are sometimes correct in their assessment; however, more often their views have been shaped by the dominant culture that caricatures dissent. When students learn from community organizers that protests are only one leg of a much larger strategy, they can better reflect on the varied options social change agents use in their work. With that knowledge in hand, students can discuss, deliberate, choose directions, and then prioritize certain actions at certain times designed to achieve specified results within a much broader program for change. Communicating as an activist is a vehicle for self-realization and fulfillment when students are afforded authentic and genuinely equal opportunities to participate (Chafe, 1980). Indeed, amplifying our voices is more important than ever in a society where there is a cacophony of distracting messages created to keep students from understanding injustices, questioning assumptions and power relations, asserting the need for change, and taking action! This is not new. Fannie Lou Hamer recognized as much in her work as a civil rights activist. Her formal schooling ended at the age of 12, but that did not stop her from learning all she could to advance the rights of people. As an adult, she was badly beaten during the summer of 1962 when she worked to encourage voter registration in the South. Hamer again did not stop her activism, and for the next 15 years she traveled around the country telling her stories of growing up poor and Black to willing audiences. Her most notable speech was delivered at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, but in every one of her speeches, Hamer sought to empower people to recognize their own potential for activism. In 1964, Hamer offered this admonition to a Mississippi audience: I don’t want to hear you say, “Honey, I’m behind you.” Well move, I don’t want you back there. Because you could be two hundred miles behind. I want you to say, “I’m with you.” And we’ll go up this freedom road together. (Hamer, 2011, p. 56)

Hamer was clear in proclaiming the critical need to continue cultivating activism as a logical response to persistent injustices.

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Conclusion Raising a fist. Wearing a hoodie. Taking a knee during the national anthem. Voting. Signing a petition. Participating in a march. Protesting. Boycotting. Organizing a candlelight vigil. Attending a forum, conference, teach-in, or meeting. Joining a group. Sponsoring a program. Starting a movement. Disrupting public order. These examples of student activism, evident today and in the past, are fueled by the passion to right what are seen as wrongs in the world. The staging of spectacular events may be the most visible manifestation of student activism, but the most enduring feature of the planning, implementation, and aftermath of such action is sustained dialogue. As students navigate their higher education journey, they do so in tandem with world events. Local and global disruptions surface the inequities and injustices that persist. For many students, exposure to discussions and analyses of these events in classroom settings is often their first introduction to meaningful civic and political engagement. Professors, teachers, mentors, and college staff thus have an opportunity and responsibility to educate for democracy by introducing the varied modes of response to these critical local and world affairs (American Association of Colleges & Universities [AAC&U], 2018). Communication is at the center of realizing the American dream; not the dream of accumulation and wealth or making it to the top, but rather the dream of equity, justice, inclusion, care, and commitment to the general welfare of all so that together we can address the lingering needs in our communities. Teachers who recognize the value of communication and dialogue in democratic pedagogy tap into the synergy of education, community activists, and student interest in ways that bring forward the gifts and resources of all together. In doing so, students learn to situate their own power as an ethical responsibility. For too long and in too many ways, power has been exercised to subvert the potential of meaningful, positive social change. A view of challenging power presented throughout this chapter is one that is nimble, yet forceful and productive in expression through speech, public demonstrations, and more informal conversations. The cornerstone values of our First Amendment of free speech and freedom to assemble are ones teachers can introduce to students to inspire them to follow in the footsteps of those who sacrificed their time and energy to ensure democracy for all. Our cultural and historical roots point to people, who time and again offered conversational openings as a starting point for activism. That offer, to invite others into solidarity around a public concern, starts with the welcome, a communicative act that reflects a responsibility for the other as an ethical imperative (Levinas, 1998). Leading critical pedagogue Henry Giroux concurs, as this chapter has espoused, that for student activism to become an education priority as insurance for protecting

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the future of our democracy, communication, and more specifically, dialogue, should be at the center of our instruction. He says: Making the political more pedagogical means treating students as critical agents; making knowledge problematic and open to debate; engaging in critical and thoughtful dialogue; and making the case for a qualitatively better world for all people. (Giroux, 2017, p. 632)

Teachers need to teach important modes and means of inspiring activism. They need to infuse history lessons into current debates and to foreground the important work of social change agents in the past. Doing so will allow today’s students to see themselves as active agents in a legacy of struggle for justice. Zygmunt Bauman (1988) rightly defined the project of reclaiming democracy and our sense of community as that which offers equality of resources for all in ways that can prevail even in the face of individual incapacities and misfortunes. Our communicative practices define our values, and they need to be nurtured inside and out of the classroom to best prepare students to tap into the possibilities of speaking with others, collaborating, and engaging in cooperative ventures for the purpose of advancing social justice. Talking across difference offers that critical opportunity to bridge the divide in social capital that too often keeps us apart by race, social class, religion, socio-economic status, political affiliations, and professional identities. Further, teachers need to teach students to recognize that difference, and even conflict, are not deterrents to, but instead sources of energy for, meaningful community action. Conversations strong enough to change the cultural narrative will not start by seeking consensus, but instead will require courage to illuminate where democracy has fallen short of its ideals and where democracy is needed most.

References AAC&U. (2018). We aspire: Advancing student performance through integration, research, and excellence. Available from https://www.aacu.org/about/strategicplan Allen, D. (2014). Our declaration: A reading of the Declaration of Independence in defense of equality. New York, NY: Liveright. Allison, T. (2017, January). Financial health of young America: Measuring generational declines between baby boomers and millennials. Washington, DC: Young Invincibles. Available from http://younginvincibles.org/reports-briefs/financial-health-young-america/ Anheier, H. K. (2017). Democracy challenged. In The governance report 2017 (pp. 13–20). Oxford, UK: Oxford University. Astor, M. (2018, March 8). Florida gun bill: What’s in it and what isn’t. New York Times. Available from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/us/florida-gun-bill.html

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Bakhtin, M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Eds.; V. W. McGee, Trans.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Baldwin, J. (1963, December 21). A talk to teachers. The Saturday Review, pp. 42–44. Bauman, Z. (1998). Community: Seeking safety in an insecure world. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Brosio, R. A. (2017). The continuing conflicts between capitalism and democracy: Ramifications for schooling-education. In A. Darder, R. D. Torres, & M. P. Baltodano (Eds.), The critical pedagogy reader (3rd ed.) (pp. 565–577). New York, NY: Routledge. Buber, M. (1970). I and thou (W. Kaufman, Trans.). New York, NY: Touchstone. Chafe, W. (1980). Civilities and civil rights. Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black struggle for freedom. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. CIRCLE. (2008, February). Young voter registration and turnout trends. Available from http://civicyouth.org/PopUps/CIRCLE_RtV_Young_Voter_Trends.pdf Cortes, E. (2007). Quality education as a civil right: Reflections. In T. Perry, R. P. Moses, J. T. Wynne, E. Cortes, & L. Delpit (Eds.), Quality education as a constitutional right (pp. 93–105). Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Dewey, J. (2008). The school and society. New York, NY: Cosimo Classics. (Original work published 1899) Fishkin, J. S. (2009). When the people speak: Deliberative democracy and public consultation. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Foucault, M. (2001). Fearless speech (J. Pearson, Ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e). Freire, P. (1992). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. B. Ramos, Trans.). New York, NY: Continuum. (Original work published 1970) Ganz, M. (2010). Leading change: Leadership, organization, and social movements. In N. Nohria & R. Khurana (Eds.), Handbook of leadership theory and practice (pp. 527–568). Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Gastil, J. (2008). Political communication and deliberation. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Giroux, H. A. (2012). Twilight of the social: Resurgent publics in the age of disposability. Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Giroux, H. A. (2017). Afterword: The war against teachers as public intellectuals. In A. Darder, R. D. Torres, & M. P. Baltodano (Eds.), The critical pedagogy reader (3rd ed.) (pp. 625– 635). New York, NY: Routledge. The Guardian (2017). The counted: People killed by the police in the US. Available from https:// www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killingsus-database. Hamer, F. L. (2011). We’re on our way: Speech delivered at a mass meeting in Indianola, Mississippi, September, 1964. In M. P. Brooks & D. W. Houck (Eds.), The speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To tell it like it is (pp. 46–56). Jackson, MI: University of Mississippi Press. Jovanovic, S. (2012). Democracy, dialogue, and community action: Truth and reconciliation in Greensboro. Fayetteville, AR: Arkansas University Press. King, B. A. (2004). Eight-hour day movement. In N. Schlager (Ed.), St. James encyclopedia of labor history worldwide (Vol. 1) (pp. 255–259). Detroit, MI: St. James Press. Krahn, G. L., Walker, D. K., & Correa-De-Araujo, R. (2015). Persons with disabilities as an unrecognized health disparity population. American Journal of Public Health, 105(S2), 198–206. Levinas, E. (1998). Otherwise than being: Or beyond essence (A. Lingis, Trans.). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press. (Original work published 1981)

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Liebelson, D. (2014, October 23). North Carolina fights to take voting site away from pesky college kids. Huffington Post. Available from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/23/ north-carolina-early-voting-college_n_6031670.html Lingis, A. (1994). The community of those who have nothing in common. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Makau, J., & Marty, D. (2013). Dialogue and deliberation. Long Grove, IL: Waveland. Moe, K. (2004, Summer). Change starts with your own story. Yes! Magazine, 70, 47–50. Mouffe, C. (2000). The democratic paradox. New York, NY: Verso. Nabatchi, T., & Leighninger, M. (2015). Public participation for the 21st century. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Oakes, J., Lipton, M., Anderson, L., & Stillman, J. (2018). Teaching to change the world (5th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Purpel, D. E. (1999). Moral outrage in education. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Rozsa, L., Balingit, M., Wan, W., & Berman, M. (2018, February 15). “A horrific, horrific day”: At least 17 killed in Florida school shooting. Washington Post. Available from https:// www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/02/14/school-shooting-reportedat-florida-high-school/?utm_term=.ed4c10792e86 Schradie, J. (2018, February 5). Moral Monday is more than a hashtag: The strong ties of social movement emergence in the digital era. Social Media, Activism and Organizations, 1–13. doi:10.1177/2056305117750719 Swartz, O., Campbell, K., & Pestana, C. (2009). Neo-pragmatism, communication, and the culture of creative democracy. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Williams, M. (2009). Feminism, first-wave. In G. Misioroglu (Ed.), American countercultures: An encyclopedia of nonconformists, alternative lifestyles, and radical ideas in U.S. history (Vol. 1) (pp. 254–256). Armonk, NY: Sharpe Reference. Zinn, H. (2015). A people’s history of the United States. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.

Chapter 3

Social Media: Changing Activism for Better or for Worse



Tess Halpern

Social media is the ultimate equalizer. It gives a voice and a platform to anyone willing to engage. —Amy Jo Martin

Social media has completely and irrevocably changed every aspect of our modern world. I know that’s not a groundbreaking assertion to make, but when you take a moment to sit back and truly examine the wide-reaching applications of social media, it can become quite overwhelming. Social media powerhouses such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have changed the way we communicate with one another, the way we flirt, the way we date, and the way we maintain relationships and end them. LinkedIn has changed the way we network, search for jobs, and view professionalism. Even the way we plan vacations, weddings, and DIY projects for our homes and wardrobes has changed with Pinterest. Social media has gradually infiltrated nearly every part of our lives, altering how we think, interact, and express ourselves. While social media has changed the way we communicate with peers and other people, it has also changed how we communicate with corporations, politicians, and institutions. Now, for arguably the first time in history, individuals have the opportunity to directly respond to something or someone that they deem worthy of praise or in need of alteration, and this response can be done with a degree of easiness that has

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never before existed. Because of this, while social media has changed our world, it has also changed the way in which we go about further changing our world. Activism and protest are two pillars on which this country was built. Our founders were themselves activists, fighting for their freedoms—including the right to peaceably assemble and the right to free speech—which they ensured for us today through their willingness to stand up for what they believed in. These fundamental rights are ones that we, as Americans, hold dearly as a part of our history; but, as with anything else, the ways in which we express these freedoms have changed in our modern society. Social media, in creating a more connected and more publicized world, has altered everything about the way we protest—from how we organize, to the issues we choose to rally around, to the protests themselves.

Protest as a Social Act Social media has changed how we present ourselves to our connected world and how we see nearly every aspect of our lives. In our interconnected society, there is a newfound need for impressive, photogenic, or otherwise shareable moments in order for anyone with a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat account to keep up with their public personas that exist on social media. And this has impacted the world of activism because today flashier is always better. Expressing oneself at a protest has become somewhat of an art, and it has become almost necessary to have a poster of some sort at any march. That may sound like an exaggeration, but it’s true. In the week before the 2017 women’s march, the sales of poster boards and foam boards were up 33 and 42%, respectively, as activists created unique and eye-catching designs to carry with them and, of course, take pictures with (Zillman, 2017). But while some of these posters may end up being featured on a BuzzFeed listicle, tweeted about by a celebrity, or otherwise go viral, or even wind up in a museum exhibit one day, most are simply shared on personal social media accounts (Baker, 2017; Cascone, 2018; Rhorer, 2017). But that doesn’t mean that those posters, tweets, and status updates are insignificant. The natural urge to share your creative poster or your cool shot of a large wave of activists with an inspiring caption is nearly inescapable for many people. While these pictures, tweets. or videos may raise some awareness about the issues that are being discussed, they more importantly create an environment in which participation is socially desirable (Gerbaudo & Trere, 2015). People like to follow trends they see on social media, whether that means planking on every surface possible in 2009 or waiting for hours outside of Dominique Ansel Bakery for their world-famous cronut in 2013. But making the latest trend something like activism or protesting for a worthy cause could be extremely beneficial to a movement. In that way, going viral because of a creative poster is more than a personal accomplishment—it is effectively making activism a popular social act and

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something that people want to feel a part of, whether they are extremely dedicated to the actual cause or not. Although the motivation behind one’s involvement in a protest or social movement may contribute to his or her dedication (or lack thereof), his or her participation and support on social media benefits the movement regardless.

Organizing in the Digital Age At the same time that activism became social and more participation was encouraged, it also became easier than ever to get people involved. The year 2017, a time that will be largely remembered as a year of activism, began with over two million people across the globe participating in the women’s march on January 18, the day after President Donald Trump was inaugurated (Przybyla & Schouten, 2017). With an estimated 400,000 protestors in New York City, 150,000 in Chicago, 100,000 in Boston, and 470,000 in Washington, D.C., this movement easily earned its place as one of the largest protests in American history (Garfield, 2017; Wallace & Parlapiano, 2017). But what truly set this event apart was its global impact; while massive protests have occurred concurrently in multiple cities before, protests of this magnitude have been historically limited to one location or city. Uniquely, the women’s march took place in all 50 states and in cities around the world, uniting activists from different cultures and geographic locations. However, in our society, which is now firmly connected through social media, this type of global protest may become a new norm. That’s because social media has changed the way we organize, and the women’s march is a prime example of that. What ended up as a global march for women that drew millions of protestors from around the world began as a simple Facebook post that eventually turned into a Facebook page (Stein, 2017). Rallying support for a cause used to be done in person: handing out flyers, going door to door, and talking to people on the street. Today, the click of a button can reach more people instantly than one could reach in person after spending weeks dedicated to the task 30 years ago. And the ease with which people can participate effectively encourages more participation and, therefore, spreads the word further; I don’t need to feel the same passion for a cause to hit the “like” button on a Facebook post as I would need to go door-to-door with a petition, but that one hit of a button instantly shares that message with my 500 Facebook friends. The start of the year 2018 saw a similar trend, as the “March for Our Lives” took place on March 24. This student-driven movement, which culminated in over 800 planned protests in cities across America and throughout the world, also began on social media. After a school shooting occurred in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14, students from that school began posting on social media, most specifically on Twitter, expressing their grief and their desire for change (Meyer, 2018). The students’ tweets quickly went viral, the survivors were interviewed on CNN and other major news outlets, and some of the young activists became verified

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on Twitter. Essentially, the students took a tragedy that is all too common in modern America and avoided the pattern of the tragedy fading from the news by remaining constantly visible on social media (Silver, 2018). This allowed the survivors to become activists, building national and even global support for their cause and encouraging large-scale action with the help of their vast social media followings. It would not have been possible for them to have rallied that many people to march for their cause only a little more than a month after the tragedy that sparked the movement without social media instantly connecting them to the world and allowing them to encourage action without speaking with people face to face. By connecting us, social media has made the once arduous processes of organizing and spreading messages easier than ever. With social media, a platform for messages to reach the masses now exists, and if activists continue to use it to organize protests, it is likely that protests of the future will continue to be global and will continue to have larger potential for impact than those of the past.

Protesting with the Push of a Button As a practical bookend to a year that began with the women’s march, the #MeToo movement began in October 2017 when stories of sexual assault and harassment took over all forms of media and became a talking point in the fields of entertainment, politics, and news, resulting in the termination of countless high-profile men who had been accused of mistreating and assaulting women. While a Philadelphia activist, Tarana Burke, began the movement in 2006, the event didn’t take off in earnest until a simple post on social media went viral (Borge, 2018). Singer and actress Alyssa Milano has been credited with truly launching the movement with a tweet on October 15 about sexual assault and harassment that urged women to post “#MeToo” as a status to raise awareness about just how widespread and pervasive the issue is (Milano, 2017). By October 24, the phrase had been tweeted 1.7 million times in 85 countries (Park, 2017). While this is just another example of how the organization of movements can now take place exclusively online, this movement was unique in that it was entirely digital. Not only were awareness raised and supporters organized through social media, but most of the actual activism took place on digital media outlets as well. Although there were elements of the #MeToo movement discussed at the second women’s march that occurred in January 2018, there has not been a mass #MeToo-specific march or protest. However, the tweets and Facebook posts of survivors have accomplished the same goal that any standard protest has: raise awareness of an issue and show widespread support for that cause. Through the viral nature of many of these posts and the swiftness with which high-profile men have been blacklisted as a result of women’s claims of abuse and harassment, the #MeToo movement has been successful, despite never culminating in a public, in-person display of activism.

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It can also be argued that the very fact that this movement has existed solely online has allowed those goals to be accomplished in an unprecedentedly dramatic fashion. The women’s march was, to reiterate, one of the largest single-day protests in history, with an estimated two million participants. This march effectively rallied an enormous number of people to come together for a day and have their voices be heard. But the fact that #MeToo took place online left it without any sort of deadline, meaning people wanting to be heard could speak their minds how and when they wanted. #MeToo was tweeted 1.7 million times in just over a week, not quite meeting the single-day success of the women’s march, but those tweets were just the beginning. Writing this in May 2018, I note that the pervasiveness of sexual harassment in the workplace and other public and private sectors is still an extremely relevant topic, and eight months since the issue was first addressed on a large scale, it doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. While movements centered around physical demonstrations (such as the Civil Rights Movement) have had success sustaining momentum for significant amounts of time in the past, the amount of effort required to sustain a movement has decreased dramatically with the rise of social media. A march or other form of physical protest has limitations: individuals have to congregate in a central location—requiring travel expenses, time expenses, potential time needed off from work, etc. There must be significant amounts of time and energy spent organizing a massive group of people, and there must therefore be central, dedicated figures passionate enough about the cause to take those tasks on. And, after all that work, who knows what will happen? Maybe the day of the protest will come, it begins to rain or snow, and only a fraction of the expected protesters actually show up. Or maybe people are motivated to come to the first march for the cause, and maybe even the second and the third too; but after months of little social or political change, participation begins to diminish as morale dips too low. Asking someone to physically march or demonstrate for months or even years is a tall order, but asking someone to tweet about an issue or otherwise interact with it online is much less demanding, resulting in participation that has the potential to last longer.

Creating an Independent Narrative The ways in which these movements now seemingly take over social media platforms effectively creates an important and newfound independence among activists, as there is no longer a reliance on news outlets to spread a message or reach the masses. Before the rise of social media, there was no way to “go viral.” To be seen, one had to be featured on television or radio or be written about in the newspaper. And when the news cycle moved on from you or your issue, as it does quickly in today’s 24-hour news cycle, you had to raise awareness again to receive more media attention. Martin Luther King, Jr., revered as one of the most successful activists in our modern era, masterfully used the power of the media to raise awareness about the brutality that Black citizens faced at the

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hands of the police and other Whites in the 1950s and 60s. The extreme violence that was inflicted on nonviolent civil rights protestors made for very poignant images and videos that dominated the news media. But for the activists to maintain their narrative, it was imperative that they remained nonviolent. After all, one only needs to look at the Black Panther Party to see what would happen if civil rights protestors were to fight back or encourage defense: although the Black Panthers received ample media coverage, they were feared and painted as dangerous provocateurs, with the media focusing more on their violent altercations with the police than their actual critique of law enforcement or the work they were doing to improve impoverished communities (Russonello, 2016). Imagine for a moment if King could encourage activists to live-tweet events or Facebook, live the acts of discrimination and brutality that they faced. Likewise, imagine if Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, or even Malcom X were able to articulate their platforms, ideas, and wishes for their communities directly to those communities and to the greater nation. They wouldn’t be misrepresented to the public because they’d have the opportunity to represent themselves. Social media gives activists—and everyone, really—a space to speak directly to the public. By cutting out the middlemen and no longer relying on journalists to communicate with the people for them, modern-day activists have more freedom to create their own narratives. While the struggle for Black equality in America continues today, activists for the Black Lives Matter movement have embraced their independence from conventional media and have been very successful with social media platforms. Specifically, videos of police violence that Black citizens face, sometimes resulting in death, have become hauntingly common on Twitter and Facebook. Citizens have begun to document these tragic incidences in a way that only journalists could do during the Civil Rights Movement, filming violence as it is occurring and frequently going viral when sharing them online with their communities. This has effectively drawn attention to the pervasiveness of the issue of police violence, showing that it is a relatively frequent modern-day problem that impacts everyday citizens, not just the activists who were shown to be brutalized in the 1960s. Following these posts about police violence, the simple message, #BlackLivesMatter, became a rallying cry in the summer of 2013 and was used tens of millions of times by 2016 (Demby, 2016). Frequently used after a video goes viral or a high-profile police officer accused of excessive violence is acquitted or otherwise avoids retribution, the phrase has become a unifier for Black people, creating a message that activists can organize around. By coming together with that simple message, and by posting their own content on social media, Black Lives Matter has created its own narrative that is unencumbered by standard media outlets. This was seen in 2015 when a mass protest in Baltimore following the funeral of Freddie Gray, a Black man who died in police custody, turned into a riot as angry citizens began looting and burning the city. While major media outlets covered the event itself and the destruction that resulted, people on Twitter were able to tell a different story: a viral image showed a looter stealing nothing more than a pack of diapers and some

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snacks, humanizing the people partaking in the crime; and another showed a mother pulling her son from the riots out of fear that he would be the next Black man killed by police (DeSimone, 2015). The next day, citizens of Baltimore and journalists stationed in the city took to Twitter again to show the clean-up efforts of locals (Keady, 2017). Redeeming stories like these may not be flashy enough to make national news, but they are important nonetheless. In bypassing the news media and posting their own images and stories on social media, these people were able to create their own narrative, showing that not all Black citizens of Baltimore were participating in the violence and reminding the public of the original purpose of the demonstration.

Millennials at the Helm Although the beauty of social media lies in its universal nature and the fact that it is an equalizer for almost everyone in the world, it goes without saying that younger generations have embraced this medium to a greater extent than others. As with nearly anything regarding technology, millennials have been at the forefront of the social media wave and have been able to harness the potential that exists on these outlets to become activists and make their voices heard as never before (Velasquez & LaRose, 2015). This was obviously exemplified by the “March for Our Lives,” initiated by the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who survived the February 14, 2018, shooting and took to Twitter to advocate for gun control. Using social media, these young students became household names and powerful activists despite their age, earning legitimacy with their massive followings and viral messages. But change has been made on smaller scales as well, as students around the country use social media to share their stories with the world and stand up for what they believe to be right. In March 2016, a star athlete on the Stanford University swim team, Brock Turner, was found sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster on campus and was later sentenced to only 6 months in jail for his crime (Li, 2016). But this alltoo-common story received unique national attention when the victim’s powerful court statement went viral, as the Internet erupted with consternation over the extremely light sentence (Miller, 2016). The viral letter written by Turner’s father, which stated that Turner’s life shouldn’t be ruined by “20 minutes of action,” added fuel to the digital fire, along with the judge’s reasoning behind the verdict—a harsher sentence would have had too “severe” an impact on Turner. Although Turner ultimately served only half of that 6-month sentence, the judge who decided the case was put under the microscope after the verdict went viral (Hamilton, 2016). The judge is currently facing a recall vote, which will be held on June 5, 2018, after a Stanford professor initiated the recall effort 2 years ago (BallotPedia, 2018). It remains unknown if there will be any justice for the victim, but the fact that this story was shared so widely on social media and garnered national support makes the probability higher. This platform allowed the victim to share

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her complete story, which was told in 20 single-spaced pages, in a way that would not have been possible in a newspaper or another standard media outlet. As a result, she was given the space to speak and become a face case for the pervasive issue of sexual assault on college campuses. More recently, on October 31, 2017, a tweet with #JusticeForJazzy went viral, exposing a White female student at the University of Hartford, Brianna Brochu, bragging on social media about tormenting her Black roommate, Chennel “Jazzy” Rowe (Moye, 2017). A screenshot was taken of a caption on one of Brochu’s photos on Instagram, which was celebrating Rowe moving out of their shared room and detailing a series of disgusting and potentially harmful acts that she did to Rowe and her belongings. This screenshot was posted to Twitter, and students at Hartford were quick to share the disturbing story. Rowe also took to Facebook Live to post a video that was close to 2 hours long, detailing the ordeal from her perspective. Her video was viewed over 1.5 million times, and the hashtag #JusticeForJazzy went extremely viral, with people around the country and around the world showing support for Rowe and urging the university to address the supposed hate crime. The awareness brought to this incident on social media resulted in swift action, as Brochu was expelled from Hartford and arrested and charged with criminal mischief, a breach of peace, and later with intimidation based on bigotry or bias—a hate crime charge. Another example took place even more recently, when an anonymous article was published online on March 27, 2018, claiming that Howard University employees in the financial aid office had stolen $1 million in financial aid between 2013 and 2017 (Puhak, 2018). The article also claimed that the university president was aware of the fraud but chose to quietly address the problem, having terminated seven employees since May 2017. In a statement, the university president confirmed that he began investigating the issue in December 2016, and did in fact learn that university funds had been stolen from 2007 to 2016 (Reilly, 2018). When the anonymous article was published and this information came out over a year after the university knew about it, students were outraged that it wasn’t disclosed sooner and took to social media to spread the word and ultimately stage a sit-in in the administration office. One student-employee in particular, Tyrone Hankerson, Jr., became the face of the social media campaign and was accused of independently stealing $429,000 in financial aid (Puhak, 2018). Images from Hankerson’s personal social media accounts went viral, as the designer clothes and accessories that he extravagantly posed in were soured by the knowledge that they were purchased with money taken from students (Seibert, 2018). This story and the pictures of Hankerson were spread on Twitter, and, as they continued to draw attention, the issue was picked up by national news outlets. The sit-in was ultimately successful after 9 days, with the university agreeing to meet most of the students’ demands (Romo, 2018). Gaining national support for such a localized issue is made easier with social media, since that platform allows messages to be spread faster than ever before.

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College students—and younger millennials—have discovered just how easy it can be to get the whole country, and even the whole world, to discuss a particular issue. A poignant hashtag, a unique story, or even a funny meme is sometimes all it takes to get the Internet rallying behind a cause that never would have reached the masses if it were competing with national and international news on standard media outlets. Social media is a place where these niche issues, like the ones that are typically found on college campuses, can receive mass attention and support—two things that legitimize a cause and are usually crucial to enacting change. In embracing this medium as a means to speak to the world, students are becoming more capable activists than ever before.

Potential Pitfalls Social media has altered the way we navigate every aspect of our lives, including the way we protest and seek change; but it is possible that those alterations may not all be for the best. As previously mentioned, social media has connected us and provided a platform for less demanding activism—a space where we can sign an online petition in seconds or retweet a post about a cause, doing our part to spread the message and show support. But, as was previously mentioned, someone doesn’t need to have the same passion for a cause to “like” a Facebook post as they need to go door-to-door with a petition. While that “like” may in fact have a broader impact, reaching more people than going door-to-door would, the lack of passion and effort needed to enact change in our modern world could potentially be a downfall. The term “slacktivism” has become popular to describe our current era of activism, emphasizing the lack of effort required to support a political or social cause and playing to the millennial characterization of being lazy and disinterested. It is possible that our ever-decreasing societal attention span that is a result of our increasingly digitized world will mean that people will not stay dedicated to causes long enough to see them through; when instant gratification is not an option, it is sometimes hard to continue working toward a goal (McSpadden, 2015). If too many people were to quit, political and social causes would become fads that end before any change can occur. After all, activism is already becoming dangerously close to turning into a fad as it has become social, and it is sometimes difficult to determine if people are marching because they feel strongly about a cause or just because everyone else is doing it and they want a trendy picture for Instagram. But, when looking at what this generation has done in just a few years and the change that has been inspired on social media, I can’t help but be optimistic. There are probably people who are marching just to be a part of the crowd, and there are probably people who are retweeting posts about political and social issues but won’t turn out to vote in November, but that can’t be everyone. I look at my peers sharing their stories on social media, whether they are stories about sexual assault or racism or bigotry or anything else,

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and I see the potential they have to enact real change. The way these messages spread and become viral shows that there is a willingness to come together to support each other’s causes, on a national and even a global scale. Social media has connected our world, creating a space for activists to unify and protest on a level that has never been possible. It may not be the activism and protest that our country was built on, but it is the wave of the future, and it has the potential to truly change our world.

References Baker, M. (2017, January 26). Why we marched: A social history of the women’s march. Crimson Hexagon. Available from https://www.crimsonhexagon.com/blog/why-we-marched/ BallotPedia. (2018). Aaron Persky recall, Santa Clara County, California.BallotPedia. Available from https://ballotpedia.org/Aaron_Persky_recall,_Santa_Clara_County,_ California_(2018) Borge, J. (2018, January 7). Who started the MeToo movement? InStyle. Available from https:// www.instyle.com/news/who-started-me-too-movement Cascone, S. (2018, January 22). Signs of the times: Museums are collecting protest posters from the 2018 women’s march. ArtNet News. Available from https://news.artnet.com/ art-world/museums-already-enshrining-2018-womens-march-us-history-1204031 Demby, G. (2016, March 2). Combing through 41 million tweets to show how #BlackLivesMatter exploded. NPR. Available from https://www.npr.org/sections/ codeswitch/2016/03/02/468704888/combing-through-41- million-tweets-to-show-howblacklivesmatter-exploded DeSimone, E. (2015, May 1). Baltimore uprising: A social media timeline. NewMediaRockstars. Available from http://newmediarockstars.com/2015/05/baltimore-riots-a-socialmedia-timeline/ Garfield, L. (2017, February 8). The 11 biggest marches and protests in American history. Business Insider. Available from https://www.businessinsider.com/largest-marches-ushistory-2017-2 Gerbaudo, P., & Trere, E. (2015). In search of the “we” of social media activism: Introduction to the special issue on social media and protest identities. Information, Communication & Society, 18(8), 865–871. Hamilton, M. (2016, August 30). Brock Turner to be released from jail after serving half of six month sentence in Stanford sexual assault case. Los Angeles Times. Available from https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-brock-turner-release-jail-20160829snap- story.html Keady, C. (2017, December 6). Baltimore residents come togeher to clean up city after riots. Huffington Post. Available from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/28/baltimore- community-cleanup_n_7162666.html Li, W. M. (2016, June 9). Stanford sexual assault: How social media gave a voice to the victim. The Conversation. Available from http://theconversation.com/stanford-sexual-assaulthow-social-media-gave-a-voice-to-the-victim-60814 McSpadden, K. (2015, May 14). You now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish. Time. Available from http://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/

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Meyer, R. (2018, February 17). The righteous anger of the Parkland shooting’s teen survivors. The Atlantic. Available from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/ parkland-shooting-teen-survivor-tweets-righteous-anger/553634/ Milano, A. (2017, October 15). If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted, write “me too” as a reply to this tweet. Twitter. Miller, M. E. (2016, June 6). A “steep” price to pay for 20 minutes of action: Dad defends Stanford sex offender. Washington Post. Available from https://www.washingtonpost. com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/06/06/a-steep-price-to-pay-for-20-minutes-of-actiondad-defends-stanford-sex-offender/?utm_term=.486778c6779c Moye, D. (2017, November 2). White college student allegedly tormented black roommate with menstrual blood. Huffington Post. Available from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ white-college-student-black-roommate-menstrual_us_59fb41bbe4b0415a420a2a29 Park, A. (2017, October 24). #MeToo reaches 85 countries with 1.7M tweets. CBS News. Available from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/metoo-reaches-85-countries-with-17-million-tweets/ Przybyla, H. M., & Schouten, F. (2017, January 22). At 2.6 million strong, women’s marches crush expectations. USA Today. Available from https://www.occupy.com/article/26million-strong-women-s-marches-crush-expectations#sthash.HtHIZR07.dpbs Puhak, J. (2018, March 30). Howard University student accused of stealing $429,000 in financial aid, buying fancy clothes. Fox News. Available from https://www.foxnews.com/ lifestyle/howard-university-student-accused-of-stealing-429000-in-financial-aid-buyingfancy-clothes Reilly, K. (2018, March 30). Howard students take over administration building in protest amid financial aid scandal. Time. Available from http://time.com/5222906/howarduniversity-financial-aid-scandal-protest/ Rhorer, H. (2017, January 30). What’s your favorite protest sign you’ve seen in 2017? BuzzFeed. Available from https://www.buzzfeed.com/haldenrhorer/whats-the-best-protest-sign Romo, V. (2018, April 6). 9-day student protest at Howard University ends with a deal. NPR. Available from https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/06/600401378/9day-student-protest-at-howard-university-ends-with-a-deal Russonello, G. (2016, October 15). Fascination and fear: Covering the Black Panthers. The New York Times. Available from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/us/black-panthers50-years.html Seibert, D. (2018, March 29). Black Twitter is calling Tyrone (Hankerson Jr) and we can’t stop laughing. The Grio. Available from https://thegrio.com/2018/03/29/black-twitteris-calling-tyrone-hankerson/ Silver, N. (2018, February 18). So far, Parkland is *not* fading from the news the way that mass shootings usually do. Twitter. Stein, P. (2017, January 31). The woman who started the women’s march with a Facebook post reflects: “It was mind-boggling.” The Washington Post. Available from https://www. washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2017/01/31/the-woman-who-started-the- womensmarch-with-a-facebook-post-reflects-it-was-mind-boggling/?utm_term=.ac9536002356 Velasquez, A., & LaRose, R. (2015). Social media for social change: Social media political efficacy and activism in student activist groups. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 59(3), 456–474. Wallace, T., & Parlapiano, A. (2017, January 22). Crowd scientists say women’s march in Washington had 3 times as many people as Trump’s inauguration. New York Times. Available

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from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/22/us/politics/womens-marchtrump-crowd-estimates.html Zillman, C. (2017, March 16). All those signs at the women’s march actually increased office supply sales. Fortune. Available from http://fortune.com/2017/03/16/womens-march- size-office-supplies/

Chapter 4

Social Media and Student Activism: Transformative Moments in Recent History Angus Johnston

The social media era in American student activism began on November 18, 2011. Social media had been a factor in American campus activism before then, of course. On March 4, 2010, students on more than 100 campuses in more than 30 states had mobilized for a national day of action that was organized and publicized to a significant extent on Twitter, Facebook, and through email listservs. But even after the March 4th day of action, it remained unclear to many whether social media had the potential to be a transformative factor in movements for social change. Malcolm Gladwell (2010), writing in The New Yorker that October, for instance, argued that social media “makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact.” If the rise of the Arab Spring early the next year left many optimistic about the potential for social media to create real change in the world, the evidence from within the United States was still fragmentary and contentious. Indeed, much public debate still centered around the role of social media in facilitating communication among activists. “People with a grievance will always find ways to communicate with each other,” Gladwell wrote that February. The study of social media was merely, he said, that of “how they choose to do it”— a “less interesting [question], in the end, than why they were driven to do it in the first place” (Gladwell, 2011).

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Looking back from our present vantage point, across a decade in which social media fundamentally altered activism, politics, and traditional media, Gladwell’s conception of social media as simply a new communications technology—the next iteration of email or the telephone—seems downright archaic.

The Social Media Era Begins at the University of California Davis Activists in the United States received new attention in the fall of 2011 with the launch of Occupy Wall Street in September, and campus occupations (which had begun in California well before the Wall Street action) became more common. It was at one of these, at UC Davis, that the new power of social media was demonstrated most clearly. Students had already been protesting at Davis for several days on November 18, 2011, and two dozen tents had been erected on the quad. When campus police started dismantling the tents and clearing the area, a group of students sat down, encircling a group of officers, locked arms, and refused to leave. Two of the officers, including Lieutenant John Pike, responded by spraying the activists with pepper spray. This was not the most aggressive act of campus police violence in the state of California in recent years, nor was it the most brutal or the most shocking. It was, however, the first to go viral. The wave of student protest that began in the UC and California State University systems in 2008 had been met with a draconian response from college administrators and police from the start. Hundreds of nonviolent protesters had been arrested in the intervening 3 years, and violence and threats of violence had become commonplace. Students had been attacked with batons and tasers, and a campus police officer had pointed his pistol at unarmed protesters at a Regents meeting at UC San Francisco. In March 2011, UC Berkeley students had gone so far as to “occupy” a narrow building ledge 50 feet above the campus, believing that by placing themselves at risk of falling to their deaths they would mitigate the risk of being arrested or beaten. The students had linked their arms inside PVC pipes to make it harder—and more dangerous—for campus police to grab them. (That protest ultimately ended with a negotiated agreement, rare in this wave of protest.) But none of these events had garnered more than minimal media coverage. The UC Davis pepper-spray incident, in contrast, attracted major attention that led to multiple investigations, the loss of Lieutenant Pike’s job, and a substantial legal settlement with the students who were assaulted by the police. What was different this time? One difference was the mere fact of the existence of the photos and video. None of the previous recent incidents of police violence and near violence had produced clear photographic evidence of police wrongdoing. But it wasn’t just the photos—and the video—at UC Davis that transformed the discussion. It was how quickly they traveled and what was done with them. The photographic evidence that emerged from the UC Davis confrontation wasn’t just clear; it was transfixing. There was something about the casualness, almost insouciance, with which

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Lieutenant Pike wielded the pepper spray that was both horrifying and impossible to turn away from. The images began to circulate online within minutes of the incident, and within hours they were all over Twitter, Facebook, and other sites. By the next day they were being distributed not just in their original form, but as sardonic jokes—for example, John Pike pepper spraying the Constitution, or Jesus, or Spongebob Squarepants, or the subject of Andrew Wyeth’s painting “Christina’s World.” One UC Davis photo in particular was perfectly suited for such remixing—a full-body shot of Pike unobscured by other figures, his stride and expression just so—and it quickly became the iconic image of the confrontation. The kind of serendipity evident in the UC Davis incident was not entirely new, of course. When four students were killed at Kent State University in May of 1970, the incident became a national touchstone in a way that the police shooting of students at South Carolina State University two years before Kent State, or at Jackson State University in Missisippi just weeks after, did not. And while the fact that the students at Kent State were White while those at SCSU and Jackson State were Black was clearly significant in that difference, so too was the power of the photos taken at Kent State—particularly a photo of a young teen runaway kneeling and sobbing over the body of a dead student. In order for the Kent State photo to find a national audience, however, it was necessary not only for there to be a talented photographer on the scene with a camera and film, but for that photographer—John Filo, himself a Kent State senior—to have worked as a news photographer in the past. That history enabled him to reach out quickly to an editor at his hometown newspaper, who in turn facilitated the development of Filo’s film and passed it along to the Associated Press. It appeared in newspapers around the country the next morning, and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. The most frequently shared and remixed photo of the UC Davis pepper-spray incident—the Davis analogue to Filo’s iconic shot—depicts Lieutenant Pike walking toward the camera, his stride somehow almost jaunty. His left hand hangs loose at his side, and his right is extended, casually holding a large can of pepper spray with which he is dousing a seated row of huddled, cringing students. The photo was taken by Louise Macabitas, a 22-year-old psychobiology major at Davis, who shared it to Facebook. A friend posted it to Reddit, and hundreds—soon thousands—of memes were born. By turning the pepper-spray incident into both a scandal and a pop culture phenomenon, the activists and jokesters of social media helped to shine a brighter spotlight on campus police violence than previous protests had managed to bring about. In the wake of the UC Davis incident and the public attention it received, the University of California commissioned a system-wide review of policies relating to campus protest that led to the implementation of a variety of reforms.

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Student Activists Under a Microscope The focus of the viral publicity surrounding the UC Davis pepper-spray incident was on the campus police and administration, but as the student movement grew and expanded in the years that followed, student activists found themselves under increasing scrutiny. As little as 10 or 20 years ago, it took a tremendous amount of work—usually on activists’ part—for a campus protest to gain attention beyond the campus, and even when it did, that attention was typically mild, brief, and ephemeral. A protest might get a write-up in a local paper or a few minutes’ air time on the evening news, but it was incredibly rare to receive anything more than that. And even when such attention did accrue, it typically passed as quickly as it had arrived. But by the mid-2010s, even a minor campus incident could go viral on the Internet and become a major ongoing national story. And while this transformation had the effect of empowering small groups of activists to spark national conversations and inspire like-minded students thousands of miles away, the effect of that new scrutiny on the activists themselves could be brutal. One of the strangest, and yet most illustrative, examples of this phenomenon was the Oberlin dining hall story of late 2015. On November 6 of that year, a student journalist for the Oberlin Review wrote a piece that, in its broad outlines, was a close cousin to thousands of others that have been written for campus papers in recent decades: “CDS Appropriates Asian Dishes, Students Say” (Tran, 2015). (CDS was short for “campus dining services,” the food providers for Oberlin’s dining halls.) The Review story was short and straightforward. It quoted four international students complaining about the quality of the dining hall’s attempts to recreate the food of their native countries, along with one who defended the menus. The director of campus dining was quoted as saying that she intended to work with students who had concerns about the food to see if she could improve their experience. A month and a half later, the New York Post wrote an article on the story, folding in a follow-up article and a small protest by the Oberlin Black Student Union (Licea & Italiano, 2015). The Post used the students’ complaints of cultural appropriation as a cue for mockery, even though only one of the students interviewed for the first Review article had used the word. At the time, it was difficult to determine what the point of the story was: a 6-week-old article in a student newspaper complaining about dining hall food at an Ohio college with an enrollment of 3,000 students hardly seemed like a fit topic for discussion in a New York City tabloid, but the Post story opened the floodgates to an extraordinary deluge of news stories and op-eds on the protests. Dozens of stories were written, the vast majority of them critical of the students. Tomoyo Joshi’s quote in the original Review article appeared in both the New York Times and the Washington Post—and again, this was a two-sentence quote from the ninth paragraph of a student newspaper article

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on dining hall food, noteworthy primarily because Joshi had happened to use the word “appropriative.” This was extraordinary, and it was new. How did it happen? Three changes in the culture and technology of media were the cause. First, there had been a change in student media, specifically a shift to online publishing. A generation earlier, student newspapers had been just that—newspapers—and if you wanted to read what they wrote you had to go to campus or have a copy mailed to you. If you were lucky, back issues would be archived in the college library, perhaps eventually on microfilm, but that was it. Even if a newspaper like the New York Post had managed to stumble across a story about dining hall food in those days, other publications would have been essentially unable to report the story themselves, or even draw on quotes or information that hadn’t happened to make it into the Post coverage. Each subsequent piece written would have been thinner and less robust. The second change was the rise of social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook, and the coming of virality, as discussed in the context of the UC Davis pepper-spray incident. Complaints about dining hall food may not be news, but complaints about complaints about dining hall food may well become news in their own right, if enough people—and the right people—are doing the complaining. And that connects up with the third change—the news media’s move to a 24-hour news cycle and its concomitantly ravenous appetite for content, particularly opinion-based content. If people on the Internet are talking about Oberlin students’ criticism of dining hall food, and if I, an opinion journalist, can formulate a take on the “controversy,” then I can drive traffic to my publication’s site. The story becomes the reason for the story. The interest becomes the reason for the interest. The Oberlin dining hall story wasn’t the only example of a small-scale campus event sparking large national blowback in the mid-2010s—the year 2015 also saw a firestorm of public discussion of a Mount Holyoke College student theater group’s decision to cancel its annual production of The Vagina Monologues, to give just one other example—but it was one of the strangest. And it was a harbinger of things to come. Faced with this new scrutiny, student activists struggled to carve out space, both physical and ideological, for their organizing, and those efforts to reclaim the more intimate, less “public” space that previous generations of organizers had operated within would themselves become the subject of sustained high-profile national criticism. In November 2015, incidents at two colleges typified these tensions, as students at Smith College banned most media from a sit-in there while University of Missouri communications professor Melissa Click was caught on video calling for “muscle” to help remove a videographer from a protest (Rhodan, 2015). (Click was later fired by Mizzou.) Though these incidents were very different, they were frequently lashed together in media coverage and used as illustrations of a supposed campus hostility to freedom of speech.

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Each of these two stories, and a number of others at about the same time, was framed as a story of student antipathy to free speech as a principle, but the commenters providing that framing rarely explored the very recent technological and cultural developments (previously discussed) that had profoundly altered the kind and degree of scrutiny that student activists operate within. (The spread of doxxing and SWATting, though beyond the scope of this chapter, serve as a reminder that the potential costs of such attention are not merely reputational.) In our daily lives, we understand intuitively that some of the things we do and say in public spaces are best understood as private acts—if we overhear someone talking about their cancer diagnosis with a friend on a park bench, we don’t assume we’ve been invited to comment or participate. But the limits of our expectation of privacy are less clear online than they are offline, and the ease with which social media allows us to broadcast what we witness to a hitherto unimaginably large audience presents challenges to cultural norms that we are still in the early stages of addressing. The campus has become a flashpoint for such disputes in recent years, and it seems likely to remain one for the foreseeable future.

Larger Movements Emerge By 2015, the relatively small-scale and local protests of the early 2010s were coalescing into larger, more unified national movements that, in many cases, brought on- and off-campus organizers together. The 2014–15 academic year, for instance, had seen substantial attention paid to Emma Sulkowicz’s “Carry that Weight” protest-performance art piece, in which she carried a dorm-room mattress around campus for a full year in protest against Columbia University’s failure to expel the student whom she said had raped her in 2012. Sulkowicz’s action drew renewed national attention to campus sexual violence and helped encourage similar activist projects on other campuses, including many that supported and promoted each other over social media. Also in 2014, the police killings of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and others spurred the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement, a campaign against police violence against people of color that found substantial support on American college campuses. As with the coalescing national protests against sexual violence, campus Black Lives Matter activists gained strength and direction by networking and amplifying each others’ protests over social media. A feature of both these movements was that each used the notoriety of individual acts of violence to support a broader narrative of crisis and build support for structural reforms. Such a strategy is not new to the social media age—in the early 20th century, the NAACP flew a flag reading “A MAN WAS LYNCHED YESTERDAY” from the front of its New York City headquarters building each day that it learned of a new lynching—but it is particularly well suited to this moment. Social media allows news of both

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bad acts and organizing in response to travel quickly, unmediated by traditional media gatekeeping, and—as we have seen—can also attract the attention of traditional media professionals and reshape their narratives. More and more in this period, campus activists grew adept at using social media to draw attention to local acts of injustice, and in so doing leveraging support for broader organizing campaigns.

Campus Activism and Social Media in the Trump Era The year 2015 was a watershed in the history of American social media and social change activism for another reason as well: on June 16 of that year, Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president of the United States. Trump is, of course, the first social media–native president of the United States— American politics’ first true social media celebrity. He uses social media, particularly Twitter, as no U.S. politician ever has before, and in so doing has changed the way the rest of the country uses it. The direct impact of the rise of Trump on student activism has been threefold—it transformed the vocabulary of electoral politics, sparked the rise of a newly active radical right, and further eroded barriers between on- and off-campus activism. It is not a coincidence that questions of free speech and its limits have risen to the forefront of debates over campus organizing in the Trump era. His candidacy and presidency have pushed fringe political rhetoric into the mainstream, discombobulating established ideas about the lines that separate (for instance) political advocacy from rank bigotry. For the first time in American politics since the 1960s, the country had a presidential candidate whose campaign slogans were themselves seen by many as hate speech. In March, 2016, for instance, students at Emory University marched in protest after someone chalked “Donald Trump 2016,” “Build a Wall,” and other slogans on campus sidewalks (Svrulga, 2016). Far-right Trump supporters such as Milo Yiannopoulos seized on the divisions created by such controversies throughout the campaign season and beyond, serving as avatars for the rise of a newly aggressive, at times avowedly fascist, right wing. Though few prominent representatives of this movement were themselves students, they often chose colleges as sites of speeches and marches—in significant part because of the social media attention that campus clashes were bound to receive in that cultural moment. If 2015 and 2016 saw a surge of off-campus actors (activists, would-be right-wing celebrities, journalists) descending either physically or rhetorically on the campus, the early years of the Trump administration saw student and youth activists taking prominent positions in the resistance movements that were spawned by the Trump presidency. In the immediate pre-Trump era, while student activists had continued to develop more sophisticated and integrated mechanisms with which to interact with each other and the public, no student activists had emerged as true social media celebrities. Those

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who were excoriated in the press often chose to lower their profile, while many of the most successful movements and actions made at least public claims to be leaderless. It is perhaps unsurprising that this changed after the election of Donald Trump. The most dramatic, and perhaps the most consequential, social media-mediated student activism moment of Trump’s first years in office was the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018. In that incident, in which 17 were killed and another 17 wounded, students took to social media during and immediately after the shooting. A student named Aiden Minoff tweeted from within the school while the shooting was still going on, while another, student journalist David Hogg, recorded video interviews with his fellow students—videos that were soon posted to the Internet (Andone, 2018). Other students at the school interacted with President Trump on Twitter in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, drawing the attention of journalists and others. These were not young people who had been famous before the shooting, or even activists who became famous by giving a speech, occupying a campus building, or organizing a demonstration. Rather, they became famous because of what they did on social media during and after an act of mass violence—and famous not solely as victims, but also as advocates and activists. Several of the Parkland students would fall victim as well to another burgeoning phenomenon of the social media era—the coordinated fantasizing of online conspiracists. Parkland survivor David Hogg, who recorded video interviews with his fellow students during the lockdown, has been a particular target of such fabrications. Because he lived in California before high school and appeared briefly on television on a recent visit to that state, Hogg has been accused of being a Los Angeles-based “crisis actor” hired to assist in promoting a fake massacre in service of a gun control agenda.

What’s Next? Though constrained by the institution of the university, and in part because it is so constrained, student activism is by its nature improvisational, transformative, and disruptive. And while social media is constrained—more powerfully than student activism—by its corporate underpinnings, it shares some of student activism’s disruptive character. There was a time, not many years ago, when young people were routinely warned not to put evidence of their mild social transgressions—drunkenness, raunchiness, crudeness—on Facebook. Potential employers, mentors, and others would find such traces, they were warned, and their discovery would render them unemployable. (There was a time, not many years before that, when young people were told the same thing about tattoos and piercings that few of us would even notice, much less look askance at today.)

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We don’t often hear those warnings today—at least not precisely the same warnings—delivered with the same urgency. Partly this is because young people have become savvier about what to post; partly it’s because they’ve gotten better at hiding things from those they want to hide them from while showing them to those they want to show them to. But partly it’s just because such social media artifacts have—like tattoos and piercings—become so ubiquitous that they have largely lost their ability to shock and largely lost their utility as weapons. If everyone’s social media trail includes a photo standing next to a keg in a toga, then nobody’s does. The heightened scrutiny student activists are confronting today has not yet resolved itself into such a new, stable status quo. Mores and values are still in flux—around protest tactics and around how to cover protests and protesters. And even as those values begin to cohere, the ideology behind them remains invisible to many of those who are most powerful in shaping them. When you discourage someone from getting a tattoo or posting mild college debauchery on Facebook, you’re not just making a practical suggestion, you’re offering an assessment of the state of the world and the way we should all operate within it. In a small, incremental way, you’re remaking the world in the image of the one you describe. And just as yesterday’s warnings about tattoos and beer bongs struck the chastisers as straightforward common sense, many of those who put student activists under a microscope today fail to recognize the extent to which they are serving to shape, rather than merely chronicle, a new campus activism landscape. But while the Parkland students were harshly criticized—as jaded, as unserious, as cold—for tweeting and shooting video while hiding from a gunman, they were in fact acting as the Berkeley students who took to a high ledge had: seizing the improvisational, transformative, and disruptive potential of the limited tools at their disposal. The pace of change is quick in their world, and it is accelerating. Eight years after Malcolm Gladwell expressed the fear that communicating over social media made it “harder for [activists] to have any impact,” we all lead lives that have been transformed in dramatic ways—individually and collectively—by the effects of social media and social media activism. Those transformations have upended established ideas about organizing, politics, media, privacy, and public spaces, and have disrupted institutions and communities in ways that we are only just beginning to come to grips with. And these changes are nowhere felt more keenly than on the campus—as today’s campus organizers come to terms with mechanisms of influence and risks of harm that barely existed a decade ago, a new era of American student activism is being born.

Further Reading boyd, d.. (2014). It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hunsinger, J., & Senft, T. M. (2015). The social media handbook. New York, NY: Routledge.

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Jenkins, H., Ito, M., & boyd, d. (2015). Participatory culture in a networked era. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations New York, NY: Penguin.

References Andone, D. (2018, February 18). Student journalist interviewed classmates as shooter walked Parkland school halls. CNN. Available from https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/17/us/ david-hogg-profile-florida-shooting/index.html Gladwell, M. (2010, October 4). Small change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted. New Yorker. Available from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/smallchange-malcolm-gladwell Gladwell, M. (2011, February 2). Does Egypt need Twitter? New Yorker. Available from https:// www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/does-egypt-need-twitter Licea, M., & Italiano, L. (2015, December 18). Students at Lena Dunham’s college offended by lack of fried chicken. New York Post. Available from https://nypost.com/2015/12/18/ pc-students-at-lena-dunhams-college-offended-by-lack-of-fried-chicken/ Rhodan, M. (2015, November 19). Media banned from covering sit-in at Smith College. Time. Available from http://time.com/4121159/smith-college-sit-in-protest-media-solidarity/ Svrulga, S. (2016, March 24). Someone wrote “Trump 2016” on Emory’s campus in chalk. Some students say they no longer feel safe. Washington Post. Available from https:// www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/03/24/someone-wrote-trump2016-on-emorys-campus-in-chalk-some-students-said-they-no-longer-feel-safe/?utm_ term=.a12dd8c6a56c Tran, C. L. (2015, November 6). CDS appropriates Asian dishes, students say. Oberlin Review. Available from https://oberlinreview.org/9055/news/cds-appropriates-asian-dishesstudents-say/

Chapter 5

Freedom of Speech on the Contemporary Campus: A Bridge over Troubled Waters or a Highway to Hell? Dennis E. Gregory

Introduction One can open almost any item from the popular or educational press or watch any type of online source or social media outlet to see or read the many reports regarding challenges to the First Amendment on American college and university campuses. This is true of higher education in particular, but it is also true, more broadly, of society as a whole. We have witnessed a seemingly unending parade of examples: concerns about conservative speakers on campus; racist or homophobic signs or slogans painted on campus buildings; speakers being heckled and threatened; hate-filled demonstrators marching across campuses with burning torches; campuses refusing to allow controversial speakers due to the fear of violence and destruction of property; demonstrators marching to support dreamers; protests to support or oppose the taking down of confederate monuments; campus leaders renaming buildings once named for donors or leaders who were racist or supported slavery; polls showing that students support limitations on speech that offends or hurts one’s feelings; calls for safe zones in which certain types of speech are not allowed; free-speech zones that limit the locations on public institution campuses where speech-related activities can occur; and the list goes on and on. According to David Parrott, vice president for student affairs at the University of

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Florida (personal communication, February 27, 2018), his campus spent approximately $1 million to prepare for and operate during a speech on campus by White supremacist Richard Spenser. These instances reflect the larger society in which political debate has become polarized: NFL player protests of police brutality have been translated into hate for the flag and the country, the president of the United States has made federal judges and media members targets of his invective tweets about fake news, and dueling Congressional delegations continue to snipe at one another on Twitter and in speeches rather than work to compromise on legislation. What does all of this mean for the future of the First Amendment and, in particular, freedom of expression on campuses and in society? Is the basic concept of the campus as a marketplace of ideas no longer a truism? Should faculty members and administrators yield to calls for limits on freedom of expression to those things that do not offend anyone? Should all speakers who are in opposition to the “norm” of campus thought be banned? Should we allow those in opposition to speech that they find to be hateful, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, or otherwise negative block speakers who put those opposing opinions forward? It is this author’s opinion that it is absolutely essential to the future of higher education and, in fact, the liberty of our nation that we not allow the marketplace of ideas to be closed and that, despite the pain and mental hardships caused by such speech, we should take the position that more speech is always a better way to counteract bad speech than banning the bad speech. We should take control of the argument and negative reactions and rephrase and refocus speech so that the reply displays a reasoned argument rather than taking away the rights of others. The idea of the First Amendment is to allow the speech one hates to protect the speech one loves. This should be the mantra of all in higher education in the United States, particularly those on public campuses. Next, I seek to lay out the background and history of this issue and present both sides.

History and Case Law The issues around free speech and other clauses of the First Amendment are not new ones. During the administration of President John Adams in the late 1790s, the Alien and Sedition Acts served to limit immigration. These laws, for the most part, were allowed to expire in 1801; and the Federalists lost control of both the legislative and executive branches and ushered in a 24-year period of control by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. The Federalists also lost control of Congress and soon ceased to exist. The Civil War, the First World War, and the Second World War also resulted in efforts to control speech as a military protection tool and to prevent spying and other ills. The Alien Enemies Act (50 USC 21-24), also passed in the late 1790s, was re-codified and used in World War I and again in World War II to control perceived enemies within

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the United States. During the “Red Scare” of the 1950s and early 1960s, we saw blacklists of alleged communist sympathizers and efforts by Joseph McCarthy and others to keep writers and journalists from expressing opposition to this conservative assault. During the 1960s and early 1970s, those in opposition to the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War protests, the women’s movement, and other social movements sought to limit speech as a way to limit protest and opposition to the status quo. College campuses and college students were at the heart of the civil rights and Vietnam War protests, and the marketplace of ideas concept has been alive since at least the 1950s. However, opposition to racist speech and speech that is uncomfortable or hurtful to underrepresented persons is also not new. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a spate of “speech codes” developed for this purpose. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), many such codes, or parts of them, still exist, but they were found to be unconstitutional in at least two cases. In Doe v. University of Michigan (1989) and UWM Post Inc. v. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System (1991), federal district courts in Michigan and Wisconsin threw out speech codes, which they decreed were unconstitutional for being vague and overly broad. Essentially, the courts indicated that the Supreme Court had described the circumstances in which speech was not protected; and while universities were welcome to prevent the unprotected speech as identified by the Court, other limits on speech were not sustainable. Virtually nothing has changed since those cases and additional lawsuits by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), and others have reinforced those limits. In short, the Supreme Court has ruled that defamation (libel or slander) (Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 1974), the use of speech as an imminent incitement to lawless action (Brandenburg v. Ohio, 1969), obscenity (Miller v. California, 1973), and fighting words (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 1942) are cases in which speech is not protected. While either the lawless action or the fighting words doctrine might be used to address specific incidents of speech on campus, building these into a code is perilous since they are both very incident specific. In Chaplisky v. New Hampshire (1942), in which the Court dealt with a case in which a member of the Jehovah’s Witness religious group was distributing materials on a public street, Justice Murphy, writing for the Court, reported: There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or “fighting” words—those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. (p. 572)

In a number of rulings since the 1960s, the Supreme Court has made it very clear that students and faculty have the right of freedom of speech and that the state (in this case,

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university and college administrations) may not censor speech, particularly when doing so based on content. These cases have included both elementary and secondary schools and institutions of higher education. Keyishian et al. v. Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York et al. (1967) addresses the free expression and academic freedom rights of faculty within the university. Here, Justice Brennan indicated, “The classroom is peculiarly the ‘marketplace of ideas.’ The Nation’s future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth ‘out of a multitude of tongues, [rather] than through any kind of authoritative selection’” (p. 603). In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969), the Court upheld the free expression rights of several public school students who wore black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. The school system had allowed other political demonstrations of opinion and had instituted the ban on black armbands once it became aware that the protest was planned. The principal defended his actions by indicating that he did so to prevent disruption to the school’s operations by what he interpreted as the students taking an unpopular position. The Court noted that no disruption took place. It also wrote that “[c]learly, the prohibition of expression of one particular opinion, at least without evidence that it is necessary to avoid material and substantial interference with schoolwork or discipline, is not constitutionally permissible” (p. 511). I also commend to you Ashton Jones v. Board of Regents of the University of Arizona (1970), which dealt with the right of a university to prohibit the distribution of literature on a university campus. The plaintiff was removed from campus for distributing anti-war materials in violation of university policy, while other “handbills” related to university activities were allowed. This content-based restriction was struck down by the Ninth Circuit. The opinion provides a long list of similar cases and provides fertile reading for those interested in this topic. Healy v. James (1972) is probably the most important speech and association case decided by the Supreme Court within the context of higher education. This is a case in which the president of Central Connecticut State College rejected the request for recognition of a local chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). SDS was a national organization that had engaged in violent protest and other civil disobedience on many college campuses in the United States. These actions included “seizure of buildings, vandalism, and arson. Some colleges had been shut down altogether, while at others files were looted and manuscripts destroyed” (Healy v. James, 1972, p. 171). The Student Affairs Committee of the college recommended the recognition of the organization to the president. President James rejected the recommendation of the committee. “He found that the organization’s philosophy was antithetical to the school’s policies, and that the group’s independence was doubtful. He concluded that approval should not be granted to any group that "openly repudiates" the College’s dedication to academic freedom” (Healy v. James, 1972, p. 175). This resulted in significant loss of benefits and privileges for the SDS that were offered to registered student organizations. These included use

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of campus facilities and the ability to place announcements of organizational activities. In its opinion, the Court indicated that “[a]t the outset we note that state colleges and universities are not enclaves immune from the sweep of the First Amendment” (Healy v. James, 1972, p. 180). While acknowledging the need for order on a college or university campus, the Court went on to say, “[T]he precedents of this Court leave no room for the view that, because of the acknowledged need for order, First Amendment protections should apply with less force on college campuses than in the community at large” (Healy v. James, 1972, p. 180). In addition to the freedom of expression, the Court wrote expansively about the right of freedom of association. It suggested that the institution could remove recognition if it found that the organization or its members violated college policy. The Court also concluded that “[t]he mere disagreement of the President with the group’s philosophy affords no reason to deny it recognition. As repugnant as these views may have been, especially to one with President James’ responsibility, the mere expression of them would not justify the denial of First Amendment rights” (Healy v. James, 1972, p. 187). In Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri (1973), the Supreme Court refused to allow the expulsion of the editor of a student newspaper that published pictures of police officers raping lady justice carrying her scales and the Statue of Liberty, and that included the headline “Motherfuckers Acquitted.” The Court noted in its opinion that “the First Amendment leaves no room for the operation of a dual standard in the academic community with respect to the content of speech” (Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri, 1973, p. 671). The value and constitutional protection afforded to the First Amendment, and particularly to the protection of free expression, have long been supported outside the realm of higher education, and these cases can be informative to issues in postsecondary education as well. Several cases pointing out these issues are described next. In Brown v. Louisiana (1966), during the Civil Rights Movement, Brown and colleagues peaceably assembled in a Louisiana public library and refused to leave when ordered to do so by the librarian and, subsequently, the sheriff. They were then arrested and removed for allegedly violating a breach of peace statute. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, indicating that [t]he rights of peaceable and orderly protest which petitioners were exercising under the First and Fourteenth Amendments are not confined to verbal expression, but embrace other types of expression, including appropriate silent and reproachful presence, such as petitioners used here. Therefore, even if such action came within the statute, it would have to be held that the statute could not constitutionally reach petitioners’ actions in the circumstances of this case. (Brown v. Louisiana, 1966, pp. 141–142)

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The Westboro Baptist Church was at the center of Snyder v. Phelps (2011). Here, in a case that comes from outside higher education but is directly related to the issues of protection from emotional distress and the protection of speech one hates, Chef Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion of a court that voted 8–1 to protect nasty, hurtful speech. Westboro Baptist Church is a very conservative congregation that attends and pickets funerals of service men and women killed in battle. Members of the church shout scurrilous comments about homosexuality, the Catholic Church, dead soldiers as a punishment by God, and other harsh comments. The father of a slain soldier (Snyder) sued several of the picketers and the church. The court ruled that, no matter how disruptive and hurtful the comments of the picketers were, they were participating in speech on a matter of public importance and were, in fact, protected. The speech in this case is analagous to hate speech on campus. No matter how much we hate the speech with which we vehemently disagree, such speech is difficult to control since it is constitutionally protected.

Literature and Commentary The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), previously mentioned, is an organization that serves as an advocacy group for the protection of the First Amendment on American campuses. They post a rating of institutions regarding what they believe to be “speech codes” on such campuses. As described earlier, such speech codes that move beyond the traditional limits to freedom as described by the Court are banned. FIRE staffers also write letters, sue institutions, and take other actions to protect the First Amendment from abuses by administrators and boards. FIRE has been criticized as being conservative in its perspective on the First Amendment, primarily since some of the sources of funding that it receives come from wealthy conservative sources, and they must take care, as they say they do, to assure that they do not become an advocacy group for conservative political positions. I was a critic of FIRE early in their existence, but as a First Amendment purist, I now understand their philosophy and laud their approach to protecting the First Amendment rights of employees and students at public institutions of higher education. While I describe myself as a political liberal, the protection of free expression goes beyond political position. This places me at odds with many of my liberal colleagues who value social justice above constitutional protection. Frankly, I believe there is a balance to be had. For thoughtful articles on these issues, I commend a presentation made by Professor Lawrence White (1999) at a Stetson University Higher Education Law Conference. Professor White is currently senior counsel at the University System of New Hampshire. This article lays out the case law, which supports the protection of free expression and describes materials that are basic to the premise of this chapter. White begins his treatise with a quote from a dissent by Justice William O. Douglas in Kingsley Books, Inc. v.

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Brown (1957), which reads: “Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience . . . that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.” This insightful comment noted that we must protect the speech we hate for our own speech to be protected at a later date. Another insightful article that I commend to the reader is by Frederick Haiman (1991) in The American Prospect that discusses Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), which was previously cited, and other similar cases. Here, Haiman provides a deep dive into the balance of limiting racist speech and the damage it may cause with the alternative remedy of using the horrific hate speech to demonstrate the lack of value of such arguments. He cited Justice Louis Brandeis in his opinion in Whitney v. California (1927) as saying, “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence” (para. 10). Haiman (1991) goes on to suggest that [e]ven if one were persuaded that banning racist speech is desirable to reduce harm, numerous practical consequences should give pause[.] Placing limitations on the verbal expression of group hatred does not make those attitudes disappear. More likely they will go underground to fester, and perhaps later erupt in more violent form. In the absence of their overt expression, society may grow complacent, thinking it has solved a problem that actually persists. The hidden enemy is more dangerous than the one that is seen. (para. 21)

The reader can see that this issue has been around for at least 35 years and likely much longer. Many more recent commentators have made much the same points, but have not done so in a more cogent fashion than Haiman. His point about hiding a problem by restricting speech has a corollary. A provocative question we need to ask is whether efforts to raise issues and take stands against racist and other hateful speech over the last half century actually have done what Haiman suggests and have forced hatred underground. Does the rise of such speech and rhetoric since 2016, the election of Donald Trump, and the negative ideas put out by his administration indicate that these attitudes were always present but have now come out of the woodwork with this change of administrative and political direction? Have we done a disservice to the concepts we value—equality, freedom, respect for difference, and others—by forcing those who disagree to hide under cover? The #MeToo movement has also moved to eliminate from campuses works related to those accused of being guilty of sexual violence, assault, and other sexually violent behavior. A February 26 article in Inside Higher Education by Flaherty (2018) describes efforts to cancel a class at the University of California, San Diego, that studies the work of Woody Allen. Allen has been accused at UC San Diego of sexually abusing his daughter and of mistreating “women and girls in art and life” (Flaherty, 2018, para. 1). The

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Faculty Senate voted to continue the course based on the protection of academic freedom for its faculty. The article noted other issues of works of drama being terminated on campuses, for example: Wendy MacLeod, a professor of drama at Kenyon College, called off the production of her original, cocurricular play this semester after some on campus complained about how it portrayed Latinos. Knox College also canceled a production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechuan over student concerns about how it portrayed Asians. (Flaherty, 2018, para. 12)

While an artist certainly has the right to censor him or herself, the university should not do so. An interesting article from The Atlantic in which Teresa Bejean (2017) explores the reasons behind the conflict between First Amendment purists like myself and those who would see a less expansive view of the First Amendment that would allow the curbs being proposed by some. She succinctly states the problem when she writes that [w]hile conservative students defend the importance of inviting controversial speakers to campus and giving offense, many self-identified liberals are engaged in increasingly disruptive, even violent, efforts to shut them down. Free speech for some, they argue, serves only to silence and exclude others. Denying hateful or historically “privileged” voices a platform is thus necessary to make equality effective, so that the marginalized and vulnerable can finally speak up—and be heard. (Bejean, 2017, para.1)

She goes on to describe what she believes is the basis of this conflict: The conflict between what the ancient Greeks called isegoria, on the one hand, and parrhesia, on the other, is as old as democracy itself. Today, both terms are often translated as “freedom of speech,” but their meanings were and are importantly distinct. In ancient Athens, isegoria described the equal right of citizens to participate in public debate in the democratic assembly; parrhesia, the license to say what one pleased, how and when one pleased, and to whom. (Bejean, 2017, para. 2)

This historical analysis reminds me that many of those who would limit free speech are not students of history. They tend to view the development of the Constitution, and particularly the First Amendment, with contemporary eyes, without any reference to the history and evolution of jurisprudence over more than 200 years. They judge 18th- and 19th-century issues and people as if they had the knowledge and points of view that we possess today.

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As suggested, the major question being raised by those who support limitation on speech that wounds minorities and other underrepresented groups is that protection of freedom of expression is used by those with privilege to protect that privilege. They argue that by continuing to protect racist and other hateful speech under the guise of the First Amendment, those in power are seeking to maintain that power and using free expression as a tool to hold down those who have less power, less status, and fewer opportunities to speak. While I do not agree with this concept, and believe that the First Amendment has basic value to all people, I can certainly understand this perception. First, the Constitution was written by White male land owners, persons of privilege. When writing the Bill of Rights, James Madison sought to encompass those rights that he felt had been restricted under British rule and were basic rights of all civilized nations and their citizens. While in a sense the Constitution was an aspirational document in many ways, and was limited in its application, the rights enumerated have been expanded as the history of the country has progressed. The Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment, which applied the Bill of Rights to the states and which promised due process and equal protection to all, and the civil rights amendments of 1871 and 1964 changed our society in many ways. This is not to say that we have reached the full potential of the Constitution, since the rights of some people are still limited, but we have made great strides as a nation. We have only to see the amazing and very quick inclusion of LGBTQ citizens in the basic rights of citizenship to know that, while sometimes the process is slow and is painful, it can win in the long term. Also, while I can understand the frustration of young and underserved people who see progress as slow and restricted by privilege, I try to put things in historical perspective and see how far we have come, understanding that we still have a long way to go. I encourage those who feel that their rights are not seen as equal to those of others to keep the faith and keep on working to solve our nation’s problems. You may count me as an ally. As I noted, the remedy for those who come to our campuses to spew hatred and fear—those who put forward ideas with which we disagree, those who seek to grab the spotlight to put forward their ideas—is harder work than to oppose and keep them from expressing their ideas. When a controversial speaker is coming to campus and those who disagree with his or her ideas seek to disrupt the speech, to block access to auditoriums, and to otherwise disrupt his or her speech, it only draws attention to the ideas of the speaker and gives extra publicity. I urge campus leaders to provide an event at the same time as the event with the speaker to draw attention to other, more positive ideas, and to engage in a petition drive to gather signatures that can be shown to the administration and community that shows there are more people that hate his or her ideas than support them. In addition, bring in a counter speaker to address the same issues in a different and more positive way. If we limit the audiences these negative speakers have, limit the news coverage of them, and provide alternative venues for speech, we

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can take the high ground. History tells us that, in war, the army that controls the high ground has a distinct advantage. As Michelle Obama has said many times, “When they go low, we go high.” Whether the reader agrees with my perspective or with that of those who would limit the First Amendment, I would argue that the Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that protections of free speech are the law of the land. Anyone who wishes to try to amend the Constitution is certainly welcome to move the country in that direction. As a student of history, I understand that with evolution, rather than revolution, America has and will continue to make positive change in the future. Spirited, but peaceful debate, and new and valuable intellectual positions, are valued in academe. Students who engage in that vein should be applauded. Let us maintain the marketplace of ideas for our children and grandchildren so they too can share the benefits.

References Alien Enemies Act (50 USC 21-24) Ashton Jones v. Board of Regents of the University of Arizona, 436 F.2d 618 (9th Cir. 1970) Bejean, T. M. (2017, December 2). The two clashing meanings of “free speech.” Atlantic. Available from https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/two-conceptsof-freedom-of-speech/546791/ Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1989) Brown v. Louisiana, 383 U.S. 131 (1966) Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942) Doe v. University of Michigan, 721 F. Supp. 852 (E.D. Mich. 1989) Flaherty, C. (2018, February 26). Woody Allen and academic freedom. Inside Higher Education. Available from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/02/26/ uc-san-diego-academic-senate-rejects-student-led-push-cut-course-woody-allen?mc_ cid=f1fb24cdfa&mc_eid=8e5c512c95 Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323 (1974) Haiman, F. (1991). The remedy is more speech. American Prospect. Available from http://prospect. org/article/remedy-more-speech Healey v. James, 408 U.S. 169 (1972) Keyishian et al. v. Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York et al., 385 U.S. 589 (1967) Kingsley Books v. Brown, 354 U.S. 436, 447 (1957) Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973) Papish v. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri, 410 U.S. 667 (1973) Snyder v. Phelps, 562 U.S. 443 (2011) Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, 389 U.S. 503 (1969) UWM Post, Inc. v. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, 744 F. Supp. 1163 (E.D. Wisc. 1991). White, L. (1999, February 11–13). The campus as a marketplace of ideas: Are there limits to free speech? A guide to analysis. 20th Annual Law and Higher Education Conference, Clearwater Beach, Florida. Available from http://www.stetson.edu/law/conferences/ highered/archive/1999/The_Campus_as_a_Marketplace_of_Ideas.pdf

Chapter 6

Debating Equality, Neoliberalism, Normativity, and Campus Rhetoric



Peter Halewood

Introduction The term “political correctness” has been part of our political and cultural landscape for over 30 years now. It began “as a lefty in-joke, an insidery nod to the smugness of holier-than-thou liberals” (Hess, 2016). Today it is sometimes offered with humor or irony, sometimes not. When employed seriously, often as a slur, the term indicates that someone’s language or conduct (usually language, where the emphasis is for the most part in this discourse) is politically acceptable or unacceptable and posits a baseline of “correct” political opinion or expression, departure from which exposes the retrograde or unreconstructed politics of the speaker. The term is often self-mocking when used by progressives, sometimes intimating (with a sense of irony) a hierarchy of political sensitivity among progressives while insisting on the legitimacy of the progressive politics underlying it (e.g., anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-subordination, etc.). The term “woke” conveys some of the same meaning in contemporary usage, although at this point it is primarily positive without the negative connotation of political correctness, at least among progressives.1 Frequent targets of accusations of political correctness by conservatives include “identity politics,” grassroots community activist groups such as Black Lives Matter, campus protesters, “safe spaces” on college campuses (spaces designed

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to foster support for members of historically excluded or subordinated groups), and condemnations of “microaggressions” (uses of language that in some ways demean or isolate members of such groups but that fall short of actionable discrimination).2 In this essay, I will analyze the structural and systemic context in which the debate over political correctness is situated, explore the mechanism by which the rhetorical work is accomplished in this debate within neoliberalism and note its deficiencies, and conclude with some observations about the tropes employed in the debate, which have led to fundamental mischaracterization of political positions held by the progressive left, which are too often unfairly dismissed as “politically correct.”

Context and Intellectual Antecedents The term “political correctness” has a very different meaning for some conservatives and even for some more conventional pro-free speech liberals, for here conservatives and liberals may make common cause against political correctness (Chemerinsky, 2017). Some conservatives harbor a disdain for multicultural left progressives that is baked into their use of the term “political correctness.” For them, the fine distinctions drawn among political stances by multicultural progressives are simultaneously laughable and ostensibly dangerous to free speech and democratic participation. And this political bifurcation between conservatives and progressives both reflects and constitutes the idea of political correctness—the division and divisiveness in part attributable to the growing chasm between the left and the right in the United States in recent years that gives power to the term “political correctness” and in part is generated by the notion underlying it that there is an independent (i.e., “correct”) position from which to judge the acceptability of someone’s political opinions and particularly their speech (Chow, 2016). In the same way, the fixation on speech in this debate is both a product of and a cause of the centrality of speech and the First Amendment in these debates. It is this dual role of speech and political difference that must be more closely examined in hopes of advancing discussion, remedying real injustices, and getting past paralyzing political differences. In usage by conservatives, much of the work of characterizing “political correctness” as intolerant and illiberal is done by the term “correctness,” for it is the idea of something being “correct” that suggests a rigid doctrinaire self-assurance intolerant of differing opinions (Weigel, 2016). This characterization of progressive politics is of course rejected by progressives themselves. The debate reflects, in some respects, a contest between liberal humanism, or foundationalism, on one hand, with its faith in the perfectibility of human knowledge and human values rooted in our traditions, and postmodernism, or relativism, on the other hand, with its deep skepticism about foundations, tradition, truth, and objectivity. In some respects, this explains the role of language in the debate over political correctness. The foundationalist approach regards language largely as a mirror representing material

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and political reality, while the anti-foundationalist sees language as playing a much more active and constitutive role in shaping that reality. From the latter standpoint, the careful use of political language—avoiding terms or symbols that might be offensive to historically subordinated groups—makes good political and philosophical sense, given the historical role that language has played in creating and maintaining the subordination of the groups in question (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017). Conservatives and some liberals, on the other hand, see this as weaponizing sensitivity, with progressives seizing on opportunities to call out and criticize speakers whose language does not reflect these sensitivities (Payne, 2016). It is here that the debate sometimes collapses into finger pointing about lack of sensitivity and bullying or harassment, with both sides claiming the moral high ground of political superiority. It is clear, then, that language matters a great deal for both sides to this debate, and conservatives just as much as progressives are heavily invested in the political language they wish to employ—that is, it is not the exclusive concern of multicultural progressives. Indeed, one sees the term “conservative correctness” used to describe just this phenomenon of conservatives insisting on using “non-PC” terminology precisely to signal their traditional disregard for the sensitivities of historically marginalized groups (Nowrasteh, 2016). For example, there is an identifiable conservative correctness around the issues of Supreme Court nominees, where it is clearly a litmus test for many conservatives that nominees signal a willingness to overturn Roe v. Wade and undo women’s constitutional right to abortion. Trump famously insisted on conservatively correct language in calling on President Obama to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism.” And it has been noted that the “identity politics” much maligned by conservatives was in fact instrumental to the Trump presidential victory in 2016 by mobilizing White racial resentment against immigrants and people of color generally. The core idea that a political measure is taken of speech or conduct for the purpose of judging its acceptability owes at least some of its origins to the bifurcation of “sign” and “signified” in 20th-century linguistic theory, specifically that of Ferdinand de Saussure and subsequent social theorists who built on his work (Berman, 1991). To somewhat oversimplify, de Saussure’s insight was that there is a socially constructed meaning attached to signs or signifiers that we employ strategically to be intelligible. This means that the sign (or language) plays a central role in determining political meaning and therefore politics, an insight that informs later post-structuralist skepticism about foundations and suggests the critique of social and linguistic construction (and therefore deconstructibilty) of political norms. Whatever status quo political normativity that has been constructed by language can likewise be deconstructed through careful deployment of emancipatory language, thus attacking not only the language of oppression, but the oppression itself. Language is the overarching and confining structure inside which political and social meaning is determined. On this view, language is assigned a primacy in generating political meaning that makes it central to, at the very core of, politics itself. The idea that

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a sign (e.g., political terminology or language) can fix or determine political meaning is a powerful driver of the emphasis in recent decades on the importance of language in ascertaining and judging the political contents or meaning of an utterance (Felling, 2017). In many ways this has elevated speech over conduct in the hierarchy of political concerns. It is not that political conduct is unimportant, but rather that political speech or utterance is in some senses primary and constitutive of politics and of social relations. Thus accorded, political causality, language, and utterance takes on enormous (perhaps inflated) significance in debates about subordination, liberation, social change, and social justice. If language determines politics, causes or maintains subordination, impedes social change, etc., then a careful critical scrutiny of speech and language is a rational and defensible attempt to address the underlying structural drivers of social injustice— that scrutiny is not just a trivial parlor game fetishizing small differences if it is viewed as explicating material differences of power and subordination.

Free Expression as Obfuscation Of course, this fixation on language may cause friction with persons whose language and politics are incommensurate with the goals of liberation or anti-subordination. Conservatives have, in recent years, particularly with the rise of Trumpism, become focused on “political correctness” (and the related category of “identity politics”) and identify it as one of the chief threats to American liberty, society, and economic success (Kilgore, 2018). In this view, political correctness impedes free expression by placing limits on “offensive” speech, threatens economic liberty by forcing employers or investors to consider “extraneous” factors such as race, gender, or sexual orientation in hiring, and creates social friction by emphasizing differences of identity over social commonality. Much of this social battle has been fought over controversial (often inflammatory) conservative speakers invited to college campuses, whose speeches are then protested by students or community activists. Occasionally, violence has broken out, either by groups of protestors or outside provocateurs (Marantz, 2018). The conservative response has been to turn progressive free speech rhetoric against the activists, accusing them of attempting to unilaterally restrict free and fair expression of controversial ideas in the interest of protecting some subordinated groups from “taking offense.” Many critics of this conservative approach object to this attempt to play the free-speech trump card. As Jelani Cobb notably put it: These are not abstractions. And this is where the arguments about the freedom of speech become most tone deaf. The freedom to offend the powerful is not equivalent to the freedom to bully the relatively disempowered. The enlightenment principles that undergird free speech also prescribed that the natural limits of one’s liberty lie at the precise point at which it begins

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to impose upon the liberty of another. . . . During the debates over the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Senator J. Lister Hill, of Alabama, stood up and declared his opposition to the bill by arguing that the protection of black rights would necessarily infringe upon the rights of whites. This is the left-footed logic of a career Negrophobe, which should be immediately dismissed. Yet some variation of Hill’s thinking animates the contemporary political climate. Right-to-offend advocates are, willingly or not, trafficking in the same sort of argument for the right to maintain subordination. (Cobb, 2015)

Some legislatures are being pressured into responding with “campus free speech legislation,” such as the policy recently adopted in Wisconsin that imposes a “three-strikes” limit on students who disrupt the free expression of others (Camera, 2017). Other states have imposed similar policies in their universities: When the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin wanted to address the issue of free speech on campus last fall, it adopted a three-strikes policy that is the strictest of its kind: Any student found to have disrupted the free expression of others is expelled after a third infraction. . . . The goal was to foster an atmosphere of “civility, respect and safety,” and avoid the kind of violent, unruly disruptions that prevented conservatives from speaking at schools like the University of California, Berkeley, and Middlebury College. Those protests had focused national attention on the question of whether college campuses were shutting out politically unpopular points of view. . . . Wisconsin is not alone. Republican-led state legislatures in Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina have imposed similar policies on public colleges and universities, and bills to establish campus speech guidelines are under consideration in at least seven other legislatures. These efforts, funded in part by big-money Republican donors, are part of a growing and well-organized campaign that has put academia squarely in the cross hairs of the American right. . . . The spate of new policies shows how conservatives are successfully advancing one of their longstanding goals: to turn the tables in the debate over the First Amendment by casting the left as an enemy of open and free political expression on campuses. (Peters, 2018)

Notably, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has opposed campus free-speech legislation as an abridgment of academic freedom, effectively weaponizing the First Amendment to suppress dissent on campus and to freeze out student protest (AAUP, 2018). In this context, the conservative framework attacking political correctness is deficient in three ways. The first is that by privileging free expression it masks the larger assertions about inequality made by these protests; in other words, the protests are

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themselves expressing ideas about the failure to protect equality in bringing speakers to campuses whose message is often, implicitly at least, about the inferiority of marginalized social groups. The second is that student protests against politically controversial outside speakers are not really about speech at all, or at least primarily, but instead about equality and inequality and what role the speakers and the universities that host them play in the maintenance of that inequality. The characterization of the protests as primarily concerned with restricting speech is done strategically to flip the discourse about free expression so as to make protestors appear intolerant and disrespectful of acceptable political disagreement. There is a third deficiency in the conservative lens or framework: that not all political perspectives are deserving of an airing or audience on campus because, as a matter of institutional competence, universities are required to make judgments all the time about acceptable and unacceptable ideas, about correct versus incorrect characterizations about data, reasoning, assumptions, and conclusions (Post, 2017). For example, the idea that gravity does not exist, or that the earth is flat, or that black or brown people are inferior—none of these demonstrably false assertions need to be given “equal time” at a serious university. What just access means in terms of positive policy is that institutions that are the gatekeepers to the public have a fiduciary responsibility to award access based on the merit of ideas and thinkers. To award space in a campus lecture hall to someone like Peterson who says that feminists “have an unconscious wish for brutal male domination,” or to give time on a television news show to someone like Coulter who asserts that in an ideal world all Americans would convert to Christianity, or to interview a D-list actor like Jenny McCarthy about her view that actual scientists are wrong about the public health benefits of vaccines is not to display admirable intellectual open-mindedness. It is to take a positive stand that these views are within the realm of defensible rational discourse, and that these people are worth taking seriously as thinkers. (van Norden, 2018)

The facile “two-sides” logic that has come to dominate our conversations around political speech on campus simply is not and would not be adopted in any other academic context in universities. Not all sides of a debate are equally valid or deserving of an airing or audience—some are demonstrably false, misleading, and designed to obscure rather than illuminate. It is also true that many of the most in-demand, controversial speakers invited to campus are invited at the behest of well-funded off-campus groups whose mission and purpose in inviting the speaker is to create a strong backlash from groups offended by the speaker, thus allowing the speaker’s point of view to gain publicity or even sympathy when attacked. Such speakers are rarely invited to offer a legitimate political point of view or to add constructively to an open debate about public policy. Often the purpose is to bait protestors into saying or doing outrageous things that can then

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be used as “proof ” by outside conservative groups of the intolerance of the left. Many mainstream media outlets dutifully (and mistakenly) report the issues surrounding such campus incidents in exactly these scripted terms, calling the protestors intolerant enemies of free expression and depicting the invited speakers as brave free thinkers simply trying to get the word out about their perspective. Media depictions rarely if ever dive more deeply into the issues that frame such contests over political meaning. They are largely content to repeat the free speech versus offensiveness framework, generally mirroring the orthodox position that all speech is equally valid and deserving of an opportunity to be heard, regardless of content or context. But this mischaracterizes the role of the university. As Jeremy Waldron (2018) puts it, “[S]tudents come to college to learn, and classroom learning—in history or biology or science or French literature—requires adherence to discipline-appropriate, scientificand evidence-based practices. There isn’t much debate about free speech in a chemistry lab.” In other words, there simply isn’t a free speech interest in being wrong about fundamental features of an academic discipline, no matter the strength of one’s conviction or one’s opinion on the matter. Nor is there a compelling free speech rationale, for example, for providing a forum for invited campus speakers who want to promote long-sincedebunked notions of racial or gender inferiority or to associate certain religions with a predilection to engage in terrorism.

Neoliberalism and the Dispersal of Responsibility The other feature of modern society that helps to drive the debate over political correctness is neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is “an ideological system which equates free markets with freedom and democracy, inside which universities have become closely identified with market discourse, faculty employment precarity, and highly individuated understandings of social phenomena such as racism” (Halewood & Young, 2017). Taking racism as an example, neoliberalism very effectively obscures the reality of structural or systemic racism by creating a lens through which only disaggregated, individuated agency matters (AAUP, 2016). So, systemic racism, for example, “encoded in the very structure of the modern corporate university and in employment relations, housing, and the criminal justice system writ large, is rendered invisible as both racism and its harms are individuated, disaggregated, and ultimately dissipated and dismissed as a series of personal and individual perceptions of slights rather than as actual subordination” (Halewood & Young, 2017, p. 267). Arguably, neoliberalism has come to dominate our politics globally, but particularly in the United States, and has even come to dominate in university administration, curriculum, and faculty hiring and retention, where much of the debate over political correctness is played out. Universities increasingly mirror broader society in accepting and implementing many of the assumptions of neoliberalism: a focus on the market, on

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individualism, and on individual responsibility over structural or systemic solutions. Many traditional assumptions about the place of the university in society are challenged by neoliberalism; for example, the view that academic freedom is essential to the university’s service to the public good has been challenged by private market imperatives such that applied research has been prioritized over primary research and corporate interests now pervade major research institutions. Tenure is under sustained assault since it challenges the neoliberal value of “labor flexibility.” Unionization of faculty is shrinking and has just taken an enormous blow from the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Janus case, which seriously limits the capacity of unions to raise funds (Goldstein & Green, 2018). Even undergraduates now routinely measure the “value” of their degrees in terms of future income and employability rather than in conventional terms of personal, moral, and intellectual development. In the context of the debate over political correctness, neoliberalism renders unintelligible to conservatives many of the claims of the multicultural left. Where the left sees systemic racism or racist attacks on entire groups, the right sees only honest critique of the behavior of individual members of a particular (racial or other) group. Where the left sees structural discrimination in college admissions or employment, the right sees only individuals’ failure to compete and succeed in the market. The lens or framework of neoliberalism has obscured many of the legitimate claims of the progressive left, a process that campus protests have done a great deal to expose (Halewood, 2016). Similarly, neoliberalism has been the vehicle by which conservative critiques of political correctness have become legible and gained such a critical mass of political influence—to the point that we saw anti-political correctness emerge as a major theme and talking point during the successful Trump campaign for the presidency.3

Safe Spaces and Microaggressions: Why Language Matters In addition to campus protests, “safe spaces” and “microaggressions” are frequent targets of anti-political correctness critiques, and the political effectiveness of this targeting is also due to the rise of neoliberalism. Critics often mock “snowflake” or “crybully” progressives who cannot withstand the knocks of robust political debate and need protection from being offended. The truth is, of course, that many of the persons so mocked, often young college students of color, are in fact very tough and possess a lot of grit just to have survived and thrived in a structurally racist school environment that results in the disproportionate disciplining of students of color and other forms of unequal treatment. The right invokes the First Amendment in a very simplistic way to claim that offensive things can be freely expressed and minority students must endure it for the sake of wholly abstract First Amendment politics. President Trump seems to feel that free speech means the ability “to say whatever the hell you want” (Hess, 2016).

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He has, of course, openly mocked a disabled reporter, vilified immigrants, and recently mocked the #MeToo movement in a public speech (Sonmez, 2018). The truth, of course, is that so-called safe spaces do exist on some campuses and are designed to provide spaces to foster community and solidarity for members of historically disadvantaged groups (and, yes, physical safety too) but were never intended by anyone to limit free discussion in a classroom. Safe spaces in classrooms are a conservative fiction. That said, there are clearly limits imposed all the time in classrooms in terms of what constitutes “correct” adherence to, or performance of, an academic discipline; if there were not, then anything a student writes or says would be acceptable, and no grades would be given and no degrees earned. Overt expression of racist ideology such as eugenics in a psychology or biology classroom would presumably be frowned on as a matter of the scientific constraints of the discipline. Not all ideas deserve to be aired. Likewise, the concept of “microaggressions” is often misunderstood and deliberately deployed by the right. There is no doubt, for example, that generations of professors referring to their male students as “young men” and their female students as “girls” has reinforced gender inequality. The linguistic shift from girls to women may strike some older conservatives as jarring, but it is clearly an important and necessary evolution in according basic respect to adult females. So, if we may say that to refer to adult women students as “girls” in the context of higher education is a microaggression, that is perfectly legitimate when framed in that context. Likewise, to refuse to use gender-neutral pronouns when these are personally appropriate and desired by the recipient is likewise a microaggression. Indeed, it is good old-fashioned politeness to accede to someone’s wishes in how he, she, or they wish to be addressed, and it is aggressive to refuse to do so. Such a socially aggressive refusal to modify one’s language, particularly in the context of addressing members of historically subordinated or excluded groups, could be said to be politically aggressive to boot. But none of this is visible to the critics of political correctness, whose neoliberal orientation makes only acts by individual perpetrators intelligible and renders systemic or collective political bias invisible. The space apart from the real merits of claims of microaggression are often the real goals of student protest. These goals differ substantially from those that are alleged by the critics of political correctness. While these critics often focus on demands for “safe spaces” or challenges to “microaggressions,” in fact the most common demands made by student activists are instead for faculty and curricular diversity, student mental health support, financial aid, lower tuition, etc. So, there is a fundamental mischaracterization of much of the discourse of the student left. But the depiction of anti-free speech, snowflake crybullies has been very effective in mobilizing conservative political action and donations to campaign funds; and it also sells newspapers (or is journalistic clickbait, today’s version of selling newspapers). There are, however, those students or community activists who do call for safe spaces and who do condemn microaggressions; the need for action on these can, in fact, be very real. There are also, to be sure, some instances in which students or activists have

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probably overstated their case about the need for a safe space or for a shift in language to address a microaggression, but we need to remember that very often these are young people (many college freshman enter as young as 17!) flexing their political muscles often for the very first time as young adults. Even conventional free speech liberals need to remember that they do not own a patent on progressive politics (or on the First Amendment) and that young progressives engaging in activism and producing emerging and evolving positions on the relation of speech to protest are doing exactly what they should be doing. Indeed, older progressives could learn something from these new voices: At times protests and forms of expression are treated as if they are incursions on free speech when in fact they are manifestations of free speech. Some entreaties for or against the use of particular language (even if the terms sound neologistic, overly politically correct, or otherwise distasteful to some ears) should be recognized as adaptations to students whose ethnic and racial backgrounds, upbringing, and priorities may bear scant resemblance to the populations that dominated the university campus during the second half of the 20th century. While liberal values and principles remain fundamental, the implications of these precepts necessarily evolve from generation to generation, reflecting social changes and new norms. No cohort has the power to freeze the interpretation of values such as liberalism, academic freedom, or even free expression, and new ways of thinking deserve to be understood and considered, rather than dismissed. (PEN America, 2016)

Young activists are mounting an effective critique of neoliberalism and neoliberal institutions in ways that are essential to confronting the growing threat of authoritarianism, and they are articulating a theory of, and approach to, systemic oppression along multiple vectors (race, gender, sexual identity, immigration status, language, religion, etc.) that is more nuanced than free speech absolutist liberalism is capable of.

Conclusion The political divide in the United States seems likely to grow in the short term. The debate over political correctness has been a fulcrum in this divide, relentlessly exploited by conservative media to stir up their political base and donors. Wherever there is political capital or money generated, the practice producing it is unlikely to abate. On the left there has been a much smaller but similar movement, with the emergence of Antifa and similar groups capitalizing on the right-wing mobilization against anti-racism and other protests. But one must avoid false equivalence: the Nazi protesters at Charlottesville were not the moral equivalent of the anti-racist counter protesters. What seems to be most irksome and motivating for critics of political correctness is the “correctness” part: the idea that

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they are being condescended about the enlightened, correct political position they should be taking and are missing due to redneck culture. As I have noted, when used in self-description by the progressive left, the term has an entirely different meaning—just as some other explosive political terms (think the n-word or the b-word) have an entirely different political meaning when used by members of groups identified by those words. (Of course, many of the more extreme critics of political correctness claim that anyone should be able to use those words if members of the target groups choose to use them in self-identification. This seems demonstrably wrong to me.) I previously identified what I see as the three central deficiencies in the conservative critique of political correctness. What the critique misses, framed as it often is in the media as a rift over free expression, is that the progressive left is invoking the modern framework of anti-foundationalist criticism, with its emphasis on the role of language, to critique the underlying structure and system of oppression, not only its superficial linguistic manifestations. Politically correct claims about the importance of language are therefore not aimed at policing speech. They are aimed at demanding long overdue respect for marginalized communities (including a right to be addressed in terms they have determined and find acceptable rather than those chosen by their oppressors), at exposing structural and systemic inequality in all of our institutions, including universities, and at demanding justice for simmering historical injustices that have long been hidden—in part—by the refusal of broader society to recognize and call them out by their proper names.

Notes 1 Contemporary phrases such as “check your privilege” or “social justice warrior” invoke the idea of political correctness. The term “woke” is still positive but may eventually acquire some of the same negative connotations as political correctness if it begins to be mocked by critics. 2 Beyond these examples, nearly any challenge to the status quo can be derided and dismissed as “politically correct,” even trivial examples such as complimenting a woman’s appearance or holding a door open for a woman, saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” etc. 3 Indeed, one might argue that anti-political correctness is the controlling logic of most Trump administration policy in a number of areas. He and his base seem more focused on undoing what they view as politically correct Obama-era policies than on advancing positive policy prescriptions of their own.

References AAUP. (2016, November–December) Race on campus. Academe, 102(6). Available from https://www.aaup.org/issue/november-december-2016

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AAUP. (2018, April). Campus free speech legislation: History, progress, and problems. Available from https://www.aaup.org/report/campus-free-speech-legislation-history-progressand-problems Berman, P. (Ed.). (1991). Debating P.C.: The controversy over political correctness on college campuses. London, UK: Delta. Camera, C. (2017, July 31). Campus free speech laws ignite the country. US News and World Report. Available from https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2017-07-31/ campus-free-speech-laws-ignite-the-country Chemerinsky, E. (2017, December 26). Hate speech is protected free speech even on college campuses. Vox. Available from https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/10/25/16524832/ campus-free-speech-first-amendment-protest Chow, K. (2016, December 14). “Politically correct”: The phrase has gone from wisdom to weapon. NPR. Available from https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/12/14/505324427/ politically-correct-the-phrase-has-gone-from-wisdom-to-weapon Cobb, J. (2015, November 10). Race and the free speech diversion. New Yorker. Available from https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/race-and-the-free-speech-diversion Felling, M. (2017, August 17). Listen for dog whistles: Be aware of these extremist code words. US News and World Report. Available from https://www.usnews.com/opinion/ thomas-jefferson-street/articles/2017-08-17/be-aware-of-these-extreme-right-dogwhistles-after-charlottesville Goldstein, D., & Green, E. L. (2018, June 27). What the Supreme Court’s Janus decision means for teacher unions. New York Times. Available from https://www.nytimes. com/2018/06/27/us/teacher-unions-fallout-supreme-court-janus.html Halewood, P. (2016, November–December). Campus activism and competing racial narratives. Academe, 102(6). Available from https://www.aaup.org/article/campus-activism-andcompeting- racial-narratives#.W0D8ZdVKipo Halewood, P., & Young, D. (2017). Rule of law, activism, and equality: Growing anti-subordination norms within the neoliberal university. John Marshall Law Review, 50(2), 249–268. Hess, A. (2016, July 24). How political correctness went from punch-line to panic. New York Times. Available from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/magazine/how-politicalcorrectness-went-from-punch-line-to-panic.html Kilgore, G. (2018, July 17). “Political incorrectness” is just “political correctness” for conservatives. New York Magazine. Available from http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/ 2018/07/anti-pc-is-political-correctness-for-the-right.html Marantz, A. (2018), July 2). Fighting words: When far-fight provocateurs descend on campus, how should a university respond? New Yorker, pp. 35–43. Nowrasteh, A. (2016, December 7). The right has its own version of political correctness. It’s just as stifling. Washington Post. Available from https://www.washingtonpost.com/ posteverything/wp/2016/12/07/the-right-has-its-own-version-of-political-correctnessits-just-as-stifling/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.dda07beca772 Payne, D. (2016, August 8). How the left is weaponizing the American legal system. Federalist. Available from http://thefederalist.com/2016/08/08/how-the-left-is-weaponizingthe-american-legal-system/ PEN America. (2016). PEN America principles on campus free speech. Available from https:// pen.org/sites/default/files/PEN%20America%20Principles%20on%20Campus%20 Free%20Speech.pdf

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Peters, J. (2018, June 14). In the name of free speech, states crack down on campus protests. New York Times. Available from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/us/politics/ campus-speech-protests.html Post, R. (2017, October 25). There is no First Amendment right to speak on a college campus. Vox. Available from https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/10/25/16526442/firstamendment-college-campuses-milo-spencer-protests Sonmez, F. (2018, July 5). Trump mocks #MeToo movement in Montana rally. Washington Post. Available from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-mocks-metoomovement-in-montanaStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2017, August 17). Feminist philosophy of language. Available from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-language/ van Norden, B. (2017, June 25). The ignorant do not have a right to an audience. New York Times. Available from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/opinion/free-speech-just-access. html Waldron, J. (2018, June 28). Brave spaces. New York Review of Books. Available from https:// www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/06/28/brave-spaces-campus-free-speech/ Weigel, M. (2016, November 30). Political correctness: How the right invented a phantom enemy. The Guardian. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/ nov/30/political-correctness-how-the-right-invented-phantom-enemy-donald-trump

Chapter 7

Thinking Beyond Political Correctness Joshua Axelrod

Racial dialogue in today’s America operates much like two muzzled dogs trying to communicate over a territorial dispute. The animals bark at each other, agitated and impassioned, drool firing from the corners of their mouths, each animal in its most ferocious and bestial form. Neither backs down, each growing more and more tired as the cold metal wiring of their muzzles painfully digs into their ferocious snouts. The dogs yelp tirelessly, attempting to assert their supremacy in a roaring match. Political correctness (PC) has created such a scenario; yet in this canine metaphor, PC culture is not the muzzle that binds the animals, but rather the territorial dispute the dogs are arguing over. The arbitrary and divisive issue has instigated a violent argument and created a scene that does not need to play out the way it does. The display is borne out of a conflict that arises within nature and will often incur intense disagreement, but not such pointless and ineffective demonstrations of dominance and anger. Americans are at a vicious and non-productive impasse, specifically when it comes to the topic of race. Obviously, the issue is contentious and complicated; it will naturally involve difference of opinion and argument. Yet, there is an obstacle standing in the way of a more worthwhile conversation. The construct of political correctness must be dissolved for Americans to properly engage in racial dialogue and move forward as a single country, united in its dedication to respect and prosperity for all. For two reasons, PC has limited and distorted a constructive conversation about race. The first is its problematic set-up, which minimizes the power of language and misplaces the emphasis onto individuals. The second is the hypocrisy of individuals on all sides of the issue, who have

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warped the core idea that was originally invested in political correctness: treating others with compassion and respecting all Americans. By destroying the construct of political correctness, we can reshape our racial dialogue to focus on the words being spoken and why they hurt. The legacy of racism and the oppressive power of language must be discussed, and Americans must open up a space for all to speak and share, especially the voices of color that are often obscured in the context of this discussion. Only when we recognize the power and hurtful capacity of language, outside of the limiting construct of political correctness, can we move forward toward progress and justice.

The Oppressive Power of Language Casting away political correctness does not mean ignoring the problem it was meant to address. Although labeling speech as PC and not PC is an ineffective strategy for dialogue, our words should still be weighed carefully. Haig Bosmajian writes in The Language of Oppression (1983): The power which comes from names and naming is related directly to the power to define others—individuals, races, sexes, ethnic groups. Our identities, who and what we are, how others see us, are greatly affected by the names we are called and the words with which we are labelled. . . . Through definition we restrict, we set boundaries, we name. (p. 5)

Language is an oppressive man-made tool, used by those in power to hurt others and maintain limiting definitions of the other. Through racial slurs, off-the-cuff comments, microaggressions, and offensive jokes, we reinforce stereotypes and damage psyches, thus maintaining an unfair power system. By continuing to use historic stereotypes that emphasize inferiority and otherness, we endanger people of color from succeeding in our White-dominated society. When a Black professor gives a speech and is told by a White student that he is “articulate,” the student has committed a microaggression; if a White professor gave that same speech, it is unlikely that somebody would tell him that he is articulate because his eloquence was expected. The comment reinforces the notion that Black men are usually not able to speak intellectually. Seemingly innocent comments like these are connected to a vast history of White people patronizing Black people—all the way back to a period in which Whites prohibited education and literacy from their slaves, deeming them intellectually inferior. When someone misrepresents factual evidence and says that Mexicans are stealing jobs and committing crimes, it reinforces the idea that all Mexican immigrants are dangerous and unworthy. Despite working tirelessly at a job to support his family, a Mexican immigrant might be made to feel worthless and unable to ever succeed and transcend his status as “dangerous” because of a history of Whites scapegoating their fears onto a population of others—all

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the way back to the early settlement and colonization of our continent. Comments like these are dangerous because they are connected to a history of racialized oppression and violence. This language certainly has no place in a society built on the values of liberty, freedom, and equality. Bosmajian (1983) outlines his call to action, writing: Once one has identified the language of oppression and determined that it is instrumental in subjugating individuals and groups, that the power of the word has been and is used to justify the inhumanities and atrocities of the past and present, then it becomes necessary to consider appropriate remedies. We can no longer afford simply to stand by and say, “Oh they’re only words.” (p. 133)

Our societal puzzle is now identifying how to handle oppressive language, instead of minimizing the problem or debating its importance. As Americans, we must find a balance between allowing freedom of speech and celebrating the discourse it lends us, while still analyzing and restraining some speech. These two ideas seem paradoxical, but Geoffrey Hughes explains how they are two sides of the same fundamentally American coin in Political Correctness (2010): In its various manifestations, political correctness undoubtedly inculcates a sense of obligation in areas which should be matters of choice. But choice is the vital element of a free society. And that choice includes balancing a sense of humanity and fairness with the right to challenge what is termed “unacceptable” or “inappropriate.” (pp. 296–297)

Finding a way to engage in proper racial discourse, with language that is inclusive to all, is impossible without first recognizing the oppressive power that language holds. Opening this conversation and creating an inclusive climate should be a national goal that runs parallel to the ideals of the United States as a representative democracy.

Political Correctness: A Problematic Set-Up The term “political correctness” first appeared in 1793 in a U.S. Supreme Court Case, Chisolm v. Georgia, but did not emerge again popularly until the 1960s (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2014). It was largely an inside joke among leftist and activist circles, used to mock other leftists for their radicalism, much in the way it is used today. The term was picked up by conservatives in the 1980s and rebranded as an attack against academic institutions for their new multicultural teachings and “politics of victimhood.” A series of bestsellers from Allan Bloom, Roger Kimball, and Dinesh D’Souza popularized the

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new conservative movement, attacking liberal agendas in academia and changes to the literary canon. Richard Bernstein (1990) is credited with popularizing the term with an article in the New York Times, entitled “The Rising Hegemony of the Politically Correct,” that synthesizes these anxieties in an op-ed. Following Bernstein’s article, the term moved from the academic to the public arena (Weigel, 2016). Political correctness became more and more widespread until the phrase expanded to mean the avoidance or monitoring of any language to prevent offense or marginalization of discriminated groups. This essay will focus on the comprehensive, 21st-century notion of the phrase, as it is applied to all language in the public sphere. As it is often used now, this definition imagines a group of Americans who speak their mind without censorship and another group who want to limit their speech to protect the feelings of other, often marginalized groups. A common example of this application imagines a politician or influential speaker giving a speech in front of a large group of people representing all different races, religions, gender identities, and sexual orientations. A politically correct politician would consider his words carefully, as he wants to secure the support of the group without offending or turning off any of his voters. Now imagine a politically incorrect politician (who might speak freely without giving heavy weight to his or her words and end up saying something that offends a contingent of people in attendance) receiving massive backlash and having to apologize. He or she might even face larger consequences such as losing a sponsorship, suffering political defeat, or dropping out of the race. This scenario plays out in various ways constantly with politicians, entertainers, journalists, and professors who receive massive criticism and are often fired; it’s a self-defeating system. The phrase assumes that there is a correct way for politicians or other influential individuals to speak, and to violate this correctness will result in major consequences. Under this schema, individuals are punished or attacked for their speech, but no attention is directed at the offensive speech itself. All the emphasis is on the person and not the words, which diminishes the oppressive power of language. Hughes (2010) explains: “In other aspects, political correctness has increasingly become less absolute and more contextual, that is to say the emphasis is increasingly less on what is said, but more on who said it and when” (p. 286). Productive racial dialogue necessitates an examination of content, meaning, and impact, whereas the construct of political correctness distorts with its superficiality. It has become a Band-Aid fix to language that encourages individuals to avoid certain words or phrases for their own self-interest while lazily sanctioning or ostracizing members of society who have committed violations. Hughes (2010) quotes Barbara Ehrenreich, who emphasizes the shallowness of the PC construct: If you outlaw the term “girl” instead of “woman,” you’re not going to do a thing about the sexist attitudes underneath . . . there is a tendency to confuse verbal purification with real social change. Now I’m all for verbal uplift . . . [but] verbal uplift is not the revolution. (p. 291)

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Careful consideration of the words we speak, or “verbal uplift,” as Ehrenreich calls it, is of the utmost importance but cannot come before real social change. The revolution (which, in theory, should not be much of a revolution because it simply asks Americans to treat others with respect and equality), must emanate from an ongoing social conversation and a systemic examination of language and its impact, which is paradoxically being limited by the divisive construct of political correctness. As long as people continue to manipulate language for their own self-benefit or preservation, the longer this conversation will be delayed.

Refocusing on a Shared Goal In theory, don’t all Americans share a similar goal? Perhaps, in the bitterness and toxicity of our racial dialogue on both sides, the founding values of our country demand reexamination. Every American, according to the Declaration of Independence, deserves the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. By extension of this fundamental doctrine, don’t all Americans deserve the right to feel respected and safe, regardless of their race? Here, the difference should be drawn between controversial speech and offensive speech, a conversational patch of quicksand that academics often fall into in this discussion. Having the right to be respected and feel safe does not mean protection from ideas that might feel uncomfortable or challenge core beliefs; this is where much of the conservative movement attacking academia comes from, as feeling intellectually uncomfortable is arguably the cornerstone of a healthy education. Controversial and intellectually challenging speech aside, why should any American have to hear words or phrases that disparage their racial identity? Every individual deserves to feel safe from the danger of hatred and violence—not controversy, but danger. This includes a spectrum that ranges from racial epithets to jokes that reinforce harmful stereotypes and everything in between, as determined by the affected racial groups. This sentiment—that individuals deserve to be shielded from hateful and offensive speech (often viewed as controversial)—is directly due to the toxic construct of political correctness. There is not much that is controversial about it; it is something almost every American, in theory, should agree with. Bosmajian (1983) identifies the exception: There are, however, some people who derive a psychological life from using language which degrades others. Little is achieved with this group by pointing out their use of verbal insults and inhumane language or the tragic effects of such speech. Their status in life is too interwoven and dependent on designating others as inferior; their failures in life and their anxieties demand scapegoats. (p. 142)

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This group exists, and always will, but is not as prevalent as many might think. The truth is, the PC construct creates a binary that undeservedly shoves many middleof-the-line, fair-minded Americans into this group or an opposite group. This binary designates correct and incorrect, racist and anti-racist, conservative and liberal, or free speech and censored speech. The divide is unproductive, distracting, divisive, and, most importantly, inaccurate. Many Americans, generally speaking, care about their fellow Americans and were raised to treat others with kindness and respect. In The Politics and Philosophy of Political Correctness, Jung Min Choi and John W. Murphy (1993) explain the reality, writing: “Actually, what has transpired is that representatives from both the Right and the Left have mostly exchanged barbs” (p. 2). The PC binary forces Americans to pick a side and join a team, both of which distort the conversation with hypocrisy and superiority. Instead, shouldn’t we all play on the same team? The PC construct requires dissolution because it distracts from our shared national goal: creating an equal and safe America where everybody can succeed without fear of violence, hatred, or injustice.

Faults of the Anti-PC Movement Members of the anti-PC movement, mostly comprised of White conservatives, often use false information and attempt to shut down conversations, ironically limiting the effectiveness of free speech. The term “victimization” is often used by critics of political correctness, as Peter Duignan and L.H. Gann do in Political Correctness: A Critique (1995): During the 1980s the cult of victimization grew at an astounding rate. Women and ethnic groups increasingly came to identify themselves as victims. Victimization has been claimed by persons who share a particular ethnicity, race, social class, gender, or historical experience of oppression! (p. 13)

Part of what is threatening to opponents of the pro-PC movement is the notion that if the minority group that they do not belong to are victims, then they must be perpetrators. Significant energy is then wasted on discounting a narrative of oppression. That narrative, which is factually proven, is not in dispute here. Anti-PC’ers will also often argue that if we begin to limit some speech, then it becomes a slippery slope where anybody can define speech as hateful or offensive. Duignan and Gann (1995) write: The PC believe that free speech ought to be restricted, that racists, sexists, homophobes, and their like should be censored on campus and made to take sensitivity training. And who defines who these miscreants are? It is the PC-minded who claim this particular privilege. (p. 7)

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This is faulty logic and usually results in hypocritical counteraction. Anti-PC’ers frequently will shut down pro-PC’ers who attempt to explain why language is offensive or why they are protesting. Yet, free speech goes beyond the right to say anything you want at any moment. The concept is built on the logic of the marketplace of ideas where free and public discourse is allowed for the market to embrace or discard ideas that society decides are either sound or illogical. When anti-PC’ers silence protesters or refuse to engage in dialogue, they too are limiting free speech. In answer to Duignan and Gann’s question of who defines who the miscreants are, we do, as a collective society. The reason free speech works in a liberal democracy is because of the marketplace of ideas; however, if anti-PC’ers continue to push forth a false narrative against oppression or shut down others from sharing their ideas, the marketplace cannot work as intended, and free speech achieves nothing. The greatest criticism directed at anti-PC’ers, though, is their use of offensive and racist speech. Political correctness is often invoked by anti-PC’ers as a sweeping justification to say anything, regardless of racist or hurtful undertones. Take President Donald Trump, for example. He railed against political correctness constantly on the campaign trail, stating that he speaks his mind freely and that people are oversensitive. And yet, without indicting the president or his policies, Trump has made a number of racist comments. He kicked off his campaign by saying of Mexicans: “They are not our friend, believe me. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. And some, I assume, are good people.” To generalize that many Mexicans are rapists and criminals is, at the least, extremely racially insensitive. Trump has also said that a Mexican-American judge cannot do his job fairly because he is a Mexican, insulted a Muslim family by invoking Islamic stereotypes, and patronized Native Americans, among countless other hurtful statements (Leonhardt & Philbrick, 2018). Trump was able to wave off criticisms with the excuse, “I don’t frankly have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either” (Weigel, 2016). Not all anti-PC’ers behave this way, as the PC binary places conservatives, racists, and free speech proponents in the same poorly constructed category. However, the individuals who do continue to speak this way, calling on hurtful stereotypes and racially charged language, whether liberal or conservative, are more than just part of the problem. They call on the racial insensitivity, offense, and underlying hatred that the unsuccessful PC construct was created to prevent.

Faults of the Pro-PC Movement The hypocrisy and blame lie on both sides, as the pro-PC movement, mostly comprised of White liberals, superficially attempt to harpoon uneducated victims from their advantageous spot on the “moral high ground.” There are obviously many pro-PC people of color, though their ability and understanding of race should always outweigh and

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outrank White opinions, because to attempt to criticize the way in which people of color engage with and converse about race is to drastically misunderstand why racial dialogue is needed in the first place. Focusing on the White pro-PC’ers (though not nearly as much to blame as the contingent of anti-PC’ers who use racist or offensive speech), many deserve an immense amount of responsibility for the hindrances in racial dialogue. Many pro-PC’ers do not come from a place of justice or equity but instead from a shallow and elitist perch of supposed sophistication and stylishness. The phrase “stay woke,” which originates from African-American writing and is frequently used by pro-PC’ers to justify calling out others for their language, means to be aware of social issues and racial justice. Instead of using this phrase as an instructive motto, many exploit it as an aesthetic. Pro-PC’ers will criticize others while patting themselves on the back, despite not having any sort of actual awareness or care for the issues for which they are speaking. Still others, who may be aware and educated on racial issues, approach the topic with a superiority complex. They will criticize offensive speech without an appreciation that many come from knowledge of different educational backgrounds. The goal is not to educate and bring in people to their viewpoint, as the marketplace of ideas would encourage those participating in racial dialogue to do; instead, these individuals want to show off their knowledge and shame others, a viciously obstructive mode of communication between people with different views. There is no room for superiority in the conversation. What will often occur is pro-PC’ers engaging in a racism witch hunt, trying to identify language that they can label as offensive while thinking they are fighting the good fight and racking up as many bodies as possible. This tack is often employed by White people assuaging their White guilt. What they are actually doing is weakening their cause and taking away power from the label of racism. At the same time, they are turning off skeptics who might be convinced about the power of language but are now irked by hollow self-righteousness and have stopped listening. Conversations go two ways, and both sides need to put in the work to create genuine dialogue. As Choi and Murphy (1993) say, “In fact, the aim of PC is to open discussion, not to establish inflexible rules for discourse. Rather than prevent the full participation of citizens in institutions, the purpose of PC is to foster a critical examination of every facet of social life” (p. 4). Currently, this contingent of pro-PC’ers, who insist on criticizing others without any introspection or awareness, are not just missing the mark; they are shooting themselves in the feet and hurting the very groups they purport to be helping in the process. .

A New Racial Dialogue The first step toward reshaping our nation’s broken racial dialogue is dissolving the construct of political correctness. From there, several strategies emerge. Many advocate

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for a “more-speech” approach. Instead of having the government attempt to regulate speech, which is an ineffective and undemocratic method, the more-speech philosophy encourages individuals to counter hate speech with more speech. This is certainly an intuitive and appropriate way to navigate the marketplace of ideas, but it must come from a place of humility and compassion. This being said, the more-speech argument, according to Laura Beth Nielson, as cited in Ishani Maitra’s “Speech and Harm: Controversies over Free Speech” (2013), is not an infallible application of the marketplace of ideas. Nielson writes: “The ’more speech’ response is certainly not without its critics. . . . Relatedly, insofar as the burden of challenging, say, racist hate speech will fall disproportionately on persons of color who are already disadvantaged socially, the ’more speech’ response seems unfair” (p. 9). Any dialogue revolving around race should value and elevate voices of color over White voices without tokenizing or forcing labor on them. These individuals, by definition, will always have the most insight into race and racism, and their voices deserve more weight than they currently receive in the marketplace. However, to refer to people of color for their opinions or explanations without their willingness to share is unfair and exploitative. Insight from people of color can be drawn from books, articles, videos, speakers, and other sources; there are countless resources available from individuals who have volunteered their lived experiences for the educational benefit of others. Those who want to learn more about race or educate others should seek them out and take on this work instead of relying on others (especially people of color) to teach them. Education will always remain as the cornerstone of a healthy racial dialogue. Individuals who care about language and its impact must share educational resources in a nonpatronizing way. Theoretically, without the label of political correctness that deems individuals racist or anti-racist, two people could have a conversation about why something might be offensive and both walk away having expanded their worldview, sharing both personal insights and external educational resources. These resources should be accessible and explain or display diverse perspectives and opinions. By removing condescension and superiority, thousands of Americans who are merely separated from engaging in healthy speech because of an educational and vocabulary gap can enter into conversation in an appropriate way. This concept, of sharing knowledge and critically examining our behaviors and speech in relation to each other, was the original goal of the pro-PC movement. By removing the toxic elements of racial dialogue and infusing our discourse with more education, perhaps we can achieve this goal. The dissolution of the PC construct is an excellent first step toward healing our country’s divides, but it is far from the only step. Jacob Mey explains why speech is only one component of systemic racism in Whose Language? A Study in Linguistic Pragmatics (1985). He writes: “Neither use of language nor the language sciences, on their own, will end social injustice. Attributing a revolutionary potential to scientific research as such is to indulge in futuristic fetishism” (p. 354). We must recognize that healthier racial discourse is vital but cannot come without justice and liberation for those who are affected

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by oppressive language. Linda Greene (1993) acknowledges an appropriate context for this process once political correctness has been deconstructed: What we need to do is not to focus on calling each other racist or sexist, but instead to try to understand how historical racism has affected our lives and consciousness and not make charges but try to understand how we all—white, black, men and women—have been affected by our past. (New York Times, 1993)

With these goals in mind and an appreciation for the history of speech and its relationship to systemic inequity, Americans can begin to move forward and not backward. Perhaps, once this process begins, the fighting dogs imagined from a PC metaphor can begin to acknowledge that their disputed territories might incur disagreement, but their shared species should inspirit harmony and understanding. Our speech requires a recognition of our common humanity and nationality and the desire to transform our discourse from a vicious and ineffectual place to a healthy and productive one. As they say, it is never too late to teach an old dog new tricks.

References Bernstein, R. (1990, October 28). The rising hegemony of the politically correct. New York Times. Available from https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/28/weekinreview/ ideas-trends-the-rising-hegemony-of-the-politically-correct.html Bosmajian, H. A. (1983). The language of oppression. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Choi, J. M., & Murphy, J. W. (1993). The politics and philosophy of political correctness. New York, NY: Praeger. Duignan, P., & Gann, L. H. (1995). Political correctness: A critique. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University. Encyclopædia Britannica. (2014, August 4). Chisholm v. Georgia. Available from https://www. britannica.com/event/Chisholm v. Georgia Green, L. (1993, December 10). The next-to-last word on political correctness. New York Times. Available from http://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/11/opinion/the-next-to-last-wordon-political-correctness.html?pagewanted=all Hughes, G. (2010). Political correctness: A history of semantics and culture. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Leonhardt, D., & Philbrick, I. P. (2018, January 15). Donald Trump’s racism: The definitive list. Available from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/15/opinion/ leonhardt-trump-racist.html Maitra, I. (2013). Speech and harm: Controversies over free speech. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Mey, J. L. (1985). Whose language?: A study in linguistic pragmatics. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Benjamins. Weigel, M. (2016, November 30). Political correctness: How the right invented a phantom enemy. The Guardian. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/ nov/30/political-correctness-how-the-right-invented-phantom-enemy-donald-trump

Part two:



identity, political formation, and promise

Chapter 8

The Shift From Internationalism to Identity Politics: From Our Oppressions to My Oppression Michael Soldatenko and Eric Margolis

Prelude We are from the so-called baby-boom generation. Our parents’ generation faced specific challenges, including the global scarcity of the capitalist crisis in the 1920s and 1930s (Great Depression in the United States). Major cataclysms shaped their political and material lives: The Russian Revolution of 1917 shook the ruling classes to the marrow; a year later Germany was bankrupted by the Treaty of Versailles that ended the Great War with more than 30 million dead; the rise of Nazism began in 1919 with the birth of the right-wing German Workers Party, as well as a multitude of right-wing populist movements across Europe and the Americas. And then came the conflagration of World War II. Thus, our parents’ generation saw three political adversaries: fascism, communism, and liberalism.1 Politics was bracketed by three documents: the Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, and, in the United States, liberalism and social action. Our post-World War II situation was quite different. Materially, we were born into a rising economy. The war had ended the capitalist crises of the 1920s and 1930s. The U.S. economy was not damaged by war, and the shift from military production to a

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consumer-based economy occurred rapidly. The GI Bill allowed more Americans than ever to attend college or university. Student politics and social movements in the second half of the 20th century were bracketed by two manifestos: The 1960 Sharon Statement that created the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) and the Port Huron Statement that created Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). As we begin the 21st century, what appeared as the victory of liberalism over unfettered capitalism, fascism, and communism increasingly seems to have been an aberration. Rather, we find ourselves seeing the return of 19th-century capitalism. Conservative visions of capital and democracy have asserted themselves against New Deal liberalism and socialism. The collapse of Marxism-Leninism in Russia, Eastern Europe, China, and other expressions in Asia and Africa confirmed to liberals and conservatives that Marxism as a political tool had come to an end. The collapse and, with it, the apparent erasure of a socialist option facilitated the return of unfettered capitalism, fascism, and simultaneously enabled the return of liberalism to its libertarian roots. It underscored the failure, limitations, and/or inability of democracy to permanently manage capital. The victors, neoliberalism and conservatism, advance a new cultural politics now clothed as identity politics.

Introduction As a nation, we have fallen from the precipice. The authors recognize that the politics reflected in the Port Huron Statement, together with the various protest movements of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, were not consistent with the trajectory of U.S. capital and democracy. The hope to move liberalism more closely to socialism failed. Instead, we acknowledge the long connection from early 20th-century right-wing populism, the conservative reaction to the New Deal, the consistent endeavor to limit democratic practices, the exposé of both the Republican and Democratic parties as parties of the capitalist elite, the Sharon Statement, and the re-occurrence of nationalism, White supremacy, and identity politics have succeeded. Our fear is that oppositional politics to these and other challenges have been tainted by this conservative and neoliberal success and that the failure of Marxism-Leninism has removed socialism as part of this opposition. We are wary of politics that appear to reduce politics to “my oppression” over “our oppression.” Our endeavor here is not to examine the success of conservative thought and politics (Scruton, 2015) or the return of libertarian liberalism. Many are engaged in that project. Our concern is to begin a discussion of current campus politics. As capital ravages U.S. higher education, the only response we see occurring comes from students and faculty organizing around identity politics. In an earlier essay, we noted how capital has subverted the openings created in the post-war era, beginning with the GI Bill and the introduction of higher education, initially to working-class White males and then people

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of color and women (Margolis & Soldatenko, 2015). But like much of 20th-century liberalism, this too was an irregularity that is already almost dismantled. The rapid decline in state funding for higher education; the increase in tuition and fees; the limit of state and federal financial aid; the rise of student debt, together with the turn to external money; the rise of adjuncts and replacement of tenure lines by contract faculty, campus governance, and role of administration—all these factors demonstrate that higher education marches to market forces. This same mechanism has disrupted the post-war aberration that sought to allow a diversity of folks to explore ideas disconnected from market needs. Today, higher education increasingly becomes a place to get a career, not a place to think or explore; it is a place to kowtow to the not-so-hidden curriculum (Margolis, 2001). In this situation, what has been the response for those in and outside the academy? Many focus on identity politics, as we can see in various articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education or Inside Higher Education. In this essay, we wish to express our unease with identity politics as the primary response to the dismantling of the liberal experiment in higher education. We acknowledge the limitations of this experiment, just as we recognize the limits of social liberalism as expressed in the New Deal. However, the spirit of Port Huron that hoped that these initial reforms would lead to greater transformations has been replaced by the success of conservative politics that brings these experiments to a close. Let us be clear. Our assessment of the current use of identity politics is not based on liberal or conservative views that imagine a time when the United States had proper values, culture, and personal behavior that disregarded White supremacy and the logic of capital. We reject these criticisms of identity politics because they demonstrate a willful amnesia regarding U.S. class, gender, and race relations since 1607 and erase the U.S. history of White identity politics as well as ignore the success of the conservative reaction to civil rights movements. We argue that to understand the potential limitations of a progressive use of identity politics it is important to recognize how activists of color in the past challenged White supremacy by reclaiming identity politics from White nationalism through a complex blending of internationalism and nationalism (Miah, 2010). This critical re-working of identity politics must be understood in light of the potential transformative practices that began with the civil rights movements in the post-war period and the developing protest against the draft, together with the intellectual tools that Western Marxism gave us.2 Unfortunately, much current use of identity politics erases its socialist underpinnings and fosters a liberal anti-racism (Johnson, 2017). “Ethnic nationalism, in today’s context, by default helps advance the conservative viewpoint in the Black community” (Miah, 2010).

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Liberal Critique of Identity Politics Mark Lilla (2017a) has taken the banner of liberalism to challenge identity politics. In various places, he argues that diversity, multiculturalism, and the celebration of differences are the causes of many of today’s problems in the academy. Identity politics resulted from a narcissist culture that centers everything in one’s self-defined group. He further inverts the virulent return of White nationalism to people of color’s use of identity politics with its “culture of complaint” (Lilla, 2017a). Beginning in the Reagan era, he stresses, the New Left fostered identity politics. “[B]y the 1980s it [identity politics] had given way to a pseudo-politics of self-regard and increasingly narrow and exclusionary self-definition that is now cultivated in our colleges and universities” (Lilla, 2017a). Rather, he calls for a “post-identity liberalism” that would appeal to “Americans as Americans” (Lilla, 2016) to care for the country and its citizens with an imagined common future. We would like to take a few moments to highlight Lilla’s (2017b) argument as presented in his recent manifesto The Once and Future Liberal. Let us begin with some points that we share with Lilla: the rightward drift of U.S. public opinion thanks in part to the influence of the right-wing media complex; the crisis of U.S. liberalism; the demise of the New Deal vision of a “collective enterprise to guard one another against risk, hardship, and the denial of fundamental rights”; and the rise of the conservative agenda that highlights “a more individualistic America where families and small communities and business” have come to believe that they will “flourish once freed from the shackles of the state” (Lilla, 2017b, p. 8). We further recognize with Lilla that identity politics is not new to the United States or the U.S. conservative movement and share his concern that some progressives took conservative identity politics to replace a liberalism that was concerned with large classes of people. Lilla noted that the election of Reagan marked a point when the public seemed to no longer care about the public good.3 “A new outlook on life had been gaining ground in the United States, one in which the needs and desires of individuals were given near-absolute priority over those of society” (Lilla, 2017b, p. 26). He argued that in the 1970s U.S. liberalism made a series of missteps that played into the hands of conservatives, thus allowing a belief system of personal choice, individual rights, and self-definition tied to a hyper-individualistic bourgeois society to come to dominate. We do not agree with this last point. Rather, we find that the political elites (Democratic and Republican) accept many of the same assumptions that consigned New Deal liberals to fend for themselves as both parties adopted the language of “smaller government,” “reform welfare,” “market-driven,” and a litany of beliefs that have been expressed by every administration since Nixon. At the same time, these elites now look at higher education as one of the entities needing reform—to be made smaller and docile—as well as to be subject to market forces.

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Our strongest difference with Lilla is his read of identity politics. While we agree with his conclusion that “Identity is not for the future of the left. It is not a force hostile to neoliberalism. Identity is Reaganism for lefties” (Lilla, 2017b, p. 95), we do not agree with how he arrived at this conclusion. Liberals, he argues, “lost themselves in the thickets of identity politics and developed a resentful, disuniting rhetoric” (Lilla, 2017b, p. 59). He blames a “political romanticism” born from the anti-war movement and the various activities that he ties to the New Left—a period when movement politics replaced institutional politics (Lilla, 2017b) and shifted away from our shared identity as citizens. “Identity liberalism banished the word we to outer reaches of respectable political discourse” (Lilla, 2017b, p. 119). Lilla is most outraged with the retreat of the New Left into the universities. The retreating New Left turned the universities into a pseudo-political theatre for tenured radicals, culture wars, and political correctness (Lilla, 2017b). These professors turned political activity into meaning for the self (Lilla, 2017b). For Lilla, professors undermined “the universal democratic we on which solidarity can be built, duty instilled, and action inspired” (Lilla, 2017b, p. 137). They cultivated students to obsess with their personal identities (Lilla, 2017b). Furthermore, trends from French thought underscored radical individualism (Lilla, 2017b). For us, this critique of identity politics misses the point. Not until we break down the consistent attack on social New Deal liberalism and all expressions of socialism can we understand how campus identity politics came to be. While we agree that current identity politics will not challenge neoliberalism and capital, we need to understand where identity politics came from and why it finds expression in higher education.

Capital, Race, and Inequality In light of the victory of Trump, much soul searching has unfolded over the development of politics in the United States, in particular how the U.S.’s original sin of racism still condemns the nation. Yet the relationship to capital often gets second billing to race and gender. Even when scholars look at intersectionality, the attempt to balance multiplicities of identities can suggest that class is a mere descriptive demographic category. Therefore, we wish to avoid “a de-classed, over-specialized form of intersectionality that displays no interest in building class unity or an ability to work with ordinary people” (Imperium Ad Infinitum, n.d.), but instead call attention to our differences in the context of class struggle: “anti-capitalist politics, rooted in situated class experiences” (Johnson, 2017, p. 2). To do so we must assert strongly the class nature of U.S. social and political structure and learn to navigate identity politics authentically (Jones, 2010). In tracing the history of the insult “limousine liberal,” Fraser (2017) narrated the strategy to hollow-out New Deal and great society liberalism and replace it with a faux blending of business elites and blue-collar populism with Christian overtones. “The coalition envisioned by Nixon and Reagan conjoined two fundamentalisms. One invoked

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the ideology of the free market, the other scripture. Yet both had to cohabit a political home that reserved its main councils of strategic planning for the country’s corporate elite” (Fraser, 2017, p. 198). The limousine liberal label was initially directed to the rich and well born who had “betrayed” their birthright by pushing social reform. Even though the term itself did not yet exist, the anxiety originated early in the 20th century and grew rapidly into a hostility toward the rise of a rationalizing bureaucracy to protect capital in the 1930s. Today, many more groups are covered by this slight: What has given the metaphor of the limousine liberal its stamina has been its ability to collect together a disparate array of discontents, anxieties, and sentiments aroused by the advent of modern corporate and finance capitalism, cosmopolitan living, consumer culture, and the growth of a supervisory state that helps keep the whole mechanism running. (Fraser, 2017, p. 45)

From the start, the attack on limousine liberals was linked to culture and race. From the Palmer raids with their Red Scare hysteria, to the Scopes Trial, together with the rise of the Klan to the writings of Henry Ford, limousine liberal represented White racialized persons and their “support” of finance capital was unjust, undemocratic, and inequitable, as well as iniquitous, depraved, dissolute, and godless (Fraser, 2017).4 With New Deal policies and the modern government bureaucracy, these critics linked liberals to Jews and Bolsheviks in their quest for world domination. By the 1930s, many saw the New Deal as selling out to big business. While others sought the end of capital, one particular group of populists, including Huey Long, Father Coughlin, Francis Townsend, and Gerald L.K. Smith, saw themselves not as “anti-capitalist, but rather as searching for ways to save the system of private enterprise from the profiteers who were looting it” (Fraser, 2017, p. 71).5 For these critics, the swindlers were a cabal of Jews, bankers, and Bolsheviks; later, adherents added corporate and government bureaucrats, intellectuals, and politicians. Often, their attack on communism was a condemnation of the centralized, bureaucratic, statist orientation of the New Deal (Fraser, 2017). During WWII and after, U.S. capital assumed its dominant role while tolerating the role of the welfare state and the national security state in the nation’s political economy (Fraser, 2017). The increased growth of government consociated the fears of the New Deal opponents, including southern Democrats, a maturing faction of new capitalists, and a growing faction in the Republican Party that feared the leviathan state with its regulatory apparatus and the growing welfare state (now with the addition of the GI Bill) (Fraser, 2017). Even with the discourse of the limousine liberal, conservatives still did not have the rhetoric and political base to challenge New Deal liberalism. At best, these opponents contested U.S. proponents of big government and social reform by linking them to agents of the Soviet Union and communism, as reflected in the language of Joseph McCarthy.6 So long as the Republican Party retained a wing that partook of the liberal establishment (e.g., Henry Cabot Lodge, George Romney, Nelson Rockefeller,

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and even President Eisenhower), the coalescing of all these independent forces that opposed big government and social reform could not occur. Goldwater and his supporters, such as the John Birch Society, would begin this cleansing by linking liberalism to race and culture, as the 1964 Republican convention demonstrated. Identity politics lifted its head again as White nationalism. Conservatives read the Civil Rights Movement, the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and the War on Poverty as the imposition of New Deal liberalism on the individual. Race and soon gender became the cultural battleground.7 By 1968, with the quagmire in Vietnam, anti-war demonstrations, urban riots, counterculture, and the descent into a half-century of economic crisis and stagnation (Brenner, 2006), conservatives transformed economic populism into cultural populism, and racial animosities exploded against liberalism (Fraser, 2017). One of the first to carry this banner nationally was George Wallace, an anti-elitist, populist, racist, chauvinist, and tribune of the politics of revenge and resentment (Fraser, 2017). In his presidential campaign, conservatives and segregationists would fashion a common political identity and logic (Fraser, 2017). Working-class and lower-middle-class White ethnics felt that their social contract with New Deal liberalism was ending. In turn, liberals implemented policies to address race but were unable or unwilling to address questions of class: White racism pure and simple was to blame for what was happening to black America. This was of course both self-evident and an evasion. It was a way of spreading the blame to avoid the blame that those occupying the commanding heights of the economy and political power might otherwise suffer. (Fraser, 2017, p. 151)

Frank (2016) added that the Democratic Party moved away from worker organizations, thus allowing the arrival of new-school democrats who were largely uninterested in traditional issues of economic inequality. “Neglecting workers was the opening that allowed Republicans to reach out to blue-collar voters with their arsenal of culture-war fantasies” (Frank, 2016, p. 47). Under Reagan, the various movements against New Deal and great society liberalism came together. While Nixon and other Republicans still functioned within the framework of postwar liberalism (Fraser, 2017), Goldwater began the transformation of the Republican Party. At the same time, “Agnew, Nixon, and others crafted an artful redressing of social grievances by cultural means” (Fraser, 2017, p. 168). With Reagan, a religious coloring was added; government was depicted as secular and humanist, and sometimes as a demonic ravenous beast.8 The centralized, bureaucratic, statist orientation of government was portrayed as dictating intimate matters—the raising of children, relations of men and women, racial hierarchy, and God (Fraser, 2017). Christian populism and Christian capitalism came together as Evangelicals came to see the free market, supply-side economics, and property ownership as expressions of faith. Liberals and

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their support of the New Deal administrative, regulatory, welfare state were portrayed as elitist, decadent, and anti-Christian. Liberalism’s association with the social gospel only underscored that this was also a religious war. Conservatives portrayed the free market and unfettered capitalism as the most Christian; they applauded “the gathering in of wealth by the rich in the interests of the general prosperity and viewing that money as a divine gift, a blessing” (Fraser, 2017, pp. 214–215). Thus, the economic sphere enlarged, eventually encompassing the entirety of social life, including personal and social identity (Wrenn, 2014, p. 506). The Democratic Party unfortunately followed the same capitalist road. Thus, Frank (2016) remarks that the party turned away from basic economic concerns to cultural issues. He comments that the party’s “move to center” erased the accomplishments of New Deal liberals (Frank, 2015, p. 65). The “new” Democrats, led by Bill Clinton, embraced free-market policies, fiscal discipline, global competition, flexible labor markets, transparent capital markets, deregulated business, and limited government interference in the market (Frank, 2016). These pro-business policies saw workers’ productivity increase dramatically as wages declined. Frank places many sins at the Democrats’ feet: policies on trade, crime, welfare, austerity, deregulations, bailouts, attempts at privatization, and surveillance. “It wasn’t Reagan alone who did it. What distinguishes the political order we live under now is consensus on certain economic questions, and what made that consensus happen was the capitulation of the Democrats” (Frank, 2016, p. 106). Both Democrats and Republicans separated race and gender from class, thus ending social reforms. Frank claims that the 2008 economic crisis offered Democrats the opportunity to rebuild social liberalism and return the party to its original base—workers and their organizations. Instead, Democrats offered New Deal rhetoric but no change in practice. Thus, Barack Obama’s team did not press an equality-minded economic program (Frank, 2016). There was more protection for bankers than the unemployed and those hurt by the Great Recession. For Frank, the party of the people disappeared. This allowed Republicans to return to their faux position of dealing with people’s economic frustration and parading as protectors of blue-collar workers while fostering fake populism, demagoguery, racial bigotry, and nativism. Fraser (2017) and Frank (2016) argue that the ideology of a free market and limited government has come to be the present orthodoxy. Furthermore, this turn has brought us back to a capitalism that fosters individualism and the rejection of social responsibilities. (Neoliberalism is not new; it “embodies the ideological shift in the purpose of the state from one that has a responsibility to insure full employment and protect its citizens against the exigencies of the market to one that has a responsibility to insure individual responsibility and protection of the market itself” (Wrenn, 2014, p. 506).) The anomalies of the mid-20th century have been expunged. The culture wars and identity politics heated up social, economic, and political realites. The turn to identities and membership in particular collectives obliterated larger mutual groups, in particular those related to

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social class. Union membership is a good proxy for measuring class consciousness; it has declined from 20% in 1983 to about 12% today. (The composition of labor unions has also changed from blue-collar workers to white-collar workers.) “In the private sector, five industries accounted for 81 percent of union members in 2015. Of these industries, private education and health services had the largest number of union members at 1.9 million; this includes a large number of union members who work in private hospitals, like nurses, and private school employees” (Dunn & Walker, 2016, p. 5). At the same time, organized labor failed to invest in both cross-sectoral and intercommunity organizing, “organizing the working class as a class for itself ” (Johnson, 2017, p. 11). Conservatives and liberals understood that class and its internal intersections did not support their belief in the invisible hand of a free market and the supposed benevolence of global free-flowing capital.

Higher Education and Identity Politics As we argued, we do not agree with Lilla (2016) that the “political romanticism” of the period of the New Left and the anti-war protests gave us the current campus identity politics. He too easily buys into the notion, so much propagated by conservatives and liberals, that New Left activists retreated to the university to teach their views on culture and political correctness. These “tenured radicals,” conservatives argue, taught a generation of students that politics was about the self and, in the process, broke the concept of “we” as citizens. Rather, we propose that an understanding of capital and class will produce the development of a politics where identity can play a role. It is possible to imagine a capitalism free from racism and sexism and that is LGBTQ friendly—even while recognizing how capitalism and capitalists have been enormously successful in using bigotry to keep workers from organizing. Class is different; by its own logic, capitalism must produce a ruling class and a proletariat. The 1963 Port Huron Statement set the tone for the 1960s and 70s by linking the contradictions with capital and the U.S. history of racial injustice and economic manipulation: We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit. . . . As we grew, however, our comfort was penetrated by events too troubling to dismiss. First, the permeating and victimizing fact of human degradation, symbolized by the Southern struggle against racial bigotry, compelled most of us from silence to activism. Second, the enclosing fact of the Cold War, symbolized by the presence of the Bomb, brought awareness that we ourselves, and our friends, and millions of abstract “others” we knew more directly because of our common peril, might die at any time. We might deliberately ignore, or avoid, or fail to feel all other human problems, but

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not these two, for these were too immediate and crushing in their impact, too challenging in the demand that we as individuals take the responsibility for encounter and resolution. . . . While two-thirds of mankind suffers under nourishment, our own upper classes revel amidst superfluous abundance. . . . America rests in national stalemate, its goals ambiguous and tradition-bound instead of informed and clear, its democratic system apathetic and manipulated rather than “of, by, and for the people.” . . . But today, for us, not even the liberal and socialist preachments of the past seem adequate to the forms of the present. Consider the old slogans: Capitalism Cannot Reform Itself, United Front Against Fascism, General Strike, All Out on May Day. Or, more recently, No Cooperation with Commies and Fellow Travelers, Ideologies Are Exhausted, Bipartisanship. . . . In the last few years, thousands of American students demonstrated that they at least felt the urgency of the times. They moved actively and directly against racial injustices, the threat of war, violations of individual rights of conscience, and, less frequently, against economic manipulation. (Sixties Project, 1993, para 1–5)

A key nationalist moment came 2 years before the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) strike in the Bay Area when, in 1966, Stokely Carmichael asked Whites to leave the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), cementing a new Black nationalism. Black identity politics had also been a core belief of the Nation of Islam dating back to the 1930s. During the Third World Strikes at San Francisco State (SFS) and University of California, Berkeley (UCB), activists sought a precarious balance between nationalism (what we call identity politics) and political alliances with other minority and White campus activists. Using a Marxian analysis, they articulated this internationalist nationalism as third-world liberation politics. Politically, SFS and UCB strikes offered an internationalism that could sustain nationalism, without surrendering to its divisive qualities, with an anti-imperialist critique based on a Marxist understanding of capital. The Third World Strikes offered an alternative political orientation to the growing identity politics in the African American and Chicano movements as well as the growth of a dogmatic Marxism, primarily a theoretical Maoism, among campus activists. This alternative campus political practice, unfortunately, was never fully articulated and quickly succumbed to nationalism, a limited Marxism, conservatism, and neoliberalism.9 Third-world liberation politics used nationalism to build political coalitions among disenfranchised communities to achieve a socialist United States. It endeavored to corral the disruptive tendencies in nationalism to “go it alone” and Marxism’s initial “reduction” of all questions of identity to class. The protests at SFS and UCB afford examples of different ethnic and racial people working together to push their educational, social, and political agendas. Their political choices represented a temporary moment

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of political and social alliances among groups that later would define their political, social, and educational concerns from their particular racial, ethnic, national interest, identities, and/or political position. Furthermore, third-world liberation criticism of U.S. foreign policies, based on a Marxist critique, helped to sustain alliances with other groups (Brown, 2003; Elbaum, 2002). As noted in an editorial in Merritt College’s Rasca Tripas (1970a), interethnic unity had to supersede nationalist separatism: Will the “Chicano” Movement move on and succeed in becoming a solid and potent revolutionary front to be reckoned with by those reactionary, imperialist forces which now control the world, or will it falter and drown in a quagmire of self-defeating regionalism, nationalism, and narrow-mindedness?

While the editorial provisionally accepted that nationalism could serve as an organizing tool, Chicanos(as) had to be wary of expanding nationalism to ridiculous degrees of regionalism and exclusion (Rasca Tripas, 1970b). The tension between internationalism and nationalism was not an easy balance to sustain. “Nationalism was a point of conflict within the TWLF. Most activists were committed to a desire to improve the conditions for their people. But there was a growing suspicion that some may look out for their own at the expense of other groups” (Umemoto, 85). While nationalism had been evident during the strike, it had been molded to the larger struggle. Professor Solomon from SFS argued that by the end of the strike some African American and Mexican American student leaders had come to a new conclusion after witnessing the support they received from White radical students and faculty. Yet, at the same time that third-world activists sought to build a more just society, conservatives, building on Goldwater’s vision and the election of Reagan as governor of California, returned to their goal of taking apart New Deal liberalism and stopping the rise of a socialist alternative. Many of these ideas were represented in the Sharon Statement, adopted on September 11, 1960, by a group of 100 young conservatives who convened at the home of William F. Buckley: In this time of moral and political crises, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths. We, as young conservatives, believe: That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force; That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom; That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice; That when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty. . . . That

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the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties; That the United States should stress victory over, rather than coexistence with, this menace. . . . (New Guard Staff, 2016)

Again we see the call for the defense of the free market, individualism, and small government—a call to acknowledge the “eternal truth” that individuals make the choices that determine their lives, untied to history or society. This suggested that all government interventions had to cease; even policies initiated by Republican administrations, such as affirmative action, had to stop (Sanneh, 2017). Unstated was the acceptance of White supremacy and imperialism (Hahn, 2017). Unfortunately, White nationalism contaminated third-world politics. (For the sake of simplicity, we have used nationalism as a singular noun.) However, it is important to keep in mind that Chicano(a) activists used a variety of nationalisms (Garcia, 1994, pp. 248–262). Identity politics spread among the various ethnic/racial groups. Haney López (2003) notes that Chicano(a) activists in Southern California distinguished themselves from African Americans, often playing on traditional animosities and the wider society’s view of race. He quotes Oscar Acosta from 1971: “The black man came here as a slave. He is not of this land. . . . [H]e has nothing but the white society to identify with. We have a history. We have culture. We had a land. . . . For me, my native ancestry is crucial” (López, 2003, p. 211). Zeta Acosta complained that in rallies with the Black Panthers he was typically left out until the end and given only 5 minutes to speak. And more importantly at the end of the rally, “we get no offers of any real unity or working together” (Stavans, 1996, p. 10). Armando Rendon’s (1971) Chicano Manifesto expresses this same issue when he notes that Blacks sought equality on Anglo terms and only recently turned to a Black identity and cultural separateness. In contrast, the Chicano movimiento has always sought equality and respect for their way of life, culture, and language (Rendon, 1971, p. 4). As a result of nationalism, a growing friction grew between Chicanos(as) and African Americans on the Berkeley campus, especially over the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP). William Sherill, the director of EOP and an African American, stated that Chicano(a) protest resulted “from the Chicano desire to ’do their own thing’ and assert their independence from the blacks in the EOP office” (Wood & Aquino, 1969). The Chicano(a) turn to identity politics was evident at many events and in statements (López, 2003; Macias, 1969; MECHA, 1969). An interesting example of the nationalist turn is a piece in La Causa from 1971. The author noted that many believe that since Chicanos(as) share the same oppressor, they must consider each other brothers. But, in reality, these groups are ignorant of who Chicanos(as) are and simply want to use us. Therefore, we cannot work with Anglos or Blacks. “The fact is, that a Chicano who is a Nationalist is, by that very fact a Revolutionary, for Chicano Nationalism and Gabacho Nationalism are in direct contradiction to each other” (La Causa, 1971). The author pushed his point further. He denounced Black nationalists because, he claimed, they have not developed an autonomous direction.

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Only Chicano nationalism is authentic. “Chicano Nationalism, is the only Nationalism in the U.S. that is authentically Revolutionary” (La Causa, 1971, pp. 6–7). Third-world liberation politics fell victim to a nationalism that sought separation from Anglos and other people of color.10 Relations with other groups were determined by a group’s self-interest. At the same time, third-world politics translated into a U.S. variant of Maoism. Thus, campus politics among students of color reflected the demise of an internationalist third-world politics and the rise of separatist nationalism, sectarian Marxism, or liberal identity politics. While there were temporary alliances among students of color, these were mere shadows of events at San Francisco State University and the University of California at Berkeley. The two strikes marked the nadir and demise of interethnic unity on most college campuses, followed by the rise of a nasty nationalism, a narrow Marxism, and a victorious liberalism.

Conclusion For Kagarlitsky (2000), the left radicalism of the 1960s was quickly taken over and exploited by the market.11 He contends that the collapse of liberalism, social democracy, and the disappearance of the revolutionary Left ensured the success of a respectable bourgeois radicalism: the new Democratic Party. Moreover, identity politics became possible thanks to the ideological decay of socialism; as a result, it became the only alternative to neoliberalism. Kagarlitsky (2000) underscores that capitalism reproduces identities. Solidarity and mutual aid challenges the system; identity politics strengthens existing situations. Therefore, Kagarlitsky underlines that the politics of emancipation must aim beyond bounds of identity and the impulse to replace class politics with identity politics. Doyle (2017) adds that “contemporary identity politics is hostile to any form of dissent” since it is based on faith and not reason.12 Much like the third-world strikes, both authors call for intergroup and interethnic solidarity—a unity that comes from joint struggle (Kagarlitsky, 2000). “Identity politics in its current form is a divisive, self-destructive phenomenon, and we should not allow the left to continue to be dominated by reactionary zealots” (Doyle, 2017). We hope that current campus identity politics returns to politics that are grounded in class struggle. Capital uses race, gender, sexualities, and other identities to split the labor force and reduce its effectiveness in struggle. This is not to state that these identities are epiphenomenal, but to suggest that their existence has meaning inter-sectionally (Wald, 2018). To understand class, the Left has come to understand the modalities (such as race and gender) that people live. There is no return to the Marxist-Leninist paradigm of privileging class above all factors. But this intimates that our political work is more complex, since we need to build on relationships as we engage in class struggle. Currently, conservatives and neoliberals allow race to trump class; we must be careful to protect our use of identity from such constructions. “Sustained political work is held

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together by shared historical interests, especially those that connect to our daily lives and felt needs, not sentimental ‘ties of blood’” (Johnson, 2017, p. 15).

Notes 1 This is not the place to examine the differences among these political ideologies and practices. Rather, we acknowledge that we are very loose with our use of these terms and ignore internal differentiations. 2 The “anti-war” movement was actually an anti-draft movement. The all-volunteer military obliterated the movement. The U.S. empire could now proceed to fight constant wars without discernable protests. 3 This is the U.S. version of Thatcherism when Thatcher said in 1987: “[T]here’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families” (The Guardian, 2013). Neoliberal identity then is isolating, disconnected from community, and leaves the individual alienated in both the Marxist and psychological definitions. 4 Recent books by Linda Gordon (2017) and Felix Harcourt (2017) note the development of White identity politics through the growth of the Ku Klux Klan. 5 Interestingly, “Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few” (2016) is the title of a recent book by Robert Reich, who fancies himself a leader of the resistance movement against the Trump Administration. 6 Today, many are mesmerized by what passes as news and opinion in the right-wing media, such as Fox News. Yet the genesis of this media parallels the attack on the administrative, regulatory, welfare state, as well as U.S. internationalism, the original America First movement. Broadcaster Clarence Manion and publishers Henry Regnery and William Rusher transformed conservative media into the epicenter of a right-wing movement, converting audiences into activists and activists into voters (Hemmer, 2016). In the process, “[c]onservative media activists advanced an alternative way of knowing the world, one that attacked the legitimacy of objectivity and substituted for it ideological integrity” (Hemmer, 2016, p. xiii). 7 Democracts were in fact ahead of Republicans in their view of Black exceptionalism. Thus, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, along with other liberals, viewed Black poverty as due to institutional racism and the alleged pathology of Blacks—the infamous culture of poverty (Johnson, 2017). As Johnson (2017) notes, this cultural explanation marked the rejection “of the class-centered politics that defined both the labor militancy of the interwar period and the political orientation of the postwar civil rights movement” (p. 6). 8 Goldwater was prescient in forecasting our current state of affairs in 1993: “Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t. . . .” 9 It is easy to fall into nostalgia for third-world politics with its implied ethnic exceptionalism as expressed by Black and Chicano(a) activists. We recognize that our reading of the SFS and UCB strikes is utopic. Our intent is merely to suggest possibilities. 10 There were exceptions and momentary alliances among students. The best example on the UC Berkeley campus took place during the Cambodia incursion and the Kent State killings. At Berkeley, Chicanos(as) stopped their Cinco de Mayo celebration to join others

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in protesting the deaths and the war. A very different response occurred on the UCLA campus when MECHA protestors denounced protests about Kent State and Cambodia as interfering with their use of Cinco de Mayo to demand greater support for Mexican American students. At the Berkeley protest, Chicano activists, still guided by third-world politics, linked up with other students who were concerned with the Cambodia incursion and the deaths at Kent State, while the UCLA Chicanos felt that their struggle should not be constrained by other political movements. 11 The university is one such market. We note that the establishment of ethnic studies departments played into liberal nationalism as African American, Chicano, Native American, Asian Pacific Island, gender, and other programs were created as separate entities. 12 Note the online essay by Frances Lee.

References Brenner, R. (2006). The economics of global turbulence: The advanced capitalist economies from long boom to long downturn, 1945–2005. New York, NY: Verso. Brown, S. (2003). Fighting for US: Maulana Karenga, the US organization, and Black cultural nationalism. New York, NY: New York University Press. Doyle, A. (2017, September 28). Why the Left must confront the cult of identity politics. Spiked. Available from https://www.spiked-online.com/2017/09/28/why-the-left-must-confrontthe-cult-of-identity-politics/ Dunn, M., & Walker, J. (2016, September). Union membership in the United States. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Available from https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2016/unionmembership-in-the-united-states/pdf/union-membership-in-the-united-states.pdf Elbaum, M. (2002). Revolution in the air: Sixties radicals turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. London, UK: Verso. Frank, T. (2016). Listen, liberal, or, what ever happened to the party of the people? New York, NY: Picador. Fraser, S. (2017). The limousine liberal: How an incendiary image united the right and fractured America. New York, NY: Basic Books. Garcia, M. T. (1994). Memories of Chicano history: The life and narrative of Bert Corona. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Gordon, L. (2017). The second coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American political tradition. New York, NY: Liveright. The Guardian. (2013). Margaret Thatcher quotes. Available from https://www.theguardian. com/politics/2013/apr/08/margaret-thatcher-quotes Hahn, S. (2017, September 27). The rage of White folks: How the silent majority became a loud and angry minority. The Nation. Available from https://www.thenation.com/article/ the-rage-of-white-folks/ Harcourt, F. (2017). Ku Klux Kulture: America and the Klan in the 1920s. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hemmer, N. (2016). Messengers of the right: Conservative media and the transformation of American politics. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Imperium Ad Infinitum. (n.d.). Class is more intersectional than intersectionality. Available from https://imperiumadinfinitum.wordpress.com Johnson, C. (2017). The Panthers can’t save us now. Catalyst.

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Jones, A. (2010). Identity politics: Part of a reinvigorated class politics. New Labor Forum, 19(2). Available from https://newlaborforum.cuny.edu/2010/11/05/identity-politics-part-of-areinvigorated-class-politics/ Kagarlitsky, B. (2000). The return of radicalism: Reshaping the left institutions. London, UK: Pluto Press. La Causa. (1971). On the Black or White revolutionary’s relation to the Chicano struggle. La Causa, 2(1). Lee, F. (2017, July 13). Excommunicate me from the church of social justice. Autostraddle. Available from https://www.autostraddle.com/kin-aesthetics-excommunicate-mefrom-the-church-of-social-justice-386640/ Lilla, M. (2016, November 18). The end of identity liberalism. New York Times. Available from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-identity-liberalism. html Lilla, M. (2017a, August 20). How colleges are strangling liberalism. Chronicle of Higher Education. Available from https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Colleges-AreStrangling/240909 Lilla, M. (2017b). The once and future liberal: After identity politics. New York, NY: HarperCollins. López, I. F. H. (2003). Racism on trial: The Chicano fight for justice. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Macias, Y. R. (1969, November 6). Oppression is a reality. Daily Californian. Margolis, E. (2001). The hidden curriculum in higher education. New York, NY: Routledge. Margolis, E., & Soldatenko, M. (2015). Higher education and the capitalist turn: Research and reflections. In J. L. DeVitis & P. A. Sasso (Eds.), Higher Education and Society (pp. 229–249). New York, NY: Peter Lang. MECHA. (1969, August 26). Third world perspective. Daily Californian. Miah, M. (2010). Race and class: Obama forgets Black community. Against the Current. Available from https://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/2674 New Guard Staff. (2016, May 4). The Sharon Statement: A timeless decoration of conservative principles. Young America’s Federation. Available from http://www.yaf.org/news/ the-sharon-statement/ Rasca Tripas. (1970a, August). Editorial. Rasca Tripas. (1970b, August). Liberation—for whom? Rendon, A. (1971). Chicano manifesto. New York, NY: Collier Books. Sanneh, K. (2017, October 9). The limits of “diversity.” New Yorker. Available from https:// www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/the-limits-of-diversity Scruton, R. (2015). Fools, frauds, and firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left. London, UK: Bloomsbury. Sixties Project (1993). Port Huron Statement. Retrieved from http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/ sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/SDS_Port_Huron.html Stavans, I. (Ed.). (1996). Oscar “Zeta” Acosta: The uncollected works. Houston, TX: Arte Público Press. Umemoto, K. N. (1989). Asian American students in the San Francisco College strike, 1964–1968 (unpublished MA thesis). University of California, Los Angeles. Los Angeles, CA. Wald, A. (2018). Race and the logic of capital. Against the Current. Available from https://www. solidarity-us.org/site/node/5183 Wood, G., & Aquino, E. (1969, July 3). Chicanos stage orientation. Daily Californian. Wrenn, M. (2014). Identity, identity politics, and neoliberalism. Panoeconomicus, 61(4), 503–514.

Chapter 9

The Legacy of the Campus Living Wage Movement Ashton R. Cooper and J. Patrick Biddix

You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth. —Martin Luther King at AFSCME Memphis Sanitation Strike, March 18, 1968

Over 30 years ago, college students, campus workers, and community leaders expressed their disapproval of university labor practices and wages (Vellela, 1988). Their discontent was a part of a larger labor movement that existed in the United States since the mid-19th century and that persisted into the 20th century, one that was aimed at securing living wages for laborers. Living wage campaigns in cities challenged municipal governments to hold corporate firms that contract with the municipality accountable for paying wages to workers—typically security, janitorial, and maintenance workers—that enabled them to live within that municipality (Luce, 2009). Historically, an adversarial relationship has existed between the campus and its workers. (Brubacher & Rudy, 1997; Thelin, 2012). Colonial colleges engaged in exploitative practices, including but not limited to relying on slave labor for the maintenance and upkeep of campus grounds (Dancy, Edwards, & Davis, 2018). Today, postsecondary

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institutions contend with the rising cost of education while facing declining budgets and allocations from state legislatures and are charged with providing optimal value for students at a reasonable cost (Johnstone, 2009, 2013). Postsecondary institutions are often the largest employers within a given municipality, and despite being not-forprofit, many engage in negative corporate-like employment practices (Walsh, 2000). This responsibility compels campus decision-makers to review spending priorities and can result in outsourcing maintenance, janitorial, and security jobs. Campus living wage campaigns started as a way to provide equitable representation for workers who were overlooked, to demand the respect of postsecondary institutions for the dignity of the labor provided by campus workers, and to advocate for a living wage. This chapter first provides a historical overview and discussion of terminology to offer context for the aims and goals of living wage movements; it then examines an exemplar campaign at Harvard University. Next is a timeline of campus-living wage campaigns with insights pertaining to the contemporary movement. The chapter closes with a consideration of the importance of the campus-living wage movement by examining its legacy through organization, tactics, and learning outcomes.

Context and Terminology In 1938, the U.S. Government passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. This federal law was an attempt to raise the minimum wages of workers by establishing a federal minimum wage (Nordlund, 1988). Quigley (2001) criticized the 1938 federal Fair Labor Standards Act as doing little to support actual living wages. The bill was thought to have a positive impact on the income of laborers who subsisted on low wages but mainly removed the hazardous conditions that laborers worked in and did little to support marginalized workers (women and people of color). The federal law did not increase the wages of individuals who lived in states that paid more than the new federal minimum wage, but still less than what would give an individual reasonable purchasing ability (Sen, 1999) for the area in which they lived. Glickman (1997) argued that the concept of a living wage set a more ambitious standard than just a minimum wage, as it required companies to acknowledge the needs of their laborers. The contemporary emphasis on livable wages began in Baltimore, Maryland, in December of 1994, when a coalition of activists advocated that the Baltimore municipal government pass a living wage ordinance (Luce, 2009). Living wage ordinances set wage levels, for companies that received contracts or subsidies from local governments, above the federal minimum wage (ACORN Living Wage Resource Center, 2018; Tilly, 2005). The wage would then be adjusted to cost of living standards to account for inflation and other factors needed to live in that municipality. Earning above a minimum wage does not guarantee that a person is able to meet living expenses. A livable wage must also account for regional living expenses and taxes for a specific municipality (Biddix & Park, 2008; Muilenburg & Singh, 2007). For the

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purposes of this chapter, a living wage is defined as income above the federally mandated minimum wage that takes into account the cost of living for a given region and community. This definition aligns with the ACORN Living Wage Resource Center (2018) and the Employment Policies Institute (2000) and has been largely adopted within most campus-based movements.

Living Wage Activism on Campus The campus-based fight for a living wage began in 1996, when organizers advocating for a living wage ordinance in Baltimore influenced students to challenge the hiring and wage practices of Johns Hopkins University (Hunter, 2011). Johns Hopkins, a private research institution, hired low-wage laborers and subcontracted work through a local company to avoid paying above the minimum wage and providing benefits for its workers (Cashdan, 1999). Students and a coalition of activists from the community sought pay for workers that equaled what was outlined in the Baltimore living wage ordinance, minimum wage and benefits, for Johns Hopkins’ workers (Bowler, 2000). Their campaign would achieve a higher minimum wage, but that wage was not indexed for inflation and the change in cost of living from year to year. This was a partial win for workers at Johns Hopkins but did not provide for an actual living wage, according to the definition. Students from this campaign would go on to help students at Stanford University and Harvard University. This effectively began a networked campus living wage movement (Biddix & Park, 2008). The Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) would become the exemplar in the campus living wage movement (Bernstein, 2004; Lester, 2001; Tilly, 2005).

The PSLM at Harvard University The Campus and the Community In 1997, members of an existing student group, United Students against Sweatshops (USAS), formed the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM). PSLM expanded its focus from organizing against sweatshops to supporting unions and labor campaigns in Cambridge, Massachusetts (Offner, 2013; Harvard Living Wage Campaign, 2003). In 1998, PSLM decided to focus on a living wage campaign to “bring the gains of the Cambridge living wage ordinance . . . to the city’s largest employer” (Harvard Living Wage Campaign, 2003). PSLM developed an adversarial relationship with the Harvard administration, creating an environment in which negotiations with the executive administration were viewed as meaningless. Only by publicly exposing the university’s policies, tarnishing its reputation, and undermining administrators’ authority did PSLM believe the group could create real and sustainable policy changes at Harvard (Offner, 2013). The students’ ability to cause disruption on campus for the sake of labor

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and wage equality was covered often in the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper. In a November 1997 edition of the publication, the author challenged the institution’s ability to ban student free speech in response to student protest of a faculty member who benefited from unjust labor practices abroad (Morgan, 1997). The 2002 film Occupation created further visibility for PSLM and the cause for a living wage at Harvard. In the film, a Harvard alumnus, played by actor Ben Affleck, highlighted the plight of campus workers who earned $18,000 a year (Razsa & Velez, 2002). The campaign began when PSLM learned that approximately 1,000 campus workers at Harvard earned wages as low as $6.50 an hour and that many relied on shelters and food pantries to make ends meet while working more than 40 hours a week (Harvard Living Wage Campaign, 2003; Offner, 2013). Offner (2013) noted: Poverty at Harvard was not the result of accident, oversight, or moral blindness; administrators had candidly decided that workers’ well-being was not their financial priority and they had deliberately stalled wages and benefits. . . . The financial cost of a living wage was probably much less significant to administrators than the loss of power they would face by conceding to a community demand. (p. 136)

Harvard workers also faced difficulty in unionizing to protect their interests. Faced with corrupt leadership from outside labor unions, the workers attempted to unionize internally, only to be rebuffed by the Harvard administration. When the university finally allowed workers to unionize, it came at the expense of largely one-sided negotiations in which the administration proposed outsourcing positions to offset the cost of its workers. PSLM members and campus workers, along with community members, faculty, and alumni, formed a coalition focused on bringing living wages to the campus workers of Harvard University.

Campus Tactics and Organization The PSLM and its coalition used a variety of tactics to convince the Harvard administration that adopting the living wage ordinance passed by the City of Cambridge was in the best interests of the campus community and its workers. When initial negotiations between PSLM and administrators failed, students blended tactics from civil rights-era activists with contemporary information and communication technologies (Biddix, 2010a; Lester, 2001). A sit-in, coupled with a website, email, and instant messaging, helped them to connect a large and diverse community of activists to coordinate efforts. Central to PSLM’s organizing effort was a website that provided relevant information for activists, laborers, community members, alumni, and faculty. The Harvard Living Wage Campaign website provided updates on the status of the campaign, outlined the goals and aims of the campaign, and provided links to legal advice for campus workers

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(Harvard Living Wage Campaign, 2003). Observers of the campaign, however, noted that the leveraging of the Harvard brand name with effective media coverage and outreach was one of the leading factors in PSLM’s success (Harvard Living Wage Campaign, 2003; Offner, 2013; Stone, 2004). Lester (2001) reported that the PSLM media strategy and the coverage of the Massachusetts Hall sit-in was the result of effective organization of PSLM’s press corps, the relationships they formed with local media outlets, and the constant connection to the Internet that allowed students to galvanize support from celebrities, political figures, and labor leaders. Though the campaign very much relied on the physical presence of student activists and their coalition of individuals, Lester (2001) asserted that “the Internet was the context in which the protest occurred” (p. 2). Similar to its United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) predecessors, PSLM shunned the idea of hierarchical leadership and instead worked through consensus. For a decision to be made, caucuses were formed to ensure that all parties received equal representation in the decision-making process. Using this approach, PSLM felt that minority voices would be heard and that they would actively participate in the decision-making process (Offner, 2013). Students recognized the drawbacks and problems that existed with this form of decision making; however, it remained an explicit goal of the organization to represent the marginalized in the best way possible.

Campaign Outcomes and Implications The Harvard Living Wage Campaign peaked in April of 2001 with a 21-day sit-in at Massachusetts Hall on Harvard’s campus (Lester, 2001; Offner, 2013). This moment was significant for several reasons. First, despite all the technology that students utilized, the protest had not yet expanded beyond those who were interested in the campaign. The sit-in signaled to students beyond PSLM that living wages for campus workers were important (Lester, 2001). Second, the sit-in brought national attention to the movement and created a spectacle that overwhelmed Harvard’s public relations. (Lester, 2001). The outcomes of the campaign included worker representation on a university labor committee, negotiation of a living wage standard with benefits, and a moratorium on outsourced hiring. The coalition of representatives walked away from negotiations with an agreement that gave workers a temporary raise to no lower than $11 an hour and required Harvard to pay subcontracted and nonunion workers the same as directly hired workers (known as a parity-policy) (Harvard Living Wage Campaign, 2003; Offner, 2013).

Campus Living Wage Action Beyond Harvard While the living wage campaign only managed to achieve a living wage temporarily at Harvard, its successes went beyond monetary value. The campaign legitimized coalition power and forced the governing board of Harvard (the Harvard Corporation) to recognize the collective power of the community. The PSLM living wage campaign

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demonstrated the capability of a diverse coalition of groups when organized together for a common cause. This was again demonstrated in 2016 at Harvard, with a student-led coalition advocating for campus dining workers (Dixon, Natanson, & Yared, 2016). Moreover, the effects of the campaign spread beyond Harvard and served as a catalyst for the student living wage movement nationally. Campus living wage campaigns built from the momentum started by PSLM and the Harvard campaign. Table 9.1 is an overview of documented campus living wage campaigns since 1996. Table 9.1 Campus Living Wage Campaign Timeline Campus

Johns Hopkins University University of Virginia Harvard University 1 Syracuse University Wesleyan University Bucknell University Swarthmore College 1 Georgetown University University of Wisconsin University of Tennessee, Knoxville University of Miami University of Buffalo Washington University UC Santa Cruz Notre Dame University Lehigh University Swarthmore College 2 University of Virginia University of Vermont Western Michigan Arizona State University College of William and Mary Brown University Harvard University 2

Campaign start

Campaign end

1996 1997 1998 1998 1999 2000 2001 2001 2001 2004 2005 2005 2005 2005 2005 2005 2006 2006 2006 2006 2006 2010 2014 2016

2000 2000 2002 1998 2000 2005 2004 2006 2006 2007 2006 2006 2005 2009 2008 2006 2006 2006 2008 2007 2007 2011 2014 2016

Campaigns that successfully achieved living wage increases for campus workers, such as those at Syracuse University (1998), Swarthmore College (2001), and the University of Miami (2005), utilized many of the tactics that PSLM legitimized at Harvard. Coalitions of students, campus unions, faculty members, and community members led protests to target campus administrators and pressure them to adopt living wage policies. The campaign at Swarthmore in 2001 especially drew inspiration from the PSLM model. Following the success of the Harvard campaign in February of 2001, the Swarthmore campaign would regularly have a PSLM organizer, who was a Swarthmore alumnus, give educational presentations about labor organizing on campus (Hunter, 2011). Like Harvard, a coalition of students, unionized workers, community members, and sympathetic faculty and staff used traditional tactics of sit-ins, letters of opposition,

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and articles written in school and local newspapers. Those tactics, in combination with newer networked technologies, helped the campaign achieve a favorable outcome. In December of 2005, the president of Swarthmore presented a proposal for an increased minimum wage to the Swarthmore Board of Managers that was approved (Swarthmore Living Wage and Democracy Campaign, n.d.). Other campaigns, such as the one at Washington University in St. Louis (2005), did not achieve living wages, but were able to secure raise increases and better benefits for contract workers. Though not every campaign following Harvard was successful, organizers on campuses nationally now had a model for success. The PSLM campaign also showed that, despite some questions about the value of activism among college students in the 1990s and early 2000s, collective action and civic engagement were still valued on college campuses (Eckert & Henschel, 2000).

The Legacy of the Campus Living Wage Movement Like most campus-based activism movements in the United States, the living wage movement counts a mix of wins and losses. The final tally depends in part on who tells the story. For example, both students and administrators at Washington University in St. Louis claimed victory after an 18-day sit-in for a living wage in 2005 (Biddix, Somers, & Polman, 2009). The enduring legacy of the movement is three-fold. First, its organization signaled a change in the tactical organization of campus action, blending both historical and contemporary approaches. Second, it was the first broadly documented use of emergent information and communication technologies for campus organizing and collective action. Finally, and perhaps more broadly, it signaled a shift in how campus activism is regarded (i.e., from dissent to development).

Organizational Legacy The campus living wage movement emerged from the sweatshop movement, when students concerned with international labor issues turned their attention to domestic labor issues on their campuses. United Students against Sweatshops (USAS), a precursor to PSLM at Harvard, utilized a nonhierarchical organizational structure to ensure that all its members had an equal voice and that decisions were made based on the input of the organization as a whole and not just by its leaders. Levi, Olson, and Steinman (2002) noted that the success of living wage forced organizations to exclusively gear their responsiveness to the community they serve. Therefore, as student activists and campaigns turned more toward the concerns of the community in which they exist (globally and domestically), it was important that all voices participate in decision making. This way of managing a movement was vastly different from student organizing during the Civil Rights Movement, which saw key individuals lead student organizations based on their beliefs and ability to recruit followers (Lewis, 1998). Today, nonhierarchical

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community-based organizing is a foundational component of movements such as Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and Black Lives Matter (BLM). Central to the campus living wage movement was coalition building. Though students had been the primary agents for initiating living wage protests, they were not without support from multiple groups of interested constituents. Those groups included campus worker unions, sympathetic faculty and staff, alumni, and immediate community members. Along with a nonhierarchical approach, these coalitions allowed for the workers’ voices to be heard, while putting pressure on campus administrations from multiple constituencies. Though a postsecondary institution can outsource workers and hire union-busting consultants, it cannot ignore the collective demands of its students, faculty members, and the community it serves (Student Worker Solidarity Resource Center, 2005)—nor deny their dignity. Brooks (2007) asserts that, as living wage campaigns attracts more interest and builds permanent coalitions, they can then monitor economic policies and mobilize quickly should a policy or law be passed that would take advantage of workers. Coalitions allow for the voice of the worker to be heard, while also disbursing the responsibility of advocating for a living wage to individuals and groups with different skills and abilities.

Tactical Legacy The living wage campus movement began at a time when students started to communicate using emergent asynchronous technologies, coupled with the ability to build simple but effective websites. Although email had been introduced on campus years prior to the onset of the living wage movement and used in other actions (see Vellela, 1988), its effective use had not been documented until the New York Times reported on a massive multi-campus protest initiated, coordinated, and maintained by using email (Herszenhorn, 1995). Prior to this, the only documented computer-based technology was the divestment disk, a computer disk created by a Pennsylvania State University student and distributed to like-minded activists lobbying for institutional divestment in South African apartheid regimes. The technology included files to assist with mass mailings, phone trees, and other network communication structures (Vellela, 1988). The campus living wage movement introduced passive (website) and active (instant messenger) networking that helped activists at other campuses learn about and initiate actions, gain immediate advice and mentorship, and maintain an updated information network that flourished beyond typical short-term campus movements (Biddix, 2006, 2010a, 2010b; Biddix & Park, 2008). These actions have also been vital to contemporary movements, including Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and Black Lives Matter (BLM).

Developmental Legacy The campus living wage movement also had a developmental effect on how activism is framed. Until the 1990s, campus activism was viewed as disruptive, rather than as

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complementary to learning outcomes. Hunter (1998) initially proposed a link between campus activism and civic learning, suggesting that many of the core characteristics of democracy—collective action, leadership, and principled dissent—were learned during protest. Chambers and Phelps (1993) further affirmed this view, expanding these considerations into other students’ groups that had components of civic action, including student government. Hamrick (1998) later used a case study to map enacted democracy among student activist actions. By 2004, the authors of Learning Reconsidered (Keeling, 2004) had (re)considered campus activism and “principled dissent” as indicators of an environment conducive to democratic learning. This thinking emerged alongside the campus living wage movement, which gave researchers the opportunity to identify and map learning though protest action. For example, Biddix, Somers, and Polman, (2009) used the democratic learning principle of Learning Reconsidered alongside the actions of student activists and counteractions of campus administrators in the Student Worker Alliance (SWA) living wage movement at Washington University in 2005. Biddix (2010a) used the same case study but further expanded the approach in a review of developmental uses of technology in activism from 2000 to 2008. Later, he extended the developmental considerations to how female college activists learned to lead by using technology (Biddix, 2010b). Using the same conceptual principles, Finley (2011) identified campus activism as a form of enacted democracy. Finally, drawing on this conceptual underpinning, Biddix (2014) used large-scale, longitudinal data from the 2007 administration of the College Senior Survey matched to the 2003 version of the American Freshman Survey to consider developmental outcomes from those participating in campus protest or demonstrations. He found that students who participated in political demonstrations made greater gains in measures of social agency than noninvolved peers, while participants in war demonstrations also experienced gains in civic awareness (knowledge) and outspoken leadership (skills).

Conclusion Broadhurst (2014) asserts that 21st-century campus protest has built on historical tactics and traditions that have existed in the United States, while integrating new technology to aid in organization and communication (Biddix, 2010b). The campus living wage movement began at the turn of the new millennium and, as a result, reflected what distinguishes 21st-century campus protest from prior student activism. Quoted at the beginning of the chapter, Martin Luther King, Jr., championed labor rights alongside civil rights (Alderman & Inwood, 2018). At the time of his death, King was advocating for the labor rights of Memphis sanitation workers and believed true equality was that of racial and wage parity. That day, April 4, continues to be a day of campus-based protest around labor issues, allowing students and coalitions to continue the legacy imparted by King in advocating for the rights of the marginalized. Bose (2008) highlights that the concerns of student activists echoed the concerns of King and previous socialist student groups in advocating for workers’ rights and equality.

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The fight for equitable pay is still being fought in the United States (Douglas-Gabriel & DePillis 2015; Fight For $15, 2012; Lockhart, 2017; Wong 2015), and while specific living wage campaigns on campus are intertwined with divestment and anti-sweatshop movements, students are still very much on the frontlines. Analyzing the campus living wage movement can inform many of the new practices and tactics observed in current student activism and organizing as well as the developmental reconsideration that participation in activism and organizing engenders.

References ACORN Living Wage Resource Center. (2018). ACORN’s living wage. Retrieved from http:// www.livingwageaction.org/index.htm Alderman, D., & Inwood, J. (2018) While we dialogue, others die: A response to “The possibilities and limits to dialogue.” Dialogues in Human Geography, 8(2), 152–155. Bernstein, J. (2004). The living wage movement: What is it, why is it, and what’s known about its impact? In R. B. Freeman, J. Hersch, & L. Mishel (Eds.), Emerging labor market institutions for the twenty-first century. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Biddix, J. P. (2006). The power of “estudent protest”: A study of electronically enhanced student activism (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO. Biddix, J. P. (2010a). Technology uses in campus activism from 2000–2008: Implications for civic learning. Journal of College Student Development, 51(6), 679–693. Biddix, J. P. (2010b). Relational leadership and technology: A study of activist college women leaders. NASPA Journal about Women in Higher Education, 3(1), 25–47. Biddix, J. P. (2014). Development through dissent: Activism as civic learning. New Directions for Higher Education, 2014, 73–85. Biddix, J. P., & Park, H. W. (2008). Online networks of student protest: The case of the living wage campaign. New Media & Society, 10(6), 871–891. Biddix, J. P., Somers, P. A., & Polman, J. L. (2009). Protest reconsidered: Identifying democratic and civic engagement learning outcomes. Innovative Higher Education, 34(3), 133–147. Bose, P. (2008). From agitation to institutionalization: The student anti-sweatshop movement in the new millennium. Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 15(1), 213–240. Bowler, M. (2000, March 09). Hopkins protesters encamp for living wage. Baltimore Sun. Retrieved from http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2000-03-09/news/0003090151_1_ johns-hopkins-living-wage-hopkins-university-students Broadhurst, C. J. (2014). Campus activism in the 21st century: A historical framing. New Directions for Higher Education, 2014(167), 3–15. Brooks, F. (2007). The living-wage movement: Potential implications for the working poor. Families in Society, 88(3), 437–442 Brubacher, J. S., & Rudy, W. (1997). Higher education in transition: A history of American colleges and universities (4th ed.). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Cashdan, B. (1999, May 20). Hopkins and the living wage. Baltimore Sun. Retrieved from http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-05-20/news/9905200346_1_living-wage-johnshopkins-university-poverty-wages Chambers, T., & Phelps, C. E. (1993). Student activism as a form of leadership and student development. NASPA Journal, 31(1), 19–29.

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Dancy, T. E., II, Edwards, K. T., & Davis, J. E. (2018). Historically White universities and plantation politics: Anti-Blackness and higher education in the Black Lives Matter era. Urban Education, 53(2), 176–195. Dixon, B. J., Natanson, H., & Yared, L. S. (2016, October 25). Students, supporters show out in force Monday for dining workers. Harvard Crimson. Retrieved from http://www. thecrimson.com/article/2016/10/25/huds-strike-occupy-building/ Douglas-Gabriel, D., & DePillis, L. (2015, October 19). Student activists take up $15 minimum wage campaign . . . for themselves. Washington Post. Available from https://www. washingtonpost.com/business/economy/student-activists-take-up-15-minimumwage-campaign-for-another-group--themselves/2015/10/19/619c5d66-7131-11e5-8d930af317ed58c9_story.html Eckert, P., & Henschel, P. (2000). Supporting community involvement in the digital age. In T. Ehrlich (Ed.), Civic responsibility and higher education (pp. 197–208). Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press. Employment Policies Institute. (2000). Living wage policy: The basics. Washington, DC: Author. Fight for $15. (2012). Retrieved from https://fightfor15.org/ Finley, A. (2011). Civic learning and democratic engagement: A review of the literature on civic engagement in post-secondary education. AAC&U. Available from https://www.aacu. org/publications-research/publications/civic-learning-and-democratic-engagementsreview-literature-civic Glickman, L. B. (1997). A living wage: American workers and the making of consumer society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hamrick, F. A. (1998). Democratic citizenship and student activism. Journal of College Student Development, 39(5), 449–460. Harvard Living Wage Campaign (2003). The Harvard living wage campaign. Retrieved from http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~pslm/livingwage/portal.html Herszenhorn, D. M. (1995, March 29). Students turn to the Internet for nationwide protest planning. New York Times, p. 20. Hunter, D. (2011). Global Nonviolent Action Database. Retrieved from https://nvdatabase. swarthmore.edu/ Hunter, R. (1998). From red diapers to protest banners. In J. Kaplan & L. Shapiro (Eds.), Red diapers: Growing up in the communist Left (pp. 27–32). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Johnstone, B. D. (2009). Financing higher education: Who pays and other issues. In P. G. Altbach, R. O. Berdahl, & P. J. Gumport (Eds.), The American university in the 21st century: Social, political, and economic challenges. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Johnstone, B. D. (2013). U.S. public universities in an era of continuing austerity: More of the same or profound change? Faculty Senate Bulletin: A Publication of the State University of New York University Faculty Senate, pp. 11–14. Available from http://www.gse.buffalo. edu/org/IntHigherEdFinance Keeling, R. P. (Ed.). (2004). Learning reconsidered: A campus-wide focus on the student experience. Washington, DC: NASPA. Lester, A. E. (2001, November 15). The new face of student activism. Harvard Crimson. Available online at http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2001/11/15/the-new-face-ofstudent-activism/

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Levi, M., Olson, D. J., & Steinman, E. (2002). Living-wage campaigns and laws. WorkingUSA, 6(3), 111–132. Lewis, J. (1998). Walking with the wind. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Lockhart, P. R. (2017, April 4). On the 49th anniversary of MLK’s assassination, activists are marching for the causes he championed. Mother Jones. Available from https://www. motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/fight-15-movement-black-lives-unite-nationalactions-april-4/ Luce, S. (2009). ACORN and the living wage movement. In R. Fisher (Ed.), The people shall rule: ACORN, community organizing, and the struggle for economic justice. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Morgan, D. R. (1997, November 13). Harvard’s free speech hypocrisy: The business school’s leaflet ban unfairly limits student activism. Harvard Crimson. Available from http://www. thecrimson.com/article/1997/11/13/harvards-free-speech-hypocrisy-pithe-university/ Muilenburg, K., & Singh, G. (2007). The modern living wage movement. Compensation and Benefits Review, 39(1), 21–27. Nordlund, W. J. (1988). A brief history of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Labor Law Journal, 39(11), 715–728. Offner, A. C. (2013). The Harvard living wage campaign: Origins and strategy. Employee Responsibility Rights Journal, 25(2), 135–142. Quigley, W. (2001). Full-time workers should not be poor: The living wage movement. Mississippi Law Journal, 70, 889–895 Razsa, M. (Producer), & Velez, P. (Director). (2002). Occupation: The story of the Harvard living wage sit-in [Film]. United States: En Masse Films. Rhoads, R. A., & Liu, A. (2008). Globalization, social movements, and the American university: Implications for research and practice. In J. C. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 273–315). Dordrecht: Springer. Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. New York, NY: Random House. Stone, A. (2004, December 18). Campus living wage project. Retrieved from http://www. clwproject.org/about.htm Student Worker Solidarity Resource Center. (2005). The Living Wage Action Coalition. Retrieved from http://www.livingwageaction.org/index.htm Swarthmore Living Wage and Democracy Campaign. (n.d.). Living wage. Retrieved from http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/living_wage/ Thelin, J. R. (2012). A history of American higher education. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Tilly, C. (2005). Living wage laws in the United States: The dynamics of a growing movement. In M. Kousis & C. Tilly (Eds.), Economic and political contention in comparative perspective (pp. 143–157). New York, NY: Routledge. Vellela, T. (1988). New voices: Student activism in the ’80s and ’90s. Boston, MA: South End Press. Walsh, J. (2000). Living wage campaigns storm the ivory tower: Low wage workers on campus. New Labor Forum, 6, 80–89. Wong, A. (2015, May 21). The renaissance of student activism. Atlantic. Available from https:// www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/05/the-renaissance-of-student-activism/ 393749

Chapter 10

Women’s Issues and Student Protest Betsy Eudey

Whether engaging in activism as feminists, as an extension of a “politics of care,” or as members of other social justice projects, activist collegians have helped improve social conditions while also supporting their own personal and professional development (Weaks-Baxter, Bruun, & Forslund, 2010). As chapters throughout this collection attest, female college students have a long history of activist engagements and are involved in movements related to a wide variety of educational and social issues. As Lipset (1993) points out, student activism is often catalyzed by “social discontentment,” especially when there is a perception that laws and policies fail to serve what is perceived to be the public good. He indicates that “social unrest causes student unrest, but once they start expressing their disquiet, students and intellectuals have been in many ways the vanguard of political change” (Lipset, 1993, p. 14). This chapter will highlight some of the ways in which female college students have participated in political change, especially with regard to issues tied to feminist and women-centered issues. Swank and Fahs (2012) note that historically “people in higher socioeconomic levels amass and retain the structural elicitors of activism, be it more money, wider educational opportunities, greater amounts of free time, or more chances to lead people in day-today scenarios” (p. 69). Those who identify as women and sexual and ethnic minorities often engage in activism at a higher rate than predicated by such claims. This suggests that, as college student populations have diversified with regard to sex, race/ethnicity, and economic class, and as methods of activism have also diversified, a wider range of people have amassed activist influence.

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Friedman and Ayres (2013) show that college women’s engagement with feminist activism is often correlated with women’s sense of social support and connection to/with other women, experiences with discrimination (including intersectional experiences of sexism, racism, classism, and heterosexism), and their social gender identity. Yorder, Tobias, and Snell (2011) find that college women who identify as feminists, regardless of their support for any particular feminist beliefs, engage in significantly more feminist activism than those who do not identify as feminists. They note that women who support a variety of feminist perspectives, but do not claim a feminist identity, are less likely to engage in collective action in support of their ideals. Enns and Fischer (2012) caution that much of the scholarship on activism and feminist identity, including the work of Yorder and colleagues, fails to include sufficient numbers of women of color to allow for consideration of their experiences, nor do they sufficiently include definitions of feminism and feminist activism that reflect contemporary understandings of these terms as experienced and theorized by women of color. With these limitations in play, what follows is an overview of college women’s activism, highlighting some key trends and issues addressed and utilizing the forms of activism. The level of women’s participation in education, and the racial/ethnic diversity of these women, is a consequence of historical activism that promoted inclusive educational institutions and influenced the types of activism engaged in by college and university students who identify as female. When statistics on post-secondary education were first collected, beginning in 1869–1870, “only about 1 percent of the 18- to 24-year old population” attended post-secondary education, and only 21% of the attendees were female (Snyder, 1993, p. 64). Women’s enrollment has grown steadily since that time, although as Table 10.1 indicates, women’s percentage of college enrollments ebbed and flowed over time depending on the overall number of males and females attending post-secondary institutions (Snyder, 1993). Table 10.1 Women’s post-secondary enrollments 1869–1870 to 1989–1990 Year

Number of women enrolled

1869–1870 13,372 1879–1880 37,856 1889–1890 56,303 1899–1900 85,338 1909–1910 140,651 1919–1920 282,942 1929–1930 480,802 1939–1940 600,953 1949–1950 723,328 1959–1960 1,307,230 1969–1970 3,258,459 1979–1980 5,887,022 1989–1990 7,348,545

Percentage female students 21.28% 32.68% 35.92% 35.98% 39.57% 47.32% 43.68% 40.22% 29.59% 56.04% 40.71% 50.88% 54.28%

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Among all college and university students enrolled in 2016, 56.48% identified as female, for a total of over 11.2 million students, following a trend of 56–57% female enrollment since 2000 (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2016). Comparing 2016 participation by level of enrollment, 56.05% of undergraduate students and 58.9% of post-baccalaureate students identified as female. As Table 10.2 indicates, women are currently overrepresented in post-secondary education when compared to their percentage distribution in the United States, with women of color slightly underrepresented overall, but less so at the undergraduate than graduate level for all racial/ethnic groups except Asian Americans and nonresident aliens. Table 10.2 2016 Enrollments 2016 enrollments Female White Black Hispanic Asian Pacific Islander American Indian/ Alaskan Native Two or more races Nonresident Alien

Overall postsecondary

Undergraduate

Post- % Distribution baccalaureate of US residents

56.48% 53.56% 14.54% 17.74% 5.95% 0.26%

56.05% 58.9% 50.76% 52.84% 56.09% 55.5% 14.56% 14.45% 15.1% 19.29% 9.36% 18.5% 5.86% 6.46% 6.2% 0.27% 0.22% 0.3%

0.76% 3.43% 3.95%

0.86% 3.60% 2.77%

0.51% 2.52% 10.39%

0.8% 3.6% N/A

Following the 1920 passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, female college students were less likely to focus on specific “women’s issues,” choosing instead broader societal issues such as opposing participation in war, mandatory chapel attendance, men’s compulsory military training, and supporting free speech and academic freedom. Solomon (1985) notes that “President Calvin Coolidge claimed in 1922 that the well-known eastern women’s colleges were fostering political radicalism” (p. 166), primarily because of their widely publicized anti-war protests. Women’s participation in anti-war protests and other forms of activism promoting peace became even more widespread in the 1930s, as did efforts to address racial exclusion and segregation on campuses and in other social institutions. By the early 1940s, concerns with war and peace continued to grow. While some women’s activists had been involved in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, there is historical consensus “that American women during World War II engaged completely and willingly in the war effort because of their patriotism and their desire to come to the aid of American men—not because they saw themselves as part of a concerted women’s movement.” (Weaks-Baxter et al., 2010, p. 2). While also engaging in activities to support U.S. troops, many women campus activists participated in anti-war efforts, including anti-conscription petitions, teach-ins, collecting money

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to assist war victims, selling pins and buttons, joining strikes against war (especially in collaboration with the American Student Union), and supporting refugee students and faculty. Weaks-Baxter and colleagues (2010) suggest that an ethic of care often motivated college women (notably those at Rockford College) to engage in such activism even when it might appear to challenge national narratives of patriotism or seem out of the scope of women’s roles. Through the early 1960s, college activism often focused on societal issues, including civil rights, women’s liberation, New Left, and environmental issues, and opposition to war (Howe, 2000; Solomon, 1985; Yamane, 2001). Female college students were typically strong members and official or unofficial leaders within campus-based activist organizations. Yet consciousness raising through such activism led many women in these movements to recognize that, in addition to racial and class oppression, many were experiencing oppression in society and within activist organizations based on their sex and sexual orientation (Holsaert, 2010; Moreno, 2009; Roth, 2004; Solomon, 1985; Yamane, 2001). In the 1960s, “not through college courses on women’s needs, but out of concern with the ideals of democracy came the unexpected awakening of feminist consciousness. Black women were the first to rebel against their subordinate roles in the civil rights movement, in 1964; soon white women protested against similar treatment” (Solomon, 1985, p. 202). Moreno (2009) highlights the development of Las Hijas de Cuauhtemoc at California State University, Long Beach, in 1970 as a means for Chicana activists to expand “on the movement’s analysis of oppression, contending that sexism and patriarchy were integrally linked to the struggle against racism and economic exploitation” (p. 31). Roth (2004) echoes this recognition that Black women and Chicana activists throughout the 1960s and 70s intentionally maintained connections with their ethnic cultural communities and men of color even as they addressed sexist oppression and explored new connections with White feminist activists and other women of color. Beginning in the 1960s, more widespread attention was given to curricular and educational policy issues as women activists promoted ethnic studies and women’s studies coursework and programs; the diversification of the faculty and administration; and more intentional recruitment, admission, and support for women and ethnic minority students (Howe, 2000; Solomon, 1985; Yamane, 2001). Female students were often among the key drivers of educational change, drawing increased attention to inequities and discrimination, and pushing for institutional change.

Title IX Enacted in 1972, Title IX of the Education Act stated that “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). Since its enactment, female student activists have drawn on Title IX to advocate for a wide variety of needs:

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access to student housing, scholarships, financial aid, courses, and academic majors; inclusion in cocurricular organizations and activities; support for pregnant students and student parents; and the bolstering of women’s intercollegiate athletic teams and athletic scholarships. Although those changes in athletics took a few years to gain attention, women were able to draw on Title IX to advocate for opportunities that had long been denied female athletes. In what is viewed as a catalyst to enhanced opportunities for women athletes, in 1976 the women’s crew team at Yale protested against a lack of shower and locker room facilities near the river in which they trained. A majority of team members entered the office of the director of women’s athletics, removed their sweats to display naked bodies with “Title IX” written on them, and read a statement about how the lack of facilities affected their bodies and ability to train. Obtaining national attention, the team received access to showers within a few days and a river-side locker room a year later (Brake, 2010). While protests, sit-ins, and petitions are sometimes utilized, lawsuits have been the most prominent means for students to challenge discriminatory institutional practices with regard to athletics and Title IX compliance. The suit Cohen v. Brown University, filed in 1992 and leading to the reinstatement of the women’s gymnastics and volleyball teams as varsity sports, established the “three-part test” criteria for determining whether institutions provide equitable opportunities for all sexes (Jackson-Gibson, 2017). The 2011 case Biediger v. Quinnipiac University involved a complaint by women’s volleyball team members protesting the elimination of their team in favor of competitive cheerleading. The courts ruled that cheerleading was not yet recognized as a sport and also identified other ways in which the university was manipulating rosters to falsely represent participation numbers (Jackson-Gibson, 2017). Protests and lawsuits brought by students have addressed team elimination and funding, scholarship and facility inequities, coaching and support staff allocations, treatment of pregnant athletes, rights for LGBT athletes, inequitable impacts on women of color athletes, and institutional marketing and promotion of teams (Brake, 2010; Jackson-Gibson, 2017). While curricular inclusion was not a component of Title IX, those supporting efforts to eliminate sex discrimination on college campuses recognized that inclusion of women’s contributions and experiences within the formal curriculum would advance their cause. Faculty teaching women-focused courses were essential in the development of women’s studies programs beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s; the “founding mothers” of such programs consistently recognize student activists as central to the creation and flourishing of the programs, especially in the early years after Title IX was enacted (Howe, 2000). Such student activism often emerged out of work on women’s rights, civil rights, and gay rights issues at campus, community, and national levels as students sought to connect their academic work to their activist interests. The first women’s studies program in U.S. colleges was founded at what is now San Diego State University in 1970, and by 1973, when undergraduate and graduate student activists worked to create a women’s studies program at the University of California,

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Berkeley, 78 of America’s colleges and universities had women’s studies programs (Bowles, 2000). With over 650 programs at present, and following the influences of activists, academics, and researchers, the field of women’s and gender studies (WGS) has expanded. Such studies have become increasingly intersectional and transnational in focus and have moved beyond the study of women to address an ever-increasing range of issues and interests that benefit from examination and attention from feminist or gender-based perspectives. In recent years, as women’s and gender studies programs have been the site of attacks from within and outside academia (Crossley, 2017), student activists have been instrumental in advocating for those programs and program faculty. Since the field of women’s (and later gender and sexuality) studies emerged out of women’s and civil rights movements, and because women’s studies coursework and programs were bolstered by student activism, activism and civic engagement have consistently been a component of women’s and gender studies. Students taking WGS courses “have shown changes toward more feminist attitudes, including an awareness of sexism; a greater sense of empowerment; and changes toward greater commitment to feminist activism” (Stake, 2007, p. 45). In a multi-campus study of WGS students, Stake finds that over the course of a semester, students increase their actual and intended levels of feminist activism, with African and Euro American students showing greater increases than Asian Americans (too few students of other identities were present in the sample for separate analysis), and greater increases in activism were reported by those who felt more empowered at the end of the course. Although WGS courses are known to include activist or service-learning components (Balliet & Heffernan, 2000; Crossley, 2017; Stake, 2007), students taking women and gender studies courses engage in many forms of additional activism during the term, including efforts to influence peer understanding of feminist issues. Campus-based student organizations can be grassroots and local in focus or be tied to regional, national, or international organizations. Groups may develop to respond to a specific issue or event or may intend to have a lasting presence on campus as student interest allows. While there are some benefits to affiliation with national or regional organizations, including access to staff, workshops/trainings, and inclusion in their information distribution networks (via social media, websites, and print mailings), affiliated groups are at times constrained by the organization’s mission and interests or find the group fails to reflect the local issues most important to campus activists. In addition to politically motivated organizations addressing sex and gender- and sexuality-based inequalities, social sororities can also support women’s activism as members engage in philanthropic activities and support sisterhood through participation in women-centered activities. Crossley (2017) notes that sororities that have historically included primarily Latina and Black women have been more likely to be focused on activism and service than historically White sororities and often have more overtly feminist (or womanist) identities. When interests align, coalitions among sororities and women-led social justice

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organizations create opportunities to share funding and organizing personnel and foster more avenues for sharing information via social networks and media. In recent years, such coalitions have supported participation in women’s marches, #MeToo and other anti-harassment and assault events, breast cancer awareness, support for immigrants and DACA students, and the Black Lives Matter movement, drawing on a variety of tactics. These strategies include marches, petitions, lawsuits, sit-ins and teach-ins, poetry slams and art shows, social media postings, viral videos, and hashtag activism (Adler, 2016; Crossley, 2017; Germain, 2016; Rentschler, 2018). Many feminist student organizations are sponsored or advised by women’s and gender studies faculty and by the staff in campus women’s centers. Crossley (2017) points out that, at some campuses, groups sponsored by official university centers can be constrained by student affairs staff member needs to comply with institutional policies and views of appropriate content, whereas student groups without such direct affiliation are more free to engage in controversial, oppositional actions. The institutional structures of academic departments that often separate women’s and/or gender studies from ethnic studies, LGBT studies, and other interdisciplinary programs, and that have women’s centers that are isolated from other student support centers, can limit coalition building across communities interested in social justice work and impede intersectional activism. Student activists and faculty and staff can play pivotal roles in negotiating the benefits and challenges of institutionalized feminist activism via women’s and gender studies and women’s centers. Swank and Fahs (2012) find that collegiate participants in lesbian, gay, and bisexual rights movements are more likely than nonparticipants to be connected to others who are activists and recruit them into movement activities and to have feminist friends. Further, regardless of class position or educational attainment, active participation is tied both to awareness of systemic discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and a drive to challenge such oppression. However, “education might have an indirect effect on LGB protesting, as certain feminist, gender and sexuality courses can lead students into the sorts of perspectives that inspire progressive activism” (Swank & Fahs, 2012, p. 84). Friedman and Ayres (2013) disclose that sexual minority college women are more likely than heterosexual women to act on their commitments to feminist activism and to engage in activism earlier in their college careers. Experiencing the dual oppressions of sexism and heterosexism (perhaps also intersecting with racism, classism, ableism, and other oppressions) is viewed as supporting understanding of the need for collective, organized activities to combat structural inequalities, thus encouraging collective action. Heterosexual women who report resistance to heteronormativity and are aware of heterosexual privilege are especially likely to engage as allies in lesbian/gay activism (Montgomery & Stewart, 2012).

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Sexual Harassment and Assault Although college women are involved in a wide array of activist work, their efforts to address issues of sexual harassment and sexual assault are among the most important, and they precede the #MeToo movement by decades. Filed by students, Alexander v. Yale (1980) was a class action lawsuit alleging institutional failure to protect students from sexual harassment and to appropriately address or investigate complaints. This was the first suit against a post-secondary institution to apply Title IX to issues of sexual harassment. Central to the activist nature of this lawsuit, the remedy sought by the plaintiffs was not monetary compensation nor action against alleged perpetrators, but a legal requirement for Yale University to develop a student grievance procedure to respond to student reports of sexual harassment. Though the plaintiffs did not win, the case did set legal precedent that sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination covered by Title IX. Yale and many other post-secondary institutions began voluntarily creating grievance procedures to better respond to sexual harassment complaints. Throughout the 1980s activists drew attention to concerns with sexual harassment and violence against women, including protests against rape culture in the Greek system and institutional failures to make visible the crimes occurring on college campuses. Such activism led to passage of the 1990 Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act, renamed the Clery Act in 1998. The act was passed after a Lehigh University student was raped and murdered in her dorm room in 1986. It includes requirements for compiling and reporting crime statistics and some calls for education and prevention (U.S. Department of Education, 2016). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, women at Brown University began writing information about their experiences with sexual assault on the walls of the library bathroom stalls. As administrators became aware of this, the walls were repeatedly painted over. Female students continued to rewrite their messages, including the naming of alleged perpetrators, and moved the writings to other bathrooms throughout campus. Seawell and Ekpo (2014) report that these writings came to be deemed the “rape list” and received attention not only in campus publications, but in national media and popular talk shows. Female students became especially discontented by the concerns raised about men being falsely accused rather than focusing on the number of women who had experienced sexual assault without appropriate institutional response. The activism of the concerned women of Brown led to a “Sexual Assault Task Force to create a formal forum with which to deal with issues of sexual assault, creation of the Sexual Assault Peer Educators program, mandatory class meetings about sexual assault, and a revised Non-Academic Disciplinary System that dealt more stringently with instances of sexual assault” (Seawell & Ekpo, 2014, para. 4). Although some improvements initially came from these actions, in 2007 student activists at Brown initiated new protests because of inadequate institutional response to sexual violence and assault. In 2014, rape lists reemerged in campus bathroom stalls

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at Brown University, and in April of that year Brown student Lena Sclove held a press conference to describe her sexual assault experience from the fall of 2013, the months it took for the campus to review the case, and the impact on her when the perpetrator only received a 1-year suspension. The press conference inspired other Brown students to create a petition, obtaining thousands of signatures via social media and campus networks, that expressed their support for Sclove and other survivors, called for better institutional response to victims, and demanded the suspension of all students found responsible for assault until their victim(s) had graduated or 2 years had passed (Seawell & Ekpo, 2014). These actions culminated in the creation of the Imagine Rape Zero campaign that led to the development of the Petition to Reimagine and Restructure Brown University’s Sexual Assault Policy, several rallies, and broad use of social media to connect activists and spread word of their concerns. In 2010 and early 2011, the widespread campus protests, viral social media posts, petitions, and other forms of campus activism garnered the attention of the Obama administration and led to federal action. On April 4, 2011, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali authored a “dear colleague” letter affirming the necessity for educational institutions to prevent and adequately respond to issues of sexual violence and all other forms of sexual harassment, as these undermine educational opportunities and are violations of Title IX. The letter described Title IX requirements, provided guidance for responding to incidents, and clarified procedural requirements to implement Title IX. This was followed in January 2014 by the establishment of the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault and the September 2014 launching of the “It’s on Us” campaign to address issues of consent, bystander education, and survivor support. It is noteworthy that on September 22, 2017, the 2011 dear colleague letter and the affiliated 2014 document offering “questions and answers on Title IX and sexual violence” were both rescinded by the Trump administration based on claims that they failed to support appropriate due process procedures and failed to protect the rights of the accused (Jackson, 2017). While the Obama administration guidance was in place, civil rights complaints became a prominent form of activism addressing sexual harassment and assault on campuses. The first such lawsuit to attain national attention was launched at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2012 by Andrea Pino and Annie E. Clark on behalf of themselves and 64 classmates. They claimed that the university violated their rights as sexual assault survivors/victims (Kingkade, 2013). Through use of social, print, and visual media, Pino, Clark, and their supporters were able to make their concerns widely known and to influence change at their own and other campuses. The UNC complaint was soon followed by a civil rights complaint filed against Occidental College, claiming 37 students were targets of sexual harassment or assault without appropriate responses or were retaliated against for their activism when addressing these issues (Winton, 2013). On May 22, 2013, additional complaints were filed against Dartmouth College, Swarthmore College, UC Berkeley, and the University of Southern California, each alleging

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institutional failures to adequately respond to reports of sexual assault or harassment, and/or failing to comply with the Clery Act (Castellanos, 2013). Organizations founded by student activists, including End Rape on Campus and Know Your Title IX, help students to understand their rights and how to file complaints with the U.S. Office of Civil Rights and Department of Education. In May, 2014, there were 55 colleges and universities under investigation by the Office of Civil Rights, and by May, 2016 there were 235 open investigations and 193 active cases reported (many with multiple investigations per case) in August 2018 (Chronicle of Higher Education, n.d.). Artistic works have also played a valuable role in drawing attention to issues of sexual assault. Initially founded by an undergraduate volunteer, since 2006 the University of Michigan’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center has organized an art exhibition “as a platform for the University community to address issues including sexual violence, gender and sexism” (Ors, 2018, para. 2). Organizers recognize that many express themselves and heal more effectively through art than via the written or spoken word. In 2014, sexual assault survivor Emma Sulkowicz of Columbia University drew international attention for her performance art project “Carry That Weight.” Sulkowicz carried a 50-pound mattress everywhere she went on campus, drawing attention to issues of sexual assault, the weight that survivors/victims carry after an assault, and her concerns with inadequate institutional response to assault reports (Smith, 2014). The “Where Do We Go from Here” project at Harvard placed around campus plexiglass structures with responses and data from the campus sexual assault conduct survey and asked students to add their comments to the walls to advance consideration of the information (Adler, 2016). Student performances can also have curricular ties, as demonstrated by Pataki and Mackenzie’s (2012) theater education course that addresses violence against women in global contexts. The course culminates in a public student performance of a devised play exploring a range of issues related to violence in global context. It also raises money through donations and the sale of t-shirts and wristbands. By the fall of 2017, when versions of the #MeToo movement emerged, campus-based activism addressing campus violence had been underway for decades. Even so, female activists on campus have been actively involved in the movement, utilizing social media to share stories and support survivors, participating in campus- and community-based marches and protests, making use of informal online reporting, and advocating for institutional policies and procedures that support victims and hold perpetrators accountable for their actions (Rentschler, 2018). In conclusion, this chapter has highlighted some of the ways in which collegiate women have engaged in activism to address the conditions in their own lives, improve their campus community, and engage in social justice issues locally, nationally, and transnationally. While the issues presented in this chapter have primarily focused on collectivist action on concerns of direct connection to women’s lives engaged in from feminist perspectives, the scope of women’s activism is enlarged when their contributions to other movements and via other standpoints are considered (as exemplified in

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other chapters in this collection). The impact of collegiate activism is further extended when individualist, everyday activism is added to the mix, as women make such daily choices as consuming goods with a social justice mind-set, sharing information with others to promote women’s empowerment, writing a letter of complaint or support, confronting small acts of sexism and other forms of oppression, and engaging in self-care (Baumgardner & Richards, 2005). The contributions of women collegians are myriad and they continue to change the world.

References Adler, J. G. (2016, April 13). Students’ art installation asks Harvard to reflect on sexual assault. Harvard Crimson. Available from https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/4/13/ art-installation-on-sexual-assault/ Alexander v. Yale 631 F.2d 178 (2nd Cir. 1980) Ali, R. (2011, April 4). Dear colleague letter. United States Office for Civil Rights. Washington, DC. Archived document retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/ letters/colleague-201104.html Balliet, B. J., & Heffernan, K. (Eds). (2000). The practice of change: concepts and models for service-learning in women’s studies. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education. Baumgardner, J., & Richards, A. (2005). Grassroots: A field guide for feminist activism. New York, NY: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. Bowles, G. (2000). From the bottom up: The students’ initiative. In F. Howe (Ed.), The politics of women’s studies: Testimony from thirty founding mothers (pp. 142–154). New York, NY: Feminist Press. Brake, D. L. (2010). Getting in the game: Title IX and the women’s sports revolution. New York, NY: New York University Press. Castellanos, D. (2013, May 23). USC, Berkeley mishandling sex crimes against women, Allred says. Los Angeles Times. Available from http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/23/local/ la-me-ln-usc-berkeley-mishandling-sex-crimes-against-women-allred-says-20130522 Chronicle of Higher Education. (n.d.). About the Chronicle’s Title IX investigation tracker. Available from https://projects.chronicle.com/titleix/about/ Crossley, A. D. (2017). Finding feminism: Millennial activists and the unfinished gender revolution. New York, NY: New York University Press. Enns, C. Z., & Fischer, A. R. (2012). On the complexity of multiple feminist identities. Counseling Psychologist, 40(8), 1149–1163. Friedman, C. K., & Ayres, M. (2013). Predictors of feminist activism among sexual-minority and heterosexual college women. Journal of Homosexuality, 60(12), 1726–1744. Germain, L. J. (2016). College sexual assault: College women respond. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Holsaert, F. (2010). Hands on the freedom plow: Personal accounts by women in SNCC. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Howe, F. (Ed.). (2000). The politics of women’s studies: Testimony from 30 founding mothers. New York, NY: Feminist Press.

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Jackson, C. (2017, September 22). Dear colleague letter. United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. Washington, DC. Available from https://www2.ed.gov/about/ offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-title-ix-201709.pdf Jackson-Gibson, A. (2017, June 23). Title IX’s 45th anniversary tour: Four Title IX lawsuits that rocked the world of women’s sports. Excelle Sports. Retrieved from http://www. excellesports.com/news/lawsuits-title-ix-womens-sports/ Kingkade, T. (2013, January 16). University of North Carolina routinely violates sexual assault survivor rights, students claim. Huffington Post. Available from https://www.huffingtonpost. com/2013/01/16/unc-sexual-assault_n_2488383.html Lipset, S. M. (1993). Rebellion in the university: With a new introduction by the author. New Brunswick, Canada: Transaction. Montgomery, S. A., & Stewart, A. J. (2012). Privileged allies in lesbian and gay rights activism: Gender, generation, and resistance to heteronormativity. Journal of Social Issues, 68(1), 162–177. Moreno, M. (2009). “Of community, for the community”: The Chicana/o student movement in California’s public higher education, 1967–1973 (Published doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ERIC/ProQuest LLC. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). (2016). Digest of education statistics. Available from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_306.10.asp Ors, S. (2018, April 8). rEvolution exhibition showcases art, addresses healing from sexual violence. Michigan Daily. Available from https://www.michigandaily.com/section/ campus-life/revolution-exhibition-creates-beauty-while-addressing-sexual-violence Pataki, S. P., & Mackenzie, S. A. (2012). Modeling social activism and teaching about violence against women through theatre education. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 36(4), 500–503. Rentschler, C. A. (2018). #MeToo and student activism against sexual violence. Communication, Culture and Critique, 11(3), 503–507. Roth, B. (2004). Separate roads to feminism: Black, Chicana and White feminist movements in America’s second wave. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Seawell, S., & Ekpo, P. (2014, May 14). “Rape list” returns: 25 years of sexual assault activism at Brown. Bluestockings magazine. Available from http://bluestockingsmag. com/2014/05/15/rape-list-returns-25-years-of-sexual-assault-activism-at-brown/ Smith, R. (2014, September 21). In a mattress: A lever for art and political protest. New York Times. Available from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/arts/design/in-a-mattressa-fulcrum-of-art-and-political-protest.html Snyder, T. D. (1993). 120 years of American education: A statistical report. National Center for Education Statistics; U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93442.pdf Solomon, B. M. (1985). In the company of educated women: A history of women and higher education in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Stake, J. E. (2007). Predictors of change in feminist activism through women’s and gender studies. Sex Roles, 57(1–2), 43–54. Swank, E., & Fahs, B. (2012). Resources, social networks, and collective action frames of college students who join the gay and lesbian rights movement. Journal of Homosexuality, 59(1), 67–89.

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U.S. Department of Education. (2015, April). Title IX and sex discrimination. Office of Civil Rights. Washington, DC: Author. Available from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/ list/ocr/docs/tix_dis.html U.S. Department of Education. (2016). The handbook for campus safety and security reporting, 2016 edition. Office of Postsecondary Education. Washington, DC: Author. Available from https://ifap.ed.gov/eannouncements/attachments/HandbookforCampusSafety and SecurityReporting.pdf Weaks-Baxter, M., Bruun, C., & Forslund, C. (2010). We are a college at war: Women working for victory in World War II. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Winton, R. (2013, April 18). Occidental College wants review of handling of sex abuse cases. Los Angeles Times. Available from http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/18/local/ la-me-occidental-rape-20130419 Yamane, D. (2001). Student movements for multiculturalism: Challenging the curricular color line in higher education. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Yorder, J. D., Tobias, A., & Snell, A. F. (2011). When declaring “I am a feminist” matters: Labeling is linked to activism. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, 64(1–2), 9–18.

Chapter 11

Peter Pan Is White Boy Wasted: The Wanderlust of College Men in Protest Pietro A. Sasso

In the latter part of the first decade of the 21st century, the hip-hop artist Gucci Mane collaborated with other musical artists, including Mariah Carey and even Marilyn Mason. He also pioneered the subgenre “trap rap” of hip-hop music. In 2009, he most notably coined a term that has entered the popular lexicon and vernacular that has remained ubiquitous with the same styled song, entitled “Wasted.” The song detailed the racial mirroring of young African American men who engage in heavy episodic drinking akin to traditionally, college-aged White men. Within the song Gucci Manne quips: I don’t wear tight jeans like the white boys/But I do get wasted like the white boys/Big boy bracelets we white boy wasted/

It is fascinating that collegiate White men have become synonymous with the sophomoric behaviors similar to those of the “frat boy” stereotype as reflected by Manne, a hip-hop artist. This song popularized the vernacular colloquialism “White boy wasted.” Today, it is simply used to describe excessive alcohol consumption by young adult males. It is often used by White women, persons of color, and other historically marginalized groups to describe themselves in situations in which they are heavily intoxicated and engaging in the performativity of ridiculously exaggerated behaviors. However, this is more than just “collegiate slang.” The concept of White boy wasted, in the present context, reflects a larger sense of irony and larger cultural narrative. It is contemplative of

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the dispossession of collegiate masculinity and its lived experiences in the wanderlust of privilege. The notion itself weaves a complex narrative of male gender performativity in which gender is relegated to class status among these cisgendered White men. One of the most common methods by which to better conceptualize masculinity is through discussion of relations among masculinities as framed by Connell (1995). He explained that there is no single masculinity, but multiple socially constructed forms whereby men create masculinities in relation to one another. These masculinities comprise a stratification system that intersects with others systems based on social class and race. At the top of this stratification is the type of masculinity called “hegemonic masculinity,” which is the ideal type and is consistent with the intersection of achieved class and masculinity (Pleck, Richardson, & Taylor, 1983). Subordinated to hegemonic masculinity is protest masculinity, which according to Connell (1995) entails a focus on working-class culture, which draws from traditional, active heterosexual practices. This construction causes “a tense . . . facade, making a claim to power where there are no real resources for power” (Connell, 1995, p. 111). Protest masculinity favors working-class male identities over more mainstream conceptualizations of hegemonic masculinity, which results in socially constructed, individual tension narratives between classes of White men. All this applies directly to the collegiate concept of “White boy wasted.” The picture now comes into focus: a college male who is engaging the privileges of the hegemonic male but is shirking its image in favor of protest masculinities more reflective of working-class culture as a compensatory masculinity. This juxtaposition of hegemonic and protest masculinities is explored in this chapter, beginning with its historic roots with the Harvard masculine ideal. The chapter will also offer comparisons with the contemporary performativity of White boy wasted undergraduate college men by presenting a typology of how White male privilege expresses itself in student activism.

Harvard Masculine Ideal The foundations of collegiate manhood can be traced to postbellum (post-Civil War) Harvard College. This period is often referred to as a professorial “golden age,” which included notable scholars such as William James, Josiah Royce, C.S. Peirce, Louis Agassiz, Henry Adams, and Charles Eliot Norton. They were led by a much-lauded president, Charles William Eliot. Townsend (1996) suggests that these men were situated within very privileged positions, which elevated Harvard to the preeminent American university by the turn of the century. During their ascent of status, they ascribed to a specific masculine ethos of the “Harvard man.” The Harvard man was a masculine ideal aimed toward a specific norm that Townsend (1996) also argued was a form of masculinity anchored in post-bellum ideality, characterized by specific attributes of physical and intellectual White Anglo-Saxon elitism. It can also largely be described as congruent with the rugged manhood intellectual ideal of Teddy Roosevelt.

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In an alumni essay published in 1902, Harvard history professor Albert Bushnell Hart retrospectively noted that “teaching men manhood” was “not a matter of record on the College books.” Bushnell concluded that, in subtle ways, it nonetheless occurred. Notably, male students were socialized to seek an elusive ethos of “manhood” influenced by Harvard president Charles William Eliot. Eliot inculcated this new conceptualization of manhood through his transformation of the curriculum to an elective system, mandating physical fitness and embrace of intercollegiate athletics. He also moved higher education away from rote learning to align it more closely with commerce and industry. However, a more holistically abstracted concept of manhood never achieved an ideal articulation at Harvard. This circumstance is, ironically, similar to Teddy Roosevelt’s quest, which did more to vulgarize the rugged masculine intellectual than to reinforce it. Today the “masculine” tradition has generally declined at Harvard and across higher education, but the same expectations of manhood have been upheld in the bastions of fraternities, collegiate athletics, and other male organizations on college campuses. Thus, the rugged masculine ideal is still palpable in discussions of contemporary gender issues but has evolved into a state of commodification. The Harvard manhood ideal has now become synonymous with collegiate male culture on such websites as College Humor or #TFM (Total Frat Move). The latter is a forced-choice consumerist culture, which reflects a diluted version of the Harvard man as one cocooned in privilege and with the luxuries of wanderlust.

Student Consumerism Media headlines have appeared questioning, “Where have all the cowboys gone?” as a double entendre to the 1990s Paula Cole pop song. They proclaim a crisis of masculinity for men within the United States and often cite the declining graduation rates at colleges. Titles include “The End of Men” (Rosin, 2010) and “Is There a Crisis in Education of Males?” (Jaschik, 2008). However, a shift in narrative occurred in 2010 with such titles as “Men’s Lib” (Romano & Dokopil, 2010). This shift demonstrated that among college men there was a backlash and rise in entrenchment of hegemonic masculinity (i.e., those cultural practices, behaviors, and ideologies that maintain the dominant power of heterosexual men) (Donaldson, 1993). Other seminal masculinity scholars such as Tracy Davis, Shaun Harper, Frank Harris, Michael Kimmel, Jason, Laker, Michael Messner, Daniel Tillapaugh, and Rachel Wagner all recognize salient issues and challenges to college men. However, no scholars have identified the rise of protest masculinity among White, hegemonic males. This trend is not simply rooted in historical patriarchy, as noted in the previous section of this chapter, but as a direct reflection of consumerist identity. This failure of recognition is endemic of higher education not recognizing such male privilege; indeed, it has been enabling its existence.

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Contemporary colleges and universities have also adopted the role of “certifier” of middle-class America in search of success, privilege, and prestige. That evolution of the core purposes of the college into a university industry has underlined the importance that society now places on “credentialing”—a process and practice that has widely co-opted more humane, moral, and psychic academic values. In the tantalizing image of higher education as a “right,” today’s undergraduates have become mass consumers. Colleges and universities have sold their services (and some would say their souls) as part of that expectation under the pressure of meeting the bottom line. In the process, they have become more like corporate entities that exist to sell a product. The trend toward consumerism seems antithetical to the life of the mind and a development of well-rounded character so vital in more traditional forms of liberal education that have been central to the ethos of the Harvard masculine ideal (Townsend, 1996). White college men now exist as consumers of their exacted privilege, purchasing a preconceived and contrived, mass-produced conceptualization of collegiate masculinity. Awash in this litany of neo-liberalism, many college men are in a purgatory of perpetual wanderlust. This wanderlust imagery betokens a failed attempt to find one’s true self, but this can also be a product of self-alienation as Whiteness necessarily obscures the self. White men are unknown to themselves, producing a search for external fulfillment wrapped in a system of patriarchy, and have ascribed to a packaged consumerism of their Whiteness. This masculine experience has buried the capacity of college men to find meaning in their lives. Thus, the wanderlust imagery is a larger metaphor for a college male who is awash in privilege, yet experiences sentiments of being misplaced. This is the underlying concept of dispossession within White college men. Their rugged masculine ideal has been commodified, co-opted by neo-liberal policies within higher education, and transformed by a consumerist culture. College White men are looking for meaning and authenticity but have struggled to find legitimacy in any presentation of their current circumstances. Thus, they feel a sense of absence and have externalized blame to others, rather than looking inward. The sentiment of absence has been externalized as dispossession wherein they affectively express that their privilege or masculinity has been pilfered. Yet, the irony is that White college men are now couched in isolation from wanderlust and sit within a majority culture with those sentiments of dispossession. There is angst that they have been dispossessed of an authentic identity due to a White culture obscured by materialism, which they purchased with their own privilege. They are overwhelmed by what privilege still exists and feel marginalized by older baby boomers and generation X White males. As a result, they sit in confusion, brewing in anger. They are functionally fixed in constant cognitive overload. White college men are overwhelmed by their consumer privilege, but wrestling with an internal strife of what they feel has been deposed. In response, White men now engage in protest masculinity as a direct rebuke to the consumer culture. Yet, as they are obscured by their own

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privilege, they are unable to articulate or conceptualize any authenticity to which they engage this orientation toward others. College male subculture now reflects an underlying discontent in which men are largely impotent to identify the faceless consumer culture of privilege that is in many ways benign to them. Inasmuch as they are unable to articulate or direct their discontent in their performativity of protest masculinity, they have largely affianced in disengagement. This is a response to what they believe is their dispossession of privilege, which has further reinforced their feelings of marginality. Kimmel (2017) further describes this dispossession sentiment of White college men: It is that aggrieved entitlement that fuels their rage: once they were in power, they believe, but now they’ve been emasculated, their birth-right transferred to others who don’t deserve it. And now they march, and fight, and bomb innocent civilians, to reclaim their manhood. . . . Entirely unaware of the privileges that they already accrued, just by virtue of being white and male, they focus instead, again, partly correctly in my view—at their dispossession. (p. 277)

Thus, this reflects a larger contemporary trend of protest masculinity and is a possible expression of student consumer discontent. Such protest masculinity manifests in different forms, and this chapter will offer a typology of the performativity of collegiate male protest masculinity.

Peter Pan Syndrome The seeming indolence and inertness exhibited by White college men can also be simply explained by the metaphor of Peter Pan. The aforementioned concept of purgatory can be seen in Peter Pan in Never Never Land. Peter Pan was racially and gender ambiguous and did not exhibit rage. However, he was afraid of the dispossession of his privilege. He disengaged from reality and retreated to a more comfortable, idealized world. In contemporary times, many White collegiate men become disengaged, withdrawing to Never Never Land. Conversely, others simmer in anger and rage. They provide violent outbursts, and often such behavior begs the question, “Why are White men so angry?” That question occurs particularly when another Charlottesville, Virginia, event happens—one where collegiate White men carrying torches and dressed in Oxford shirts, polos, Sperry brand shoes, and pastel-colored shorts march in protest against the removal of a Confederate statue. It also occurs when another Mark Anthony Conditt, Adam Lanza, Dylann Roof, or Stephen Paddock decides, with no clear provocation, to

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weaponize and protest masculinity in anger and murder. Many of these men are college graduates. Yet, what is paradoxical and perplexing is how these same White men exist in a privileged space in America and on college campuses. They exist in spaces where men who look ghostly similar to them own most of the property, possess most of the financial assets, and lead most of the businesses. Often these same men, while in college, avoided leadership positions, but now assume elected offices to create agendas and enact policies specifically meant to sustain benefits for the same ghostly other men. However, they expect to assume this positionality of privilege where men are frequently celebrated and exalted. They exist in spaces and environments where this validation exists in perpetuity and where they are never guests. Negative consequences for such men are more of an abstraction than a reality. When these privileges are in any way challenged, reduced, or do not occur, these events become news when those honors are extended to dissimilar others, such as underrepresented populations in higher education. Such events further seed their sentiment of dispossession, and, in response, they continue to “Columbus” (assume property) and colonize all spaces. Kimmel (2008) explains that college becomes the arena in which young men so relentlessly seem to act out, seem to take the greatest risks, and do some of the stupidest things. Directionless and often clueless, they rely increasingly on their peers to usher them into adulthood and validate their masculinity. And their peers often have some interesting plans for what they will have to endure to prove that they are real men. (p. 43)

And yet these men are our domestic terrorists, militia founders, and leaders. They are our angriest police officers, teachers, accountants, engineers, and college professors. One is also currently the president of our country. Yet, in this age of “Trump,” we would expect others to attempt to play the “Trump card” (White privilege card), which “trumps” other conceptions of masculinity in their pursuit of the modified Harvard masculine ideal.

The Counter Narrative of Protest Masculinity Hegemonic masculinity can be broadly defined as the practice of heteronormative dominant masculinity that reinforces Edwards’s (2007) concept of the man box. The term implies a rigid set of expectations, perceptions, and behaviors of what is “manly” behavior. In a study by Edwards and Jones (2009), men describe being socialized from an early age about expected gender norms. They cite a great deal of pressure to conform by individuals within their lives as well as male institutions (Edwards & Jones, 2009;

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Harris & Edwards, 2010). As a result, the men indicate that they felt as though they wore different masks to present distinctive contextual versions of themselves (Edwards & Jones, 2009). Edwards and Jones (2009) ascribe the concept of a mask to designate the tensions they felt when they interfaced with gender-role conflict (Pleck et al., 1983) in competition with the expectations of others and masculine institutions (Edwards & Jones, 2009). The mask metaphor is a core concept that elucidates the performativity of gender by men who are actively attempting to perform masculinity to varying levels of success. The man box is consistent with the hegemony in which men situate themselves above all others. Also within the hegemony, men are marginalized who do not perfectly fit the description of a “real man”; they are positioned into gender locations termed subordinate masculinities. There is an absolute assumption within this theory of masculinity that no man perfectly assumes the description and that all men are limited by hegemonic masculinity through policing of behaviors seen as “violations” (Edwards & Jones, 2009). The concept of male hegemony encourages, or rather demands, that every man strive to be the alpha male. That is, the male is the most strong and powerful when rewarded with multiple attractive women. The hegemony of males also structures a social stratification and hierarchy of masculinity among men that also asserts that women are subordinate to men. And it reinforces what many consider to be outdated gender expectations (DeVitis & Sasso, 2015). On an individual level, the culture of hegemonic masculinity claims that a male must apply the Harvard masculine ideal to be vital, strong, and sturdy; and he must engage in restricted emotionality. It is also assumed that only a limited number can attain this revered status. “Other” men fall into the social stratification, and such “undesirables” include those who have been historically oppressed (e.g., men of color, gay men, and men with disabilities). The hegemonic male perceives that the “ideal” is virtually unattainable for these populations of men. The individual performativity of hegemonic masculinity dictates that deviation from “ideal” gender expression and “ideal” gender identity expectation serves as a constraint to manhood. In other words, any performance of gender by men can be viewed as challenged when they assume forms that may include such actions as expressing feelings, showing weakness, feeling comfortable expressing themselves, or adopting more gender-neutral traits.

Hegemonic Masculinity The concept of “hegemonic masculinity” has been used in analyses of gender relations for more than two decades, but there is little consistency in the application of the concept and its definition (Beasley, 2008; Hearn, 2004; Howson, 2008). Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) have redefined “hegemonic masculinity” as a normative male ideal in a society that supports gender hierarchy and subordinates marginal masculinities and men who do not comply with it. Hegemonic masculinity is to be seen as a

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cultural prototype or ideal masculinity. It is acknowledged and accepted by both women and men in a society within heteronormative cultures, even if they have no chance of conforming toward the ideal (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Lusher & Robins, 2009). The notion of hegemonic masculinity plays a central role in the socialization of young men in college. Kimmel and Davis (2011) define hegemony as “the process of influence where we learn to earnestly embrace a system of beliefs and practices that essentially harm us, while working to uphold the interests of others who have power over us” (p. 9). Hegemonic masculinity is the most socially endorsed form of male behavior (Peralta, 2007). Men in specific competitive subcultures project and hold a favorable, culturally based, idealized version of themselves or others and subscribe to a dominant construction of masculinity (Connell, 1995). These and additional findings posit men, especially fraternity members, as engaging in compensatory behaviors according to a schematic framework of masculinity. Kimmel and Davis (2011) also suggest that the reinforcement of traditional masculine norms may damage or hurt those who uphold those notions. Cultural norms within the practice of hegemonic masculinity include assertiveness, subordination of women, aggressiveness, and self-reliance (Connell, 1987; Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). These cultural norms, among men in contemporary Western societies, characterize “ideal men” as young, heterosexually active, economically successful, athletically inclined, and self-assured (Connell, 1987). These norms facilitate a demand characteristic that encourages conformity and institutionalizes it as in-group norms with rites of passage (Kimmel, 2008). Rogers (2006) finds that fraternity members create the image of hegemonic masculinity by identifying “Mr. Right” through recruitment, created attitudes and beliefs, and maintaining the image of manhood through hazing and alcohol. Additionally, hegemony is sustained through competition between members and fraternities. Women engage in a dialectical relationship with fraternities and are utilized as tools to aid in the competition between fraternities (Locke & Mahalik, 2005). Negative reprisal occurs if the image is not maintained and is perceived as a challenge to masculine identity. Heterosexual rituals and paternalistic chivalry are also utilized to exacerbate the formation and reinforcement of the masculine identity of subordinate members (Rogers, 2006). These cultural norms are demonstrated when men conform and engage in socially desirable behaviors according to the standards of hegemonic masculinity. This is evident in certain contexts involving alcohol as a form of gender expression (West, 2001). When these cultural norms are challenged, men respond by engaging in compensatory behaviors. The response is that college males exaggerate their masculinity in navigating the dissonance between conformity and authenticity because it is perceived as a sex-role threat.

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Compensatory Masculinity Compensatory masculinity, also known as performance masculinity, is a form of gender expression in which men respond in overcompensation to challenges to the hegemonic culture (Edwards & Jones, 2009). For example, men from a “blue-collar” socioeconomic background consume beer as an act of compensatory masculinity to appear more authentic around others of the same socioeconomic class (Hemmingsson et al., 1998; Janes & Ames, 1989; Kaminer & Dixon, 1995). In a series of two studies, Harris (2008, 2010) sought to understand how young men in college made meaning of masculinities and the influence of the college environment. In a diverse sample of 68 participants from a large private university on the West Coast, it was found that men engaged in compensatory behaviors in response to environmental challenges or contextual influences. The participants continued to reinforce individual conceptualizations and meanings of masculinity in the form of one’s family, interactions with peers on-campus, and participation in masculine-affirming organizations or activities (Harris, 2008, 2010). Another method by which males reinforce masculinity to compensate is through alcohol and shared narratives.

Protest Masculinity The progenitor concept of masculine protest, or compulsatory masculinity, was developed by Talcott Parsons (1954) and further developed by Connell (1995) as a specialization within Western kinship systems. Parsons (1954) posits that adolescent boys raised by mothers with absentee fathers experience lost gender identity and often embrace a “bad boy” complex completely opposite to the femininity of their mother. Those “bad boys” obtain normal middle-class status later in adulthood and submerge into latency. However, those who are of lower socioeconomic status continue to express the same bad boy imagery and gender performativity. Connell (1995) expands on this context of social class with the term “protest masculinity” to explain the differences of class status in the expression of masculinity. Connell (1995) suggests that protest masculinity is more difficult to submerge among low-income men, and so this form of male gender performativity is often a product of egotism constructed from deep feelings of powerlessness and insecurity. Connell (1995) describes it as a “tense, freaky façade, making a claim to power where there are no real resources for power” (p. 111). Protest masculinity largely describes working-class masculinity and is situated within neo-Marxist theory. Protest masculinity is a gender expression concept that is positioned with the concept of masculine identity from an ethnocentric, Western perspective concurrent with capitalism. Connell (2000) contends that protest masculinity emerges as simply a masculinity that rejects or challenges hegemonic masculinity. Within this approach to masculinity, there are several useful explanatory examples. The

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traditional one is that there is a strong sense of self-and-other destruction that reflects a typical macho-man syndrome. On the other hand, Connell (2000) argues that the rejection of traditional norms as an expression of masculinity may take the form of attributes as disparate as machismo, transsexual, and homosexual identities. There are two subtypes of protest masculinity that conceptualize working men’s experiences and identities: anomic protest masculinity and disciplined protest masculinity. Anomic protest masculinity uses the sociological concept of anomie to explain working-class masculinity based on public performativity. Within this subtype, working-class men have little restraint or structure set by gender performativity to regulate their performativity of masculinity. In anomic protest masculinity, there are fewer societal restraints and repressions from male peers. Anomic protest masculinity is thus dysfunctional. Disciplined protest masculinity is a limited masculinity in which there are larger constraints nested within concepts of negative consequences. Disciplined masculinity is most functional when there is a small group context within a larger social system. Within working-class culture, there is a level of interdependence where morally reprehensible masculine behavior features negative reprisal. Connell (1995) states that protest masculinity “divides the group [of working-class and poor men] from the rest of the working class” (p. 117). In other words, it is possibly a cause and consequence of working-class alienation. This is essentially masculine posturing, which separates working-class men from working-class women and working-class White men from working-class Black men. Fine, Weis, Addelston, and Marusza (1997) note the irony that working-class men do not believe themselves to be of lower socioeconomic status and fail to see potential allies based on their position in the social structure. Therefore, protest masculinity can simultaneously cement one’s position in the class structure and destroy class upward mobility. This is consistent with how Willis (1977) and MacLeod (1987) conceptualize working-class masculinity as a superstructure. White undergraduate college men engage in anomic protest masculinity in an attempt to achieve hegemonic masculinity. This is exemplified by the first-generation undergraduate college male joining a fraternity or becoming a student-athlete. He does not have the social capital and other resources to attain hegemonic masculinity, so he resorts to other male organizations that reinforce the traditions that help him engage in the performativity. Connell (1995) refers to forms of masculinity that are opposed to, and subordinated to, “hegemonic masculinities.” For example, Connell defines “protest masculinity” as a marginalized masculinity that cannot be based on the privileges of hegemonic masculinity but needs to rework the themes of male superiority in a context of poverty. Protest masculinity is also a counternarrative to traditional hegemonic masculinity. For example, when spaces are taken away and dispossessed, this form of masculinity contests against those attempts at deconstructing privilege. Within the contemporary frame, White college men have been emerging from their privileged spaces and engaging in

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the performativity of different formats of protest masculinity as a compensatory masculinity to reinforce the hegemonic masculine ideal of the Harvard man. Yet, to many observers, they appear simply as comedic and White boy wasted. This is especially the case when White college men engage in protest masculinity.

A Typology of Protest Masculinity Disengagement Current research suggests that male privilege may be waning based on the assumption that men are disengaging from their own privilege. Outside of this contested concept, other prevalent trends exist that demonstrate this disengagement is a form of protest. Reed (2011) traces four themes consistent in findings from the existing literature on the intersections of race, class, and gender related to the education of low-socioeconomic status (SES) males, which included “school as a site of lowered expectations, overtly policed behavior, curriculum tracking, and persistent disengagement” (p. 119). Within larger American society, men have exhibited an opposite long-term trend to that of women in the workforce. In 1950, 14% of men were out of the labor force. Currently, that figure stands at approximately 30%. The percentage of men who are neither working nor looking for work has increased dramatically over the past several decades. Also, social “safety net,” or government entitlement benefits, also demonstrate a trend. Winship (2017) reports that 75% of inactive prime-age men are in a household that received some form of government transfer payment. He maintains that government disability benefits are one reason for the lack of interest in work. This trend, along with job displacement, has been mirrored in student involvement on college campuses. Reed (2011) examines the intersections between socioeconomic status and work identity with masculinity and college success. He finds that males from low-SES backgrounds were less likely to enroll and graduate from colleges and universities when compared to the rates of their high-SES male and low-SES female peers. On campus, he notes, “[M]en overall are participating in fewer educationally purposeful activities associated with persistence-to-graduation and increasing their time spent on activities that actually impede their chances of success” (Reed, 2011, p. 116). This finding reflects the anecdotal evidence heard within the profession of college administration: White males are less engaged in traditional leadership positions such as student government, resident assistants, orientation leaders, or teaching assistants. We also see reports of fewer men studying abroad or participating as lab assistants or undergraduate researchers. According to the survey Free Expression on Campus by the Knight Foundation (2016), college men are less likely than women to engage in freedom of speech. Reflecting the more democratic orientation of college women, 50% of college women identify as democratic, compared with 39% of college men. College women are more positive than college

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men about trends in free speech. Fifty-five percent of college women versus 44% of college men say free speech is stronger today. College women are slightly more likely than college men to say society is not accommodating enough (61% vs. 50%, respectively).

Alcohol Use Men use alcohol as compensatory masculinity to facilitate engagement against alternative definitions of masculine expression (Sasso, 2015; Sasso & Schwitzer, 2016). In particular, Sasso (2015) validates the cultural construct of White boy wasted in a stratified institutional sample of diverse fraternity men. He concludes that alcohol misuse was native to White college men and culturally ingrained within fraternity culture. Subjugation of women and sexual violence were also consistent themes. Sasso and Schwitzer (2016) also validate, in a predominately White sample of fraternity men, that they were conforming to abnormal in-group alcohol consumption norms for self-reported reasons of sexual aggrandizement and aggression release. McDonald (1994) explains that marginalized men use alcohol to exert superiority over others who are prohibited from the same alcohol consumption, a practice of hegemonic masculinity. These findings are supported by Peralta (2007) and Wechsler, Kuo, Lee, and Dowdall (2000), who suggest that men belonging to male-dominated or male-centered social institutions have an increased likelihood of engaging in heavy episodic drinking and that alcohol is utilized to socialize others. Arnold and Kuh (1992) and Rogers (2006) underscore the use of alcohol to subjugate males in which new member (pledge) alcohol consumption was restricted. Commonly, males share stories and engage in compensatory masculinity about alcohol when “binge drinking, playing video games, watching and discussing sports, and sharing the details of sexual relationships” (Harris & Edwards, 2010, p. 48). These male alcohol consumption narratives, or “drinking stories,” suggest that those personal narratives are a component of male identity formation and engagement in compensatory masculinity (Giles, 1999; Gough & Edwards, 1998; Moore, 1990). Such stories indicate that alcohol is an accepted component of male identity formation. Landrine, Bardwell, and Dean (1988) claim that “drunkenness may be an aspect of the concept of masculinity” (p. 705). Further depiction of excessive drinking in advertisements as exclusively a male activity provides face validity to this research (Ratliff & Burkhart, 1984). Quantitative studies additionally link alcohol misuse to masculinity (Boswell & Spade, 1996; Capraro, 2010; Cohen & Lederman, 1998). There is very little question that college men are more susceptible to issues of risky behaviors, which play a role in their health and well-being (Capraro, 2010; Courtenay, 2010; Davies, Shen-Miller, & Isacco, 2010; Iwamoto, Corbin, Lejuez, & MacPherson, 2013). White college men often participate in these risky behaviors, such as binge drinking (Kimmel, 2008; Wechsler & Wuethrich, 2002), competitive sexual behavior (Harris, 2008), or engagement in hazing activities (Allan & Madden, 2008), to prove

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their masculinity and acquire power and authority over their peers (Courtenay, 2010). Additional research (Courtenay, 2010; Iwamoto, Cheng, Lee, Takamatsu, & Gordon, 2011) has also suggested that some gendered norms around masculinity “such as self-reliance or emotional control may protect against problematic drinking patterns because they are consistent with self-control and potentially regulate alcohol intake” (Iwamoto et al., 2011, p. 907). However, self-regulation does not insulate men from hazing, which is often connected to alcohol use (Sasso & Schwitzer, 2016). Examples of such hazing incidents include, but are not limited to, “alcohol consumption, humiliation, isolation, sleep-deprivation, and sex acts” (Allan & Madden, 2008, p. 5). For students involved in fraternities and sororities, 7 out of 10 report experiencing acts of hazing (Allan & Madden, 2008, 2012). Connected to alcohol consumption, students report mandatory participation in drinking games as the hazing behavior most often experienced; however, students involved in culturally based fraternities report alcohol-related hazing experiences significantly lower than their peers (Allan & Madden, 2012).

Bed Sheet Banners In the second decade of the 21st century, bed sheet banners have hung from residence hall windows and fraternity house balconies. Their use of typically sexist and homophobic language is often an expression of such protest masculinity. The banners are also used in response to many allegations against fraternities and other college men for displays of racism, homophobia, and sexism. Fraternities were the progenitor of this approach, but the tactic has been expanded recently by primarily non-affiliated White college men. These have been “banner years” for using this approach to demonstrate and express protest masculinity. Bed sheet banners have proven a challenge in the juxtaposition between freedom of speech and civil codes within the student conduct code on many campuses. Many of the banners have been presented and hung in visible, high-trafficked off-campus areas. College men have used their socioeconomic privilege to obtain the best off-campus housing. They have created a gendered space and have utilized expression through bed sheets as a form of protest masculinity. Ohio University off-campus students in rentals and Old Dominion University fraternities made national headlines when students posted protest bed sheets spray-painted with many different offensive, vulgar, and gross hate speech slogans. These events occurred during back-to-school weekends in 2016 when a number of sexually explicit banners on student rentals received ample negative attention in social and news media. In 2018, off-campus Ohio University male students hung bed sheets that referenced female genitalia and stated, “We can’t stick our fist in your personality.” Other slogans included these examples in 2018: “Miami girls suck, OU girls swallow”; “Freshman, Crystal isn’t the only backdoor you can get in” (an apparent reference to the uptown

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student bar); “Move-in special—freshman boys eat free”; and “Knee pad rentals, freshman girls 50 percent off.” Connell (1995) maintains that the power that unemployed young men have over women is fragile and unsustainable. He adds that unemployed young men, “[b]y virtue of class situation and practice (e.g., in school) [have] lost most of the patriarchal dividend. For instance, they have missed out on the economic gain over women that accrues to men in employment” (p. 116). Connell further postulates that poverty and marginalization of a social class tend to increase responses that use violence and coercion, such as those of the bed sheets. While this approach generally appears to be an anomic protest masculinity, in this case it is a disciplined one. Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) and Hearn (2004) term it a “crisis of masculinity,” which includes the possibility of hegemony for disciplined protest masculinity among socially and economically dominant classes of males, such as undergraduate college men.

Social Media While engaging in anomic protest masculinity, many White college men are inspired by the revelry and information presented by the “alt-right” online. The term “alt-right” was coined in 2008 by White activist Richard Spence, who has become one of the country’s most successful young White nationalist leaders. He dropped out of Duke University’s PhD program in modern European intellectual history. Along with others, he has established a culture and practice of using social media to engage other men in their perspectives rooted in hate and bigotry. They have regularly targeted American college campuses. Another example is Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer, which is the most popular extremist website. It aptly takes its name from Nazi propaganda. Anglin is infamous for the crudity of his language and for mobilizing others to troll and harass individuals online. In 2017, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed suit in federal court against Anglin for coordinating a harassment campaign against a Jewish woman and her family for his anti-Semitic threats and messages. The lawsuit describes how Anglin used the Daily Stormer’s published articles urging followers to harass the family. The family received more than 700 harassing messages. The alt-right has used social media in the format of blogs, online social news media, and social networking sites to connect to others and deliver their message to college students. Their message is buttressed against the historic values of liberal education often taught on college campuses, which include diversity, tolerance, and social justice. All those ideals have striven for equality and created safe spaces for students of various genders and identities. College campuses are home to the highest goals of human rights. Thus, they are clearly on the front line of the alt-right’s battle against multiculturalism, and the alt-right has targeted White college men in almost every instance.

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These men are lost in a college environment in which others are curious and receptive to new, even radical, ideas. Universities, by definition, welcome free speech and philosophies of every stripe. Publicly funded schools may not prohibit free speech. The irony is that the alt-right is exploiting egalitarian values to enthusiastically recruit students to their cause on college campuses. Other examples in this chapter also demonstrate that trend. Tillapaugh (2012) found that the development of one’s gay male identity was also deeply connected to other social and personal identities. For example, young gay males in his study who were from high-SES backgrounds often had parents who were affiliated with more conservative religious institutions and political ideologies; these young men were also more likely to have experienced mental health issues (Tillapaugh, 2012).

Campus Flyers Rallies and speeches have drawn the eye of the media and the public. The most frequent expression of protest masculinity has been the anomic approach (i.e., the quiet and secret distribution of fliers on campus in which activists leave before they are found). In 2017, Nathan Damigo, a student at California State University-Stanislaus, posted White supremacist fliers at another California state campus. The flyers instructed White students to “protect [their] heritage” and “serve [their] people.” The action was the initial round of posters for Identity Evropa, a White nationalist group Damigo had founded. Later, university officials launched an investigation into Damigo after he was filmed punching a woman during protest clashes at the University of California, Berkeley, during a “Patriots Day” rally organized by Trump supporters and other far-right groups and billed as a free speech event. On the day that Trump was elected president, students at the University of Central Florida found posters on campus of White men and women with the headline, “We Have a Right to Exist.” The fliers were distributed by Vanguard America, one of several hate groups active on college campuses. It claims that non-White immigrants are causing “the genocide of our people.” Its posters also read, “Imagine a Muslim Free America,” “Free Yourself from Cultural Marxism,” and “Protect the Family—Reject Degeneracy.” The Anti-Defamation League issued a report stating that racist fliers, banners, and stickers were found on college campuses 147 times in the fall of 2017, a more than threefold increase over the 41 cases reported one year before. The league has tracked 333 cases since Trump was elected in November 2016. Nearly half of the 346 cases tracked since September 2016 have been blamed on the White supremacist group Identity Evropa, whose fliers with messages such as “Protect Your Heritage” have been discovered at universities from New Jersey to California. Colleges in Texas have been targeted most frequently, according to the new league report, with 61 cases since September 2016. California followed with 43 cases, while Pennsylvania had 18 and Florida had 17. A total of 212 schools have been targeted since

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the fall of 2016, ranging from top Ivy League universities to small community colleges. Segal notes that White supremacists typically target schools where they are likely to provoke a strong reaction. Institutions have responded in numerous ways. Many condemn hate speech on campus, while others ignore it to avoid drawing attention to White supremacists. It is a very fine line for most colleges or universities that aim to balance free speech with the safety of their students. This is another example of a small group of White men expressing privilege of voice to state their level of dispossession.

Political Rallies Young college males from low-SES backgrounds engender lower perceptions of academic success by instructors, and they are often tracked into remedial courses or programs that reinforce notions that they are ill-equipped to succeed academically (Reed, 2011). Parental support (or the lack thereof) also plays a central role in the academic results of these young males, particularly within the postsecondary system (Reed, 2011). Reed (2011) reminds us that “all men do not exact the same degree of power and privilege from patriarchy and sexism” (p. 126). The disparity of power and privilege plays out for males from lower-SES backgrounds on most college campuses. This circumstance has caused the increased growth of class tension among many White college men, as there has been a significant increase in direct political protest by them. That trend is best exemplified by the events of “Unite the Right” on the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville. The Unite the Right protest drew White nationalists, White supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other members of the so-called alt-right—a radical far-right political movement that embraces White nationalism and racism. Some attendees were identified as college students. One student was James Allsup, a Washington State University undergraduate and a leader of the College Republicans at WSU. The College Republicans, a private organization, publicly denounced the protests through a released statement. Kirk H. Schulz, WSU’s president, denounced “racism and Nazism of any kind,” condemning the violence in Charlottesville. Another undergraduate was Peter Cvjetanovic, of the University of Nevada at Reno, who was identified as attending the rally. Online petitions circulated calling for their university expulsions when they were identified through social media pictures. Albeit their protesting may be an offense to others, state university students are usually protected under First Amendment rights as well as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act in that public universities have to uphold free speech. In 2012, Matthew Heimbach, an undergraduate, started a “White student union” at Towson University in Maryland. Heimbach was the leader of the Traditionalist Workers Party, a right-wing, White nationalist group with cited Nazi ties. This same individual was later filmed shoving a Black protester at a Trump campaign rally. He found himself in court after leaving Towson and later pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct from the

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incident. However, he received no jail time. Heimbach attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, where he directed protesters to break through police barricades. At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a computer science student named Daniel Dropik attempted to start the American Freedom Party, a White nationalist group. He abandoned his effort under pressure from the administration and student leaders. He previously served time in federal prison after being convicted of arson for setting fires at two predominantly Black churches in 2005. In 2017, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) was sued by the College Republicans and backed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal defense fund, over a controversy surrounding the proximity of the freedom of speech zone. SIUE administrators stated that all student organizations had to obtain permission in advance to use the speech zone and that university policies held approval rights regarding who could use the zone and what types of literature could be distributed. This case can be viewed as an expression of male privilege to gain greater access to protest and freedom of speech zones on campuses. It is a modest narrative example, but is part of a larger wave of conservative activism on campus by White male college students acting in a form of disciplined protest masculinity.

Conclusion This chapter has suggested that the White college men depicted engaging in protest masculinity, and within the media examples provided, demonstrate struggles with their sense of blue-collar masculinity. Their narratives, levels of conformity, and expectations reveal strong notions of increased tensions experienced in male gender roles when different in relation to the expectations of others around them. Furthermore, they have engaged in a culture of hegemonic masculinity and protest masculinity, which is compensatory behavior in response to sex-role threat (DeVitis & Sasso, 2015). This compensatory masculine behavior is grounded in the performativity of gender as men are actively endeavoring to perform masculinity to varying levels of success (Brickell, 2005). The future of White college men is one that is undeniable, as their enduring and pervasive privilege has yet to fade despite widespread criticism through movements such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter. The narratives and research provided in this chapter provide additional face validity to these findings. However, whether the continued existence of White male protest masculinity is relevant depends on its capacity to change. “If not, we will continue to allow our boys to remain ’white boy wasted’ and to perpetuate the negative stereotype that endures” (Sasso, 2015, p. 25). Their protest masculinity will continue to shape a narrative that constructs a voice of hate, bigotry, homophobia, and sexism in their pursuit of the repossession of the Harvard masculine ideal.

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Pleck, J. H., Richardson, L., & Taylor, V. (1983). Men’s power with women, other men and society: A men’s movement analysis. In J. H. Pleck, L. Richardson, and V. Taylor (Eds.), Feminist frontiers. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Ratliff, K. G., & Burkhart, B. R. (1984). Sex differences in motivations for and effects of drinking among college students. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 45(1), 26–32. Reed, B. D. (2011). Socio-economic and work identity intersections with masculinity and college success. In J. A. Laker & T. Davis (Eds.), Masculinities in higher education: Theoretical and practical considerations (pp. 111–129). New York, NY: Routledge. Rogers, J. L. W. (2006). The construction of masculinity in homosocial environment: A case study (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from Dissertation Abstracts International, 67(05A), 1921. Romano, A., & Dokopil, T. (2010, September 20). Men’s lib. Newsweek. Available from https:// www.newsweek.com/why-we-need-reimagine-masculinity-71993 Rosin, H. (2010, June 8). The end of men. The Atlantic. Available from http://www.theatlantic. com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/308135/ Sasso. P. A. (2015). White boy wasted: Compensatory masculinities in fraternity men. Oracle: The Research Journal of the Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors, 10(1), 14–30. Sasso, P. A. & DeVitis, J. L. (2015). Today’s college students: A reader. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Sasso, P. A., & Schwitzer A. M. (2016). Social desirability and expectations of alcohol in fraternity members. Oracle: The Research Journal of the Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors, 10(2), 17–35. Tillapaugh, D. W. (2012). Toward an integrated self: Making meaning of the multiple identities of gay men in college (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of San Diego, San Diego, CA. Townsend, K. (1996). Manhood at Harvard: William James and others. New York, NY: Norton. Wechsler, H., Kuo, M., Lee, H., & Dowdall, G. W. (2000). Environmental correlates of underage alcohol use and related problems of college students. American Journal of Preventative Medicine, 19(1), 24–29. Wechsler, H., & Wuethrich, B. (2002). Dying to drink: Confronting binge drinking on college campuses. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press. West, L. A. (2001). Negotiating masculinities in American drinking subcultures. Journal of Men’s Studies, 9(3), 371–392. Willis, P. (1977). Learning to labor: How working class kids get working class jobs. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Winship, S. (2017). Declining prime-age male labor force participation: Why demand- and healthbased explanations are inadequate. Arlington, VA: Metacus Center, George Mason University.

Chapter 12

Navigating the Complex Realities of Campus-Based Sexual Violence: Activism and Resistance Marvette C. Lacy and Terah J. Stewart

How could it be that we are having the same conversations as we did 60 years ago? In the age of #MeToo, #TimesUp, and #WhyIDidntReport, it is puzzling as to how much history has repeated itself. The hyper-visibility that is associated with social media has helped to further demonstrate the insidious and omnipresent nature of sexual violence, leading one to argue that we have made significant progress in our awareness and understandings as a society of the various complexities of sexual violence. However, students around the country continue to fight to end campus-based sexual violence on a daily basis. Government officials repeatedly bicker about the frivolous intricacies of response policies and procedures while also repudiating the lived experiences of victim-survivors who are fighting in many ways for their dignity and lives. Students are shifting in their approaches, using all the tools at their disposal to say no more to sitting back and waiting for comprehensive and empathic policies and procedures. Now is the time for institution administrators to honor the recruitment and orientation promises of safety and belonging, including adequately educating and addressing sexual violence. The primary goal of this chapter is to make meaning of the complexity surrounding activism and campus-based sexual violence. The authors come to this work as scholar-practitioners dedicated to working toward ending gender-based sexual violence and creating space for those on the margins of the movement to have their voices heard. In

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the following sections, we will provide a brief overview of the current campus-based sexual violence movement. Then we will discuss activism in terms of everyday resistance through the matrix of resistance (Stewart & Williams, in press). Next, we will demonstrate how the matrix can be used in understanding resistance and activism. Finally, we will conclude with recommendations for campus educators engaged with students involved in the everyday fight against sexual violence.

The Fight Against Campus-Based Sexual Violence Sexual crime rates have virtually remained the same over the past 60 years (Koss, 1985; Linder, 2018); interestingly, policy and bureaucracy have increased (Adams-Curtis & Forbes, 2004). Many Title IX officers, victim advocates, and other related campus administrators have been proselytizing to cling to law enforcement, policy, and legislation as the response to ending campus-based sexual violence. With such prominent focus on response efforts, campus administrators and policymakers diminish time and resources dedicated to education and prevention efforts (Linder, 2018). Ironically, the exclusion of these former methods often come at the expense of students’ well-being and still have not proven to be effective in decreasing the amount of sexual violence happening on college campuses (Adams-Curtis & Forbes, 2014; Koss, 1985; Linder, 2018). Therefore, students continue to fight to hold campus educators to be accountable for the resources, support, and validation that were promised during new student orientation. Many scholars would highlight the 1970s and 1980s as crucial moments in sexual violence activism on college campuses, marked by feminists working to increase awareness of sexism, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and domestic violence through protests, marches, and boycotts (Bevacqua, 2000; Bohmer & Parrot, 1993; Corrigan, 2013; Linder, 2018). Passionate students, mostly White women, are pictured working to hold campus administrators and government officials accountable for making college campuses safer and students more informed about such crimes (Bevacqua, 2000; Harris & Linder, 2017; INCITE!, 2006). Widely known programs such as Take Back the Night and Vagina Monologues were also birthed from these students efforts. These women were viewed as saviors who stormed campus administrators and government officials to pass policies and legislation that continue to guide our sexual violence prevention and response work today. This particular retelling of history is both ahistorical and problematic as it leaves out the labor and experiences of those who have been othered. In 2013, students from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, filed a Title IX complaint with the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in response to the way institutional administrators responded to their reports of sexual violence (Schnoebelen, 2013). These brave students initiated new waves of understanding that gave nuance to how their campus could approach campus-based sexual violence, formulation of institutional policies, and engaging activists. Students from over 150 campuses followed suit by filing

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their complaints with the OCR, leaving administrators and policymakers in a scramble while they created their networks and resources through various social media channels (Linder, Myers, Riggle, & Lacy, 2016). As one can imagine, students took action through a myriad of ways, all creating an impact that could be felt across the country. Students continue to fight because many campus-based approaches to sexual violence hinge on one or a few professionals working to adhere to Title IX policies, reporting according to the Clery Act, and advocating for victim-survivors. The shortage of human, financial, and institutional resources leaves less room for prevention and awareness initiatives (Bevacqua, 2000; Linder, 2018). Having one place, one administrator, and one system for responding to sexual violence creates a general, singular experience for all students. This is a direct result of campus protocols and administrators not having a power-conscious framework to guide their prevention, awareness, and response efforts (Harris & Linder, 2017; Linder, 2018). Failure to be informed about how identities and interlocking systems of oppression influence sexual violence continues to render students invisible and unable to access the support they need. Additionally, not all victim-survivors are seen by administrators and educators as needing care and support on campus because the students are seen as troublemakers who somehow caused the violence—a circumstance that continues to increase the need for resisters and activists.

Power Is Sexual Violence Sexual assault is about power, which is defined as “access to the ability to control or significantly influence other people’s lives” (Linder, 2018, p. 7). Power has repeatedly been used as a tool of domination and colonialism and as a way to control indigenous and enslaved populations through fear and terror (Freedman, 2013; Smith, 2005). Today, sexual violence continues to demonstrate how power is enacted through our society, especially with those on the margins such as people of color, those who are gay and bisexual, those who are transgender, and those with disabilities (Porter & McQuillerWilliams, 2011). The margins, as we use them, are created from interlocking systems of oppression and domination (i.e., colonialism, imperialism, racism, patriarchy) that inform our historical, political, and social landscapes (Collins, 2000). Systems of oppression and domination are woven into the fabric of daily life and perceived as normal or the way things should be for all people. As people begin to disrupt the narrative that sexual violence is normal, they inevitably are also confronting power and oppression, particularly among those who benefit the most from the existence of power and oppression (i.e., White, middle-class men). Understanding the role of power—not only in sexual violence, but also in response and prevention efforts—is key to understanding the experiences of survivors and resisters (activists) alike (Hong, 2017; Linder, 2018). Students have been resisting the dominant structures of higher education policy and systems for several decades by arguing for such things as better dining hall options and

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access to education (Altbach, 1989; Broadhurst, 2014; Rhoads, 1998). Resistance in all forms exists to disrupt the dominant ways of knowing and practice. Resistance can entail small, significant, and in-between actions (or inactions) that people employ to push against the institutions, the barriers, and the systems that make it impossible for them to exist in their natural state (Johansson & Vinthagen, 2016). Paradoxically, these students may receive heavy criticism for simply existing and using their resistance to make their campus a place where they (and all students) can exist as whole human beings.

Understanding Resistance Students who engage in more traditional forms of resistance (e.g., marches and boycotts) may not prefer to call themselves activists. Others may label their actions as activism; however, these students may be merely acting out of their quest for survival, for dignity, and for the right to an education. Educators should exercise careful consideration when labeling students “activists”; instead, the term “resisters” might be more appropriate. When we label students who are resisters as activists, we may see them only through a privileged lens and not through their lens of survival. That is, some students have the privilege to engage in activism and walk away from it to resume normal daily activities, whereas those engaging in resistance do not have the same luxury. Students who identify as existing on the margins (e.g., trans, women with disabilities, women from lower socioeconomic classes, and women of color) can be rendered invisible and not as significant participants in the fight to end gender-based sexual violence (Linder, 2018; Linder, Grimes, Williams, Lacy, & Parker, 2017). Further, these students who live outside the margins of society are often viewed as troublemakers on campus. Interestingly, these are the students who are usually behind the scenes doing the heavy lifting in helping all students to be seen and heard in the fight against sexual violence. In this essay, the authors are working to problematize the current narrative of campus-based activism. We encourage readers to interrogate their understanding of student activism and be open to the reality that some students may now engage in activities that are different from the activism of the past. The central underlying questions are “Who gets to be an activist?” and “What counts as legitimate activism?” We will use the language of resistance throughout the chapter as a reminder to continue to challenge your understanding of the differences between resistance and activism.

The Matrix of Resistance Typically, activism is thought of as marches, protests, petitions, and sit-ins, and while these methods have proven to be effective, they also have very real consequences. The consequences of traditional activism in a global society are well documented, including physical and emotional trauma, arrest and litigation, and even death (Grace, 2016;

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Hanna, 2017; Martinez, 2018). For their safety and well-being, people, in their everyday lives, may sometimes opt for resistant action that does not mirror traditional activism, defined as everyday resistance—that is, “a routine activity” that “may not be politically aligned or formalized” (Stewart & Williams, in press, p. 211). In contrast, everyday resistance could be a form of activism that students engage with as a means of self-care, survival, and creating counter-space. Within the context of this text, it is critical to point out that all activism is resistance, but not all resistance is activism. It is important to recognize an array of actions that can resist oppressive structures so that students who engage through nontraditional means do not have their issues and concerns ignored on campus. Looking through the lens of resistance provides a more broad, intersectional view of students’ (specifically historically marginalized students’) experiences on campus and provide more power-conscious approaches to education, prevention, and response efforts. Stewart and Williams’s (in-press) creation of the matrix of resistance provides a tool through which to examine how and why students may engage in everyday resistance. We will use this matrix in further examining sexual violence activism on campus. Revolution

Anarchy

Intent

Disruption

Survival

Sabotage

Undermine

Coping

Showing Break Community Marches Up Policy Service/Civic Boycotts Engagement Sit-Ins

Art

Violence

Methods Figure 12.1 Figure courtesy of Stewart & Williams (in press) and the Rise Up! Activism as Education text. Reprinted with permission from authors and Michigan State University Press.

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The matrix is composed of two axes and provides a continuum to understanding the myriad ways one may choose to engage in resistance. The x-axis outlines methods one may choose to engage or model resistance, such as breaking policy or the creation of art. The y-axis outlines possible intents for why one may act out resistance, such as survival and revolution. (Please note that the suggested methods and intents are not exhaustive lists and can be updated and changed based on the context in which the activism is taking place.) The matrix demonstrates how intent and methods intersect and overlap to create a clearer understanding of the complexities of resistance or activism. When viewing a student’s response to the matrix framework, it may disclose more than a student with a bad attitude. It may simply reveal a student who is exercising the only sense of agency he or she feels he or she has.

Sexual Violence and Everyday Resistance Our worlds converge in online spaces. For example, there are more than two billion people who use Facebook. Social media platforms, such as Facebook, serve as a catalyst and tool for organizing, resistance, and activism. Additionally, they allow for the centering of voices and experiences of those who are usually left in the shadows of the master-narrative regarding sexual violence. Students have transitioned their resistance and activism efforts to these spaces because they have served as valuable tools in helping students deliver their messages. #KnowYourIX, #RapeCultureIs, #TheEmptyChair are all examples of social media campaigns and discussions used by students and resisters to tell their stories, helping to inform other students about policies and practices and connecting with other survivors. The following examples illustrate how students implement resistant action toward advocating for and highlighting the pervasiveness of sexual assault on their campuses. Examples may not be considered in line with activist praxis, depending on the lens under which they are examined. However, within the context of the matrix, they are examples of resistance.

Use of Hashtags Imagery is powerful and used widely throughout social media. It is common to walk across campus and see students smiling into their phone screens that are in the hand of an outstretched arm taking a selfie. Some students use their selfies in connection with popular hashtags to increase awareness of sexual violence across their campuses. For example, #OOTD (outfit of the day) is a widely used hashtag that is utilized by survivors as a way to challenge the mainstream portrayal of a victim-survivor (Linder & Myers, 2017a; 2017b). Students take selfies of their daily fashionable outfits for Instagram and put in educational material in the caption about Title IX and how to know one’s rights

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as a survivor. Platforms such as Instagram allow students who are on the margins to be centered and allow them to be seen by others as a form of validation and support.

Heavy Representation Emma Sulkowicz, a student at Columbia University, was raped by another student in her residence hall room during her sophomore year. Emma attempted to resume her regular academic duties after the terror incident; however, she would run into her rapist around campus and even in some of her classes. Emma described the rape and continual presence of her rapist as a heavy weight that she had been forced to shoulder alone (Syckle, 2014). Emma carried her twin- sized mattress around campus as a demonstration of the heavy weight and representation of the ways the institution failed to support her as someone who was traumatized in a place that was supposed to be safe.

Labor-Free Support Social media allows survivors to receive support without having to give their time, stories, and energy upfront through private groups and pages. Through our current administrative processes, students typically have to retell their violent experiences and deal with mostly uninformed administrators before finding someone who may employ empathy and compassion. Sharing so much on the front end is a lot to give for very little in return. Conversely, private groups and pages allow people to connect with others or share their stories without having to give anything in return. Ariel, a participant in a research study (Linder et al., 2016), explained that this was a popular option because “[y]ou don’t have to tell your story . . . in order to read someone else’s” as you may have to do with a campus administrator or campus-based support group (p. 238). Campus educators can reconsider how to add procedures and support that do not require a victim-survivor having to give so much before receiving assistance.

Recommendations Campus administrators, in general, are focused more on response efforts, leaving students to be the major contributors to awareness and prevention efforts (Linder, 2018). Students are working to shift culture, advocate for more resources, and improve policy. Campus faculty and staff who are looking to assist students in their work should consider the following recommendations: • Develop awareness around different social causes throughout history and how those movements inform today’s occurrences and activism.

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Understanding history, social issues, and the people involved in the causes provides excellent insight into today’s social movement. History is cyclical and impacts contemporary social climate. As campus educators, we have made some progress when it comes to addressing sexual violence, and yet we still have much work to do. Attention to the past allows campus educators to be more efficient with our resources and time to work toward making an impact on reducing the rates of sexual violence. • Develop a power-conscious approach to understanding sexual violence and the ways that students may resist adverse institutional structures and systems. Having a power-conscious approach requires that administrators examine students’ needs and how, even in the sphere of sexual violence, these needs may differ from one another. For more information, please review Linder’s (2018) Sexual Violence on Campus: Power-Conscious Approaches to Awareness, Prevention, and Response. Having a one-size-fits-all approach does not adequately address the needs of our students and instead invites us to be provocative and exploratory in our approach to working to bring more power-conscious approaches to awareness, response, and prevention efforts on our campuses. An administrator needs to consider his or her own social identities and the associated power and privilege inherent in his or her own social location before being able to understand someone else’s. • Recognize activism and resistance as developmental processes that often includes prevention and healing methods for students. Most students are working to make their campuses safer places for all students. Victim-survivors may be searching for an outlet that allows for creativity and opportunities to create change. Moreover, sometimes students may want to know that there is a structure in place to support them. That is, a student may show up to an appointment with a case manager—not to talk, but to be in community with someone who understands.

Conclusion It is critical that scholars and practitioners within the academy focus their attention on meaningful, intentional, and material outcomes for students who engage in activism or resistance on college campuses. Students who experience sexual assault not only need thoughtful and power-conscious approaches to response and healing; they also want better education and better prevention efforts, as evidenced by some of their activism and resistant actions.

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At the time of this writing, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos had rescinded the Obama administration’s Title IX guidance, citing that she was “concerned that students accused of sexual misconduct weren’t receiving due process and, in some cases, were facing serious punishments for crimes they didn’t commit” (Brown, 2018, para 7). Unsurprisingly, students and advocates for prevention of sexual violence have feared this reality for some time and have protested DeVos’s perspective on how campuses should handle sexual violence from the beginning (Balingit & Larimer, 2017; Harris & Thomason, 2017). The Department of Education was instrumental in compelling colleges and universities to get serious about sexual assault and other gender equity issues through the “Dear Colleague” letter. However, the academy has a unique opportunity to create a culture shift that moves society closer to eradicating sexual assault without the Department of Education, if we would only be so bold—particularly as most campuses have continued to operate under the former guidelines presented under the Obama administration. Legal scholar Katharine Silbaugh (2015) wrote about the capacity for colleges and universities to sit at the forefront of sexual assault prevention. In her piece, she beautifully names many things that colleges and universities do well that can—and do—connect to sexual violence: [C]olleges create out of whole cloth a unique living and social environment and context, unlike any other institution in American culture. They [colleges] are the authors of that environment. They are educational, and they undertake transformative education — meaning they undertake to change young people and to catalyze all kinds of growth in them. They do not just manage the highly artificial occurrence of eighteen- to twentytwo-year-olds living together without many people younger or older in their midst. . . . They engineer the residential experience for growth. This may explain why they were so effective in changing the national attitude toward women athletes with the push from [Department of Education] via Title IX: they have norm-shaping potential. Maybe it is not too much to ask that instead of solely responding to rapes that happen, they are required to do the evidence-based prevention programming and design interventions that change the culture and incidence of sexual assault, precisely because they do rise to this kind of challenge well. (Silbaugh, 2015, p. 1073; emphasis mine).

The academy can rise to this challenge. However, our potential can only be realized to the degree that we understand the full spectrum of activism and resistance—in this case as it relates to sexual assault. Further, we must move beyond institutional apathy and betrayal and instead create contexts that render students who experience sexual assault, and their resistance, more visible and viable in their—and our—lives.

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References Adams-Curtis, L. E., & Forbes, G. B. (2004). College women’s experiences of sexual coercion: A review of cultural, perpetrator, victim, and situational violence. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 5(2), 91–122. Altbach, P. G. (1989). Perspectives on political student activism. Comparative Education, 25(1), 97–110. Balingit, M., & Larimer, S. (2017, September 28). DeVos assailed by protesters at college campus in Boston. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/ news/grade-point/wp/2017/09/28/protesters-criticize-devos-and-change-on-campus-sexual- assault-probes/?utm_term=.36289caef228 Bevacqua, M. (2000). Rape on the public agenda: Feminism and the politics of sexual assault. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press. Bohmer, C., & Parrot, A. (1993). Sexual assault on campus: The problem and the solution. New York, NY: Lexington Books. Broadhurst, C. J. (2014). Campus activism in the 21st century: A historical framing. New Directions for Higher Education, 2014 (167), 3–15. Brown, S. (2018, August 29). DeVos’s rules on sexual misconduct, long awaited on campuses, reflect her interim policy. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www. chronicle.com/article/DeVos-s-Rules-on-Sexual/244394 Collins, P. (2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York, NY: Routledge. Corrigan, R. (2013). Up against a wall. New York, NY: New York University Press. Freedman, E. B., (2013). Redefining rape: Sexual violence in the era of suffrage and segregation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Grace, T. M. (2016). Kent State: Death and dissent in the long sixties. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. Hanna, K. B. (2017). A call for healing: Transphobia, homophobia, and historical trauma in Filipina/o/x American activist organizations. Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 32(3), 696–714. Harris, A., & Thomason, A. (2017, September 6). A DeVos speech on Title IX heightens advocates’ fears that a rollback is imminent. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/A-DeVos-Speech-on-Title-IX/241108 Harris, J. C., & Linder, C. (Eds.). (2017). Intersections of identity and sexual violence on campus: Centering minoritized students' experiences. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, LLC. Hong, L. (2017). Digging up the roots, rustling the leaves. In J. C. Harris & C. Linder (Eds.), Intersections of identity and sexual violence on the college campus: Centering minoritized students’ experiences (pp. 23–41). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, LLC. INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. (Ed.). (2006). The color of violence: The INCITE! anthology. Boston, MA: South End Press. Johansson, A., & Vinthagen, S. (2016). Dimensions of everyday resistance: An analytical framework. Critical Sociology, 42(3), 417–435. Koss, M. P. (1985). The hidden rape victim: Personality, attitudinal, and situational characteristics. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 9(2), 193–212. Linder, C. (2018). Sexual violence on campus: Power-conscious approaches to awareness, prevention, and response. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited.

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Linder, C., Grimes, N., Williams, B. M., Lacy, M. C., & Parker, B. (2017). A power-conscious content analysis of 10 years of scholarship on campus sexual violence. Manuscript submitted for publication. Linder, C., & Myers, J. S. (2017a). Intersectionality, power, privilege, and campus-based sexual violence activism. In J. C. Harris & C. Linder (Eds.), Intersections of identity and sexual violence on campus (pp. 175–193). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, LLC. Linder, C., & Myers, J. S. (2017b). Institutional betrayal as a motivator for campus sexual assault activism. NASPA Journal About Women in Higher Education, 11(1), 1–16. Linder, C., Myers, J. S., Riggle, C., & Lacy, M. (2016). From margin to mainstream: Social media as a tool for campus sexual violence activism. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 9(3), 231–244. Martinez, M. (2018, September 17). Dozen protest in Dallas for jailed protesters in Fort Worth over Botham Jean killing. CBS. Retrieved from https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2018/09/17/ dozens-protest-dallas-jailed-protesters-fort-worth-botham-jean/ Porter J. L., & McQuiller-Williams, L. (2011). Intimate violence among underrepresented groups on a college campus. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 26(16), 3210–3224. Rhoads, R. A. (1998). Freedom’s web: Student activism in an age of cultural diversity. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Schnoebelen, A. (2013, March 5). Push to improve campus policies on sexual violence gains momentum. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/ Push-to-Improve-Campus/137689/ Silbaugh, K. (2015). Reactive to proactive: Title IX’s unrealized capacity to prevent campus sexual assault. Boston University Law Review, 95(3), 1049–1076. Smith, A. (2005). Conquest: Sexual violence and American Indian genocide. Boston, MA: South End Press. Stewart, T. J., & Williams, B. (in press). Nuanced activism: The matrix of resistance. In A. Dache-Gerbino, S. J. Quaye, C. Linder, & K. McGuire (Eds.), Rise up! Activism as education. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. Syckle, K. V. (2014, September 4). The Columbia student carrying a mattress everywhere says reporters are triggering rape memories. The Cut. Retrieved from https://www.thecut. com/2014/09/columbia-emma-sulkowicz-mattress-rape-performanceinterview.html

Chapter 13

Black Student Activism: Ongoing Paradoxes and Past Struggles in Higher Education Victoria K. Malaney Brown

Across America, racial unrest has occurred in waves stemming from the civil rights era of 1960s (Altbach & Cohen, 1990) to, most recently, college students actively protesting racist acts (i.e., racial slurs written on whiteboards and messages of hate posted around university campuses nationwide). These instances of racism on college campuses continue to occur with frequency across the country (Bauer-Wolf, 2017; Bradley, 2016). Over the past decades, the racial and ethnic diversity of the college student population has continued to increase (Rankin & Reason, 2005). Despite the increase in students from diverse backgrounds attending college, minorities, specifically Black students, have continued to experience lower enrollment rates when compared to the proportion of the national norm (Jones, Castellanos, & Cole, 2002). The National Center for Education Statistics (2016) stated that, from fall 1976 to fall 2014, the percentage of Black students rose from 10% to 14%. While we know Black students are attending college, they continue to experience prejudice and discrimination at higher rates than their peers, which ultimately impacts the social and academic environment for all students (Cabrera, Nora, Terenzini, Pascarella, & Hegedorn, 1999). Not surprisingly, in a multi-institutional qualitative study, Harper and Hurtado (2007) found, after reviewing 15 years of campus racial climate research conducted at multiple, predominantly White institutions (PWIs), that Black students at these

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institutions are frequently met with discrimination, isolation, alienation, and even racial stereotypes in their campus environments. These negative experiences stem from a hostile racial climate that can influence graduate rates for students of Color (Perry, 2015). In response to experiencing these ongoing pervasive hostile campus climates, Black students have found ways to amplify their concerns on campus by participating in student- driven activist demonstrations. Student-activist demonstrations commonly occur in reaction to national events. Today’s contemporary student activists who participate in campus demonstrations often do so in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement (Dancy, Edwards, & Davis, 2018). Since higher education is a microcosm of society, it is not unusual to note that racially charged events continue to contribute to rising racial tensions across the country (Museus, Ledesma, & Parker, 2015). As a whole, student activism is not a new concept—Black students have played a particularly unique role in advancing racial justice in higher education, which has typically coincided with nationally led racial justice movements. Higher education institutions and campus leaders need to recognize that student activism is part of a greater tradition of social change. As such, campus activism at U.S. colleges and universities should be viewed as an opportunity to listen to the concerns of the student population. Then campus leaders will be able to engage in the difficult work of responding to students’ and creating change together as they navigate the reality of the campus racial climate. This chapter will begin by highlighting contemporary Black student activism events that have recently occurred across the United States. It will also draw parallels to the past as I specifically highlight an example of university Black student activism using archival materials from the late 1960s at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. By reflecting on both the present-day and past challenges of Black student activism, this chapter will conclude by suggesting recommendations for higher education institutions that encounter student activism on their campuses.

Ongoing Paradoxes in Black Student Activism across the United States Racial inequities continue to persist on our campuses across the country. In the fall of 2015, American colleges and universities experienced one of the largest collective uprisings from their students. Several campuses across the country held student-led activist demonstrations (e. g., Yale University, Amherst College, and Occidental College), citing concerns with diversity and inclusion initiatives on their campuses (Kingkade, Workneh, & Grenoble, 2015). While the uptick in student-led demonstrations is not new, research from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program Freshman Survey found that one in ten incoming freshmen plan on getting involved with activism, with Black students more than twice as likely to participate in campus protests than White students

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(Eagan et al., 2015). With more Black students likely to participate in campus activism, the level of demonstrations has changed over time. The ability of students to mobilize and share information has changed through social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. One viral social media example was the I, Too, Am campaign, which started in 2014 at Harvard University. The I, Too, Am campaign highlighted active Black student voices in their collective struggle against oppression and campus racism (George Mwangi, Bettencourt, & Malaney, 2018). Their powerful photos and tweets captured the hostile campus racial climate Black students experienced at a historically White institution. This campaign later spread to countries such as Brazil, England, Canada, and Australia, illustrating the pervasiveness of racial marginalization around the globe (George Mwangi et al., 2018). In a summative report from the American Council on Education, Barnhardt and Reyes (2016) argued that, if a campus has not yet witnessed some iteration of collective action or students protests, then it is only a matter of time. While Ferguson inspired Mizzou activists, the Black Lives Matter movement and other campus protests relate to what Black students are experiencing at their colleges and within their home communities. U.S. colleges and universities have long grappled with the legacy of White supremacy, particularly anti-Blackness at historically White universities (Dancy et al., 2018).

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter was formed in 2013 by three radical Black women organizers: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. Collectively, they created a global movement that began in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman (Black Lives Matter, 2018). What remains constant in student activist demonstrations is the student reaction to fighting systemic racism. Black Lives Matter, as a movement, was adopted in present-day student activism because of its intersectional approach to highlighting history and politics as it pertains to the university system (Wilson, 2015). Despite more universities contending with campus protests and racism over the years, the students at the University of Missouri (Mizzou) took racial activism to another level.

University of Missouri (Mizzou) As Black Lives Matter began to strengthen the impact of the movement, the University of Missouri was contending with an ongoing series of racist incidents on campus that began in February 2010, when cotton balls were scattered all over the lawn of the Gaines/ Oldham Black Culture Center (Wilson, 2015). This was a direct reference to slavery. Another incident occurred in September, 2015, when Black student protestors from the student group “Concerned 1950” blocked President Tim Wolfe’s car at the homecoming

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parade because he had failed to address their previous concerns about the racist incidents and ongoing hostile racial climate on campus. On November 3, 2015, Jonathan L. Butler, a graduate student, launched a hunger strike to call attention to President Wolfe, who had neglected to address several preceding racial climate incidents. Before the formation of Butler’s hunger strike, incidents of campus racial tension had occurred frequently, with several racial situations beginning in September 2015, contributing to the October demonstrations (Pearson, 2015). While each of these incidents sparked a student response to fight for racial justice, it was not until the Mizzou football program joined the demonstration that the movement gained momentum. The football players and the coaching staff publicly stated that they would not play any more games until President Wolfe resigned. Because of the increased national media coverage and the mounting pressure that the university administration faced, President Tim Wolfe finally paid attention to student demands, which called for his resignation. Both the university’s Chancellor, R. Bowen Loftin, and President Tim Wolfe resigned shortly thereafter. The impact of the resignations inspired multiple protests across the United States in November. Just a few days after Mizzou’s football team joined the demonstration, students at other institutions (e.g., Smith College in Massachusetts and Claremont McKenna College in California) also participated in their own student protests (Chen, 2015). The direct influence of Black student activism showed that racial justice and social justice must be addressed in higher education. By highlighting contemporary Black student activism, it drew context to the context of the past within higher education and at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I turn now to another important instance of Black student activism that occurred at the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus between the years 1968 and 1970.

Past Struggle: University of Massachusetts Amherst 1968–1970 By the 1960s, the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst), a predominately White university, began to admit Black students and developed a critical mass within a span of 2 years. The growing population of Black students made it possible for minority students to feel “emboldened to lay claim to their rights as academic citizens” (Turner, 2001, p. 120). It appears that the UMass administration, despite being open to recruiting and admitting Black students, might have set themselves up for future student unrest. Even though UMass Amherst’s Black student activism occurred in 1968, the students’ demands, including the creation of a Black Cultural Center and Black Studies program, are not unlike the demands of present-day students in higher education. Evidence about this campus activism comes largely from primary and secondary sources in the university archives, as well as a few scholarly sources to supplement the context

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of the Mills House incident. (Also, a note on language for the historical section of this chapter: There are instances in which I refer to Black students as “Negro,” “Black,” or “African-American.” I use these words interchangeably to follow the context in which the original sources used the language. Since there are many interpretations of the Mills House incident, in an effort to focus on exactly what happened, I primarily used the Dean of Students documents (e.g., interim report), Black Student Movement memorandums, letters from politicians, and articles from the Daily Collegian, Boston Herald, and Springfield Gazette, among others, to supplement the story I uncovered. Before I delve into an analysis of how the Mills House incident occurred, it is important to provide the historical context to situate UMass’s decisions and the factors that influenced the Black and White students involved. As with most campus activism, the surge in protests occurred in tandem with national events. From what I could tell in reviewing sources in the archives, the move to bring more Black students to UMass started in 1967. In an article from the Boston Herald, we learn that UMass was looking to “pave the way for the enrollment of Negro students at the state university” (Gallagher, 1967, p. 44). To bring more Black students to campus, UMass had to come up with a plan to provide financial aid and academic support to high-achieving Black students. Part of the plan later unveiled itself in a 1968 Board of Trustees meeting in which President Lederle asked Professor Johnson to report on the status of Negro students who currently attended UMass. In the Board of Trustees report, Professor Johnson found that there were only 85 Negro students on the entire UMass campus at this time, 20 of whom were graduate students (Board of Trustees, 1968). Professor Johnson’s meeting with the board outlined the need to start recruiting “capable” Negro students to UMass. Johnson included a plan for financial aid to support Negro students, including an appeal to the Ford Foundation. The Board of Trustees supported Professor Johnson’s report, and the “Disadvantaged Student Program” was accepted as a formal resolution at the next board meeting. After this approval, UMass embarked on an organized effort to recruit its first Negro class of 125 students from the Boston and Springfield areas, for enrollment in the fall of 1968 (Board of Trustees, 1968). When UMass admitted its first community of Black students, the first floor of the Mills House became the designated place for the Afro-American organization to gather and have social meetings (Straight, 1997). Additionally, Upward Bound, a support program for low-income minority students, used the top two floors of the Mills House as an office space (Field, 1970). While searching in the archives, I learned that the Mills House was involved in not one, but two, takeovers involving the Black community. As with most college campuses, student activism occurred in waves and stemmed from previously unresolved demands dealing with campus racial climate. The first takeover occurred in the fall of 1968, the second 2 years later in the spring of 1970. Space limitations for this chapter prevent me from relating in full detail what happened during the first takeover of the Mills House by the Black community, but I will highlight the main points of the 1968 Mills House takeover because it provides an

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important backstory to the 1970 takeover. An article that appeared in the Daily Collegian in 1998 helped me to understand the first Mills House incident. According to the article, a group of Black students took over the Mills House after five White students jumped a White student and his Black friend on campus. The university police responded by attacking the Black student instead of questioning the White students involved (Carty, 1998). This event brought to light the increasing racial tensions on UMass’s campus while also demonstrating the insensitivity of the police to the campus administration and the local news. After this first incident occurred, Black students provided a list of twenty-one demands to the university administration, one of which was the need for a Black Studies department (Carty, 1998). The involvement of police and the subsequent student mobilization are similar to what we continue to see in contemporary campus activism.

Mills House Incident: February 26–27, 1970 During my search of the university archives to find out how the Black and White students became involved in the second takeover, I came across several types of reports and responses to the Mills House incident. In Carty’s (1998) article, there seems to be more clarity regarding the incident. Carty (1998) cites that, after one of the Black student meetings at the Mills House, a fender bender occurred at the end of Infirmary Way around midnight. Don Brown, an African- American student, drove one car, and a White student drove the other car. (The White student lived at Mills House.) The accident led to words being exchanged between the two, and they began to fight. According to the “Fact Sheet Mills House Event” (UMass Amherst, 1970c), the university police arrived and separated the two students. The White student involved in the fight left and went back to Kappa Sigma’s fraternity house. After 12:30 a.m., White members of Kappa Sigma returned to Mills House. Black students still at Mills House got into a larger fight that numbered about 50–60 students, and both Black and White students at the Mills House made threats to one another. When the Black students realized that White students outnumbered them, they retreated and barricaded themselves inside of Mills House. Carty (1998) states: “This was to be [one of] the first building occupations in the history of UMass” (p. 5). Due to the high racial tensions, the Black students demanded that the White residents leave Mills House in the middle of a cold, snowy night. Many White residents called their parents, one of whom was a Massachusetts legislator. The Black student organization was not moving despite the administration’s requests (Carty, 1998). The administration realized that, if they dragged the Black students out of Mills House, it would be an even larger public relations disaster. Black faculty members were called in the middle of the night to mediate the situation (Carty, 1998). After the fight between the students, the Black students occupied Mills House at 1:00 a.m. on Friday, locked all of the doors, and barred the windows (Williams, 1970). They demanded that Mills House become the Black Cultural Center. About 75 White students

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were displaced from Mills House, and they agreed to move in as a group to the second floor of Brooks House on March 5, 1970. At the time, Brooks House was a female dormitory that became a co-educational hall when the males the moved in. To allow the move to Brooks House, Mental Health Services had to move out. Mental Health was then relocated to the Mathematics Department to make room for the students living in Brooks House (Springfield Gazette, 1970; Williams, 1970). The ensuing demands from the Black students demonstrated the specific needs that they wanted the university to address.

Black Student Demands A major outcome of the Mills House incident was the list of Black student demands. The demands were brought to the Dean of Students Office on February 27, 1970, at 4:00 a.m. The early morning hours in which the demands were delivered demonstrates the urgency of the situation. The messengers were Black faculty members and leaders in the UMass community. The Black students’ list of demands (UMass Amherst, 1970b) were as follows: 1. All White students must move from Mills House within 24 hours. (The time period subsequently changed to 5:00 p.m. Tuesday.) 2. The university must offer an apology for the behavior of the residents of Kappa Sigma, who must be publicly admonished. 3. The area coordinator’s office must be relocated from Mills. 4. The university must affirm, in strong terms, its decision to recognize Mills House as the “Black Cultural Center” (so that no attempts would be made by any students to “reclaim” it). 5. The Black student occupants of Mills House made a commitment not to retaliate against Kappa Sigma if Kappa Sigma agreed not to retaliate against Mills House. Both the Black students and Kappa Sigma agreed to the last demand (UMass Amherst, 1970b). Of this list of five demands, I will focus only on the main demand, that the university should recognize Mills House as the newly claimed space for the Black Cultural Center. These demands from 1970 are not much different from current student demands listed on a collated website regarding responses to systemic and structural racism on college campuses nationwide (The Demands, 2018). The Mills House incident of 1970 proved that the University of Massachusetts Amherst still had many campus climate issues to work on to better support its Black community. The racial tension also reminded the campus administration of the importance of reflecting on critical matters that directly impact their students. The Mills incident changed how minority students were viewed, and even accepted, as academic citizens on a predominately White campus. While the administration had good intentions to

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bring Black students to UMass, it did not always act in the best interests of its minority students. Despite the challenges that these Black students faced on UMass’s campus during the academic years 1968–1970, their determination to succeed despite the racial climate was inspiring. With the confirmation of the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of African American Studies in 1970, it was clear that Black student activism had helped to create institutional change. The contributions of the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Black faculty and students during the Mills House incident helped the university move into a new era, proving that UMass was slowly opening its doors to diverse student backgrounds, while breaking racial barriers at the commonwealth’s public flagship institution (Greider, 2013; UMass Amherst, 1970a). This example at UMass Amherst mirrored similar actions by Black students and university administrations across the nation. For social change to continue to improve, campus leaders and students alike must continue to push for racial justice.

Recommendations for Higher Education Institutions As this chapter indicates, the power of student voices is crucial in creating more inclusive college environments while colleges and universities wrestle with the complexities of racial justice. Student-led activist demonstrations have helped to identify the impact of systemic racism on campuses nationwide. Both contemporary and past campus activism further demonstrate that higher education institutions still have much more work to do to build inclusive, safe, and culturally affirming environments. This review of contemporary Black student activism and a historically archived example of Black student activism demonstrates parallels to our present day. As such, I have several recommendations for higher education institutions to keep in mind when student activism occurs on campus. As the examples of activism in this chapter indicate, higher education still requires structural changes to support the learning and development of Black students in higher education. First, we must be proactive in developing curricula and courses that teach students to dialogue about race and social justice. Intergroup dialogue is a nationally known pedagogy used in higher education. Intergroup dialogue has created a curriculum and space for students, staff, and faculty to dialogue across differences (Ford, 2017). Research on both White students and students of color who participated in intergroup dialogue has found that positive attitudinal changes can occur—for example, “heightened awareness of the institutionalization of race and racism” and “increased participation in social change actions during and after college” (Ford, 2017, p. 7). Second, Kezar (2010) recommends that faculty and staff need to partner with student activists. Such collaboration can foster better understanding of students’ perspectives. Student activism can create an important outcome in college education: more civically engaged students (Martin,

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2014). Third, with an increase in the use of social media, Black student activism is challenged to keep building deep relationships, which is at the very core of organizing (Favors, 2017). Building an inclusive college environment is what all higher education institutions should strive for. As described in this chapter, Black students in the late 1960s and 70s at UMass Amherst demanded change on campus, and it came in the form of the new Black Cultural Center and the W.E.B. Du Bois African-American Studies program. The Black activism of 50 years ago laid the groundwork for present-day student activism and the Black Lives Matter movement. However, we must remember that the struggle for racial justice is never over until we break down the legacy of White supremacy on our campuses. Campus leaders, faculty, and staff at American colleges and universities must be courageous, willing to actively listen, and respond to Black student activists. In this way, we will be able to move our higher education institutions into a more promising future that yields a more equitable experience for Black collegians—and, indeed, all student activists who continue to fight for equity and racial justice on our college campuses nationwide.

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National Center for Education Statistics. (2016). Digest of education statistics, 2015 (NCES 2016-014). Chapter 3. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Pearson, M. (2015, November 10). A timeline of the University of Missouri protests. CNN. Available from https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/09/us/missouri-protest-timeline/index.html Perry, A. M. (2015, November 12). Campus racism makes minority students likelier to drop out of college. Mizzou students had to act. Chicago Post. Available from http://www.chicago tribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-mizzou-yale-campus-racism-20151112-story.html Rankin, S. R., & Reason, R. D. (2005). Differing perceptions: How students of color and White students perceive campus climate for underrepresented groups. Journal of College Student Development, 46(1), 43–61. Springfield Gazette. (1970, March 5). Mills house made Black Cultural Center, p. B44. Department of Special Collections and University Archives. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Straight, S. (1997, December 20). New Africa house: An oasis for UM’s Black students. Daily Hampshire Gazette, p. 19. Department of Special Collection and University Archives, Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Amherst. Turner, J. (2001). From the sit-ins to Vietnam: The evolution of student activism on southern college campuses, 1960–1970. Review of Higher Education Annual, 21, 103–135. University of Massachusetts, Amherst. (1969, October 26). Committee for the Collegiate Education of Black Students. Department of Special Collections and University Archives. Amherst, MA: Author. University of Massachusetts, Amherst. (1970a, February 1). Black Studies program proposal, pp. 1–7. Department of Special Collections and University Archives. Amherst, MA: Author. University of Massachusetts, Amherst. (1970b, February 27). Black students’ list of demands: Delivered to the Dean of Students office, p. 1. Department of Special Collections and University Archives. Amherst, MA: Author. University of Massachusetts, Amherst. (1970c, February 26). Fact sheet Mills House event: A working draft for the student-faculty committee on campus tensions. Department of Special Collection and University Archives. Amherst, MA: Author. Williams, D. (1970, March 5). Mental health vacates Brooks after stormy meeting. Daily Collegian. Department of Special Collections and University Archives. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Wilson, J. (2015, December 31). How Black Lives Matter saved higher education. Al Jazeera. Available from http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/12/how-black-lives-mattersaved-higher-education.html

Chapter 14

Latinx Student Activism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives Ebelia Hernández and Roberto Orozco

Latinx 1 college students are a diverse group of people from different cultural nationalities and immigration histories. While the number enrolled in postsecondary education was rather negligible prior to the 1960s (MacDonald, 2004), enrollment during the 1960s provided the critical mass of Latinos necessary for student organizing. Latina/o college students during the civil rights era fought for improving college access for their communities, increasing the number of Latina/o faculty and staff, and the legitimization and inclusion of ethnic studies into the college curriculum. Later activism in the 1990s was a result of attempts to recover hard-won advancements made during the civil rights era, again fighting for Latinos’ access to postsecondary education. Today, Latinas/os continue to engage in student activism, mobilized by the same educational agenda of increasing postsecondary access and resources to support our persistence toward degree completion. This chapter reviews the history of Latinx activism from the 1960s to the present. While much has changed, such as tactics, political climate, and the number and diversity of Latinos attending postsecondary education, activists have maintained the belief that education is the key to social change and upward mobility for Latinx communities. We will review four main eras of student activism: the early 20th century, the civil rights era, activism during the 1990s, and present-day activism. Prominent in this review are the Chicana/o and Boricuan student activism that occurred on the East and West coasts, with the majority of this chapter focusing on the Chicana/o movement. While we

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certainly wished for a more representative assessment of Latinx activism, the dearth of historical scholarship on Latinos in higher education limited this review (Tudico, 2010).

El Movimiento up to the Early 20th Century Little is known about Latinx college student activism prior to the civil rights era. MacDonald (2004) notes that the number of Latinos enrolled in postsecondary education was initially not specified in student enrollment figures, and then only negligible numbers were recorded until the 1960s, when critical masses were reached in some universities. Despite the small numbers, Latinas/os have a history of challenging racism and discriminatory practices in education well before the Chicana/o movement. A brief review of this history is important to an understanding of the roots of Latinx activism in education and how the prevailing political climate in the United States influenced the ways that activism was enacted. Mexican-American activism and the education of children has a long history that goes back to when the American West and Southwest were under Mexican colonial rule (MacDonald, 2004). Later in the 1940s and 1950s, cases brought forth by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) helped Mexican Americans, as well as other minority groups, challenge the separate-but-equal practice in education that was ultimately overturned in Brown v. Board of Education (Gutierrez, 1995). LULAC was created in 1929 “to advance the economic condition, educational attainment, political influence, health and civil rights of the Hispanic population of the United States” (LULAC, n.d.), with the primary tactic of litigation and legal action as a method to challenge educational policies that were discriminatory toward Latinas/os. This organization was instrumental in various desegregation cases involving Latina/o school children (Gonzalez, 1999; LULAC, n.d.), demonstrating that Latinos had been politically active in educational institutions and the courts well before the civil rights era. LULAC, which quickly became a strong political voice for Mexican Americans in the Southwest, was influenced by the political atmosphere of the time, and as a result it was open only to American citizens and emphasized political activity that fell within existing social protocols regarding social change. Its political tactics of creating change through litigation fell within society’s accepted forms of protest. Early LULAC rhetoric tilted toward Mexican Americans integrating into the American mainstream by learning American culture, language, and the political system to effectively create change by first becoming part of that system (Gutierrez, 1995). This political strategy of working within the system and integration has been harshly criticized as “wanting to be White” (Navarro, 2005), thus indicating the link of political behaviors to how one’s ethnic identity is perceived.

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El Movimiento in the 1960s and Early 1970s The civil rights era occurred during a time when a critical mass of Latinas/os was enrolled in postsecondary education. “No longer isolated individuals and small groups on campus, the new Puerto Rican and Chicano college students across the nation organized to demand their rights” (Macdonald, 2004, p. 223). Despite working at either ends of the United States, these Latino groups paralleled each other’s agendas that focused on increasing the representation of Latina/o students, faculty, and staff in colleges and universities as well as developing and funding programs in Chicano and Puerto Rican Studies. Realizing that working with the system and assimilation tactics endorsed by prior generations of Latino activists were too slow and failed to generate substantive systemic change, Latina/o youth concluded that a more militant, disruptive approach was necessary (Gonzalez, 2011). Inspired by the Black civil rights movement and the farm workers’ movement led by César Chávez, and informed in militant protest tactics by such groups as the Black Panthers, Chicano and Puerto Rican activism reached its height in the late 1960s (Garcia, 1997; MacDonald, 2004). Begun with local protests in California, New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas, “by 1968 this militancy had taken on the characteristics of a cohesive social movement” (Gutierrez, 1995, p. 183). A major segment of Chicana/o activists came from colleges and universities (Barrera, 1998). These college students focused their agendas on the educational betterment of their Latino communities both on and off campus. “The students’ emphasis on higher education and the development of Chicano Studies exhibited an optimistic belief in the role of the school as a societal institution” (Gomez-Quiñones, 1990, p. 141). That is, change in higher education would lead to change in society and in their communities. El Plan de Santa Barbara, a Chicana/o student manifesto created by Chicana/o activists in 1969, set the agenda for Chicana/o student activism. College activists were to focus their work on increasing the number of Latinos in higher education, maintaining a strong connection to the barrio, and developing and securing long-term institutional support for Chicana/o Studies programs. Another key agenda item in el plan was to cultivate a certain type of political consciousness and identity among the activists. As stated in el plan, “political mobilization is directly dependent on political consciousness. As political consciousness develops, the potential for political action increases” (as cited in MacDonald, 2004, p. 261). Activists adopted the political ideology of Chicanismo and proudly claimed the ethnic label of Chicano. Chicanismo was the rejection of Americanization and the reclaiming of indigenous ethnic pride, as well as rejection and disdain for old assimilationist political tactics and change toward militant, confrontational tactics. Chicanismo challenged American values of individuality, and competition perpetuated on college campuses moved toward communalism, which is more in line with Mexican values of obligation to family and community (Muñoz, 1989). Movimiento Estudiantíl Chicano de Aztlán (M.E.Ch.A, or Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán) emerged as the key college campus political

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organization; it had several chapters throughout the West and spread the political ideology of Chicanismo among the Mexican American college student activist population. M.E.Ch.A. was the consolidation of several Chicana/o student organizations for the purpose of building a stronger, central political base and for carrying out directives as outlined in El Plan de Santa Barbara. In the Midwest and Northeast, Puerto Rican college students were also calling for institutions to change policies to increase the minority pipeline to postsecondary education. Similar to the Chicano movement that embraced its indigenous roots, Puerto Rican activists began to identify as Boricua, which stands for the word Borinquen, or Land of the Brave Lord, which is the name the Arawak Indians called their island prior to Columbus’s arrival (MacDonald, 2004). A major campaign centered on changing City College (the CUNY system’s flagship campus) to an open admissions policy. It was hoped that such a policy would increase Black and Latino student enrollment. After a campus shut down and strike in 1969, open admissions was realized, as was the hope to widen access. The number of Boricuan students jumped from 5,425 in 1969 to 18,570 in 1974. Other college activist groups challenged the status quo and sought implementation of similar policies and resources for Latino enrollment, such as Brooklyn College’s Black League of Afro-American Collegians (BLAC) and Yale University’s Boricuas Unidos (MacDonald, 2004). The significance of the role that Latino college students played during the civil rights era is debatable. After reflecting on the role that college students played in the Chicano movement, Gomez-Quiñones (1990) concluded that “[a]t its best, the work of student activists has been seminal in its influence on much later activity as well as generously courageous in its militancy; at its worst, it has been anarchic and self-indulgent, given to rhetoric and organizational inconsistency” (pp. 119–120). Some considered college student activists’ contributions to be substantial. Muñoz (1989) cited the role that college students played in fighting for the establishment of Chicano Studies programs as well as developing the political consciousness of Mexican American youth. Other scholars noted the significant role that Boricuan students played in the establishment of Puerto Rican studies in the East (MacDonald, 2004). Yet, other scholars questioned the true impact that college students played in el movimiento. Mariscal (2005) noted that some Chicano scholars believe that students involved in the Chicano movement were naïve “because they failed to understand the co-opting power of the university” (p. 50) that stifled Chicana/o faculty and staff’s militant activism and ultimately silenced them or pushed them out of college communities entirely. The true impact of student involvement on el movimiento was thus challenged by questioning the true commitment of college students as well as their lasting impact: How could 4 years of undergraduate activism compare to lifelong activism in the community from those working in the barrios?

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Identity Politics of the 1990s The environment on college campuses changed from scenes of militant activism of the 1960s to that of enforced political correctness. This new reality led to the conclusion that the militant, disruptive political tactics employed during the civil rights era were no longer effective and required revising. The Reagan and Bush administrations brought about a conservative tone in American politics that quickly stunted any overt and disruptive activism (Mariscal, 2005). In addition, there was a resurgence of anti-immigrant sentiment and rollbacks in affirmative action policies in admission for students of color that resulted in the rejection of the overt, confrontational political strategies prevalent during the civil rights era (Navarro, 2005). Despite the neoconservative political atmosphere and backlash toward militant tactics and ethnocentric ideologies, the 1990s realized a surge of college student activism that was influenced by the civil rights era but was more culturally diffuse (Rhoads, 1998). “The university of the 1990s [was] besieged by students who [had] replaced dispassionate and objective pursuit of knowledge with political correctness and identity politics” (Rhoads, 1998, p. 621). Identity politics, defined as activism based on issues that affect a particular group composed of a singular race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc., was now ill favored. “Clearly, the term ‘identity politics’ often has been used in a pejorative manner to condemn student struggles linked to race, gender, and sexual orientation” (Rhoads, 1998, p. 623). Yet, despite the negative connotation that identity politics had, Latinx students still fought for their own spaces, such as a cultural center or a Latino Studies department. The political tactics used to fight for these spaces focused on strategies that embraced multiculturalism by developing political strategies that sought out allies (generally organizations representing other disenfranchised populations who were also facing discrimination) who supported their efforts and could relate to their political agenda. The most noted Latino student activism during this era was the Chicana/o student activism in southern California. The Chicano student hunger strike of 1993 at UCLA was a result of Chancellor Charles Young’s rejection of a proposal to elevate the Chicano Studies interdepartmental program to departmental status. Students and faculty counted on the change to ensure that resources would be allocated to maintain its survival and to grant it autonomy to make its own hiring and promotion decisions. As a result of this news, which was announced the same day as César Chávez’s funeral, students initiated a march and sit-in at the faculty center and a demonstration in front of the administration building, followed by a 14-day hunger strike. The campaign was comprised of not only Latina/o students, but a racially diverse group that organized under the name Conscious Students of Color. The development of this group illustrated the effectiveness of the multicultural coalition-building strategy, which resulted in a large turnout for the march and the subsequent demonstration attended by over 600 people

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to protest the arrest of over 90 students and community members who took part in the march and were accused of property damage.

Present-Day Activism Acknowledging the historical events that have shaped Latinx college student activism has been consequential in understanding the evolution of contemporary student activism. While prior decades of Latinx college student activism centered their work within the educational system with the goal of increasing access and success for the Latinx community, today we see a more critically conscious approach (and a less ethnocentric one) in bringing forth community knowledge and organizing to impact the larger context of issues. Latinx college student activism has transformed into a movement based on intersecting struggles that requires the deconstruction of oppression that plagued previous Latinx social movements. This change has been seen in acknowledging how pervasive heteronormativity, patriarchy, classism, and xenophobia, to name a few, were embedded within Latinx movements, both at the community and national levels of organizing. In recent activism, Latinx college student activists have begun to push back against single-issue movements exemplified during the civil rights era and identity politics of the 1990s and have developed multifaceted and multi-issue movements on campuses across the nation. Students are creating spaces for themselves and others that have never before existed, especially within White, heteronormative, patriarchal structures of higher education (Covarrubias, 2011; Quaye, 2007; Tijerina Revilla, 2004). While ethnic identity is one dimension of the lives of Latinx students, many Latinx college student activists have started to move in a direction of developing movements centered on intersecting struggles. The idea of movements focusing on intersectional struggles comes from the importance placed by contemporary activists on having multifaceted lenses in organizing to better understand the various forms of oppression with respect to structural-, institutional-, and individual-level oppression (Davis, 2016). Contemporary Latinx college student activists believe that there is no one narrative that encompasses all Latinx individuals; therefore, creating the space to honor multiple truths has been a central focus in the process of enacting social change. One example of the acknowledgment of intersecting struggles is the 2007 National M.E.Ch.A. Advocacy Agenda on Gender and Sexuality (M.E.Ch.A, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán, 2007). This plan proposed and brought to the forefront the importance of including those who live on the margins of gender and sexuality, placing accountability on the historical presence of patriarchy and homoantagonism perpetuated within Latinx activist spaces. It called for a more action-oriented approach to making issues of gender and sexuality a priority within the organization. Additionally, it called for the leadership to be representative of the various gender identities represented in the membership of M.E.Ch.A.

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Reflecting on the past is important to understanding the shift in organizing methods of contemporary Latinx college student activism. This understanding impacts the way today’s Latinx student activists think about the issues they highlight in their work and how their efforts manifest toward enacting change. Organizing allows us to recognize parts of the movement that were beneficial while simultaneously critiquing areas that were silencing particular voices out of the conversation and movement. Today’s Latinx college student activism is centered around those who have been at the margins of the Latinx community. An example of this particular focus includes individuals who resist the binaries of gender and sexuality, those who experience being undocumented, and those who identify as Afro-Latinx. Gone are the days when movements were sustained by a one-dimensional focus on ethnic identity. Now, for Latinx movements to remain sustainable and make an impact, the focus is shifting to the intersecting struggles of racism, anti-Blackness, heteronormativity, patriarchy, classism, xenophobia, and other forms of oppression. Since 2014, we have seen the emergence of the word Latinx used in activists’ spaces, particularly within higher education student activists’ spaces. Using words such as Latinx (inclusive of all gender identities), nosotrxs (us), and amigxs (friends), disrupts the gendering of the Spanish language. It has an effect on the inclusion of people who have traditionally been marginalized and continue to face marginalization within the Latinx community. The use of the “x” in Latinx is an acknowledgment, and inclusion of, those who do not conform to the gender binary use of Latino (male) and Latina (female). Salinas and Lozano (2017) found that the use of the word Latinx originated from social media platforms and then gained prominence within the LGBTQIA community (Salinas & Lozano, 2017). The use of Latinx became popular within higher education settings, beginning with students self-identifying as such and student organizations revising their names with Latinx to indicate inclusivity. Latinx has continued to gain legitimacy and prominence by appearing in scholarly articles and professional conference presentations. However, there are some challenges to the use of Latinx based on Spanish linguistics and difficulty in determining whether it is a legitimate ethnic label with longevity or just a fad. Some scholars argue that the use of the “x” at the end of Spanish words does not make grammatical sense because it makes the words incomprehensible for Spanish-speaking individuals (e.g., lxs amigxs), and it reinforces a U.S.-centered ideology (Guerra & Orbea, 2015). While these challenges have resonated more with older generations, the younger generation of college student activists has made it a priority to use the word Latinx to clearly challenge heteronormativity patriarchy in collegiate spaces. Scharrón-Del Río & Aja (2015) argue that the most blatant form of linguistic imperialism is Spanish, contending that opposition to the term Latinx comes from a place of unexamined intersectionality of privilege and oppression. The use of Latinx is yet another indicator of the intersection between evolving Latino identity and political consciousness. The discussions about this particular ethnic label’s legitimacy echo the same kinds of conversations engaged in during the civil rights era,

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when Chicano and Boricua were claimed by activists as ethnic labels that illustrated not only their ethnic roots, but a particular kind of political consciousness that grounded their activism in ethnocentricity and the reclaiming of indigenous roots (Oboler, 1995). In this new era of activism, Latinx activists claim a different kind of political consciousness and have chosen a new label to embody it. A key topic in activism continues to be immigration. Since the early 2000s, an increased movement around undocumented individuals has shifted the immigration narrative. From the initial Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act of 2001, legislation that would have provided undocumented youth a pathway to “legal status,” to the first organizing of May Day in 2005—the intentional use of the International Workers Day platform to focus on issues of immigration reform activists for undocumented individual rights—has seen the movement transform in terms of who is at the forefront. In particular, undocuqueer persons (individuals who identify both as undocumented and queer) have become highly visible and are often the most vocal, resulting in a shift within el movimiento. Emphasis has been placed on these two intersecting struggles with the creation of such organizations as Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, a coalition founded by queer immigrants, undocumented trans-immigrants, and allies (Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, 2014). Latinx college student activists have pushed for policies and resources to provide access for undocumented students, such as in-state tuition rates and scholarships. Loyola University of Chicago is one of the institutions that many others have looked to as the blueprint for supporting undocumented students. As a result of Latinx student organizations using their platforms and funding, the university now provides an online resource center for undocumented students and the Magis Scholarship Fund for undocumented students. Loyola students voted to pay an additional student fee to fund this scholarship. It is important to note that the resource center intentionally broadened its support for undocumented students by not centering the Latinx undocumented story, but rather highlighting this issue across racial lines. Despite the risks and mistreatment that undocumented students get from their peers and school administrators, they continue to persist in coming out, undocumented and unafraid, as a way to advance the conversation around undocumented students (Muñoz, 2016). Another emerging population within the Latinx college student activist community are Latinx individuals who identify ethnically as Latino and racially as Black. The presence and recognition of Afro-Latinx individuals has forced the Latinx community to interrogate the issue of colorism and also the negation of African roots in the family lineage. Afro-Latinx individuals have always been part of the Latinx community, but their experiences have been either ignored or silenced as a result of internalized racism within Latino communities that privilege lighter-skinned Latinxs over those who have a darker complexion (Haywood, 2017). An emerging area of Latinx activism includes Afro-Latinas/os who insist on challenging assumptions about what it means to be Latino and calling out anti-Blackness within the Latinx community.

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Latinx activists are using different tactics in today’s technology-driven world to engage with their own members, other organizations, the college community, and the public. It is important to highlight the need for the online presence of college student activists. While social media has assisted college student activists in moving conversations forward and toward policy development and increased accountability among higher education leadership, it has also brought together communities that have been marginalized within Latino movements. Merging the momentum of community organizations with Latinx college student activists is essential in advancing the progression of issues that affect the Latinx community to make use of various positional platforms. Latinx college student activists are using their positionality to educate, empower, and connect individuals on issues affecting various marginalized communities, with a focus on the Latinx community. Social media accounts such as Latina Rebels, Latinegras, TransLatinx, and Bitter Brown Femmes challenge the dominant Latinx narrative and bring to the center issues that have received much recognition within Latinx social movements. There are broader implications for the long-term effectiveness of Latinx college student activism and future research. Making sense of the transformation of Latinx college student activism today requires an understanding of how the focus of issues has changed, who the individuals leading social movements within the Latinx community are, and the increasing presence of accountability on individuals and the entire Latinx community.

Conclusion This chapter aimed to review the major eras of Latinx college student activism. Upon reflection, we realized that there were common threads uniting the activism from the early 1900s to the present day. All the eras reviewed here sought to empower the Latinx community in higher education by demanding inclusion and challenging racist, marginalizing, and disempowering institutional practices and policies. Activism is a form of expressing what it means to be a politically aware Latina/o/x who seeks to improve Latinix communities and their futures. We also recognize that much has changed over the decades. Contexts have changed significantly, resulting in different political realities to which activists have had to respond. Early Latino activism of the 1940s, which focused on assimilation toward an “American” identity and worked within the system to seek change, was a result of massive repatriation drives, such as Operation Wetback, that deported thousands of Latinos, whether they were citizens or not. Today’s Latinx activists are living in a political climate where White supremacists are becoming more visible on campus and in their communities, a presidential administration has failed to condemn racist anti-Latino statements and policies, and the phasing out of the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program that granted temporary legal status to undocumented college students has

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become a cruel reality. Today’s students do not wish to assimilate; rather, they seek to acknowledge those that are often marginalized, bringing forth issues that were historically left out of social movements (Tijerina Revilla, 2004; Urrieta, 2004). The way we think about contemporary Latinx college student activism will continue to be informed by societal influences, social theories, and societal control (Urrieta, 2004). Defining college student activism becomes difficult when there are various forms of engaging in resistance and social change. Engaging in activist practices manifests differently for Latinx college students. There is merit in various forms of resistance or engagement in activist practices that work toward the progress of the Latinx community. Intersecting struggles and oppression are met with multiple forms of resistance (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002). Latinx college students may engage in a one-time resistance practice and may not identify as activists, while others engage in a daily practice of critical consciousness that raises questions about our role in society and attacks systems of oppression that create barriers for marginalized communities. Advancing the needs of the Latinx community requires that we utilize the impact of all these forms of resistance and engagement in activist practices. As issues transgress multiple identities within the Latinx community, Latinx college student activists will have to continue to reflect on historical practices and methods to continue to shift narratives that are reflective of today’s Latinx community.

Note 1 In this chapter, we use the terms Latino, Latina/o, Latinx, and Hispanic interchangeably to identify people with Latin American cultural backgrounds. Chicano and Chicano/a refer to individuals of Mexican descent, and Boricuan refers to Puerto Rican individuals.

References Barrera, M. (1998). Beyond Aztlán: Ethnic autonomy in comparative perspective. New York, NY: Praeger. Covarrubias, A. (2011). Raising a multidimensional consciousness of resistance. In M. Berta-Ávila, A. T. Rivella, & J. L. Figueroa (Eds.), Marching students: Chicana and Chicano activism in education: 1968 to the present (pp. 75–104). Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press. Davis, A. Y. (2016). Freedom is a constant struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the foundations of a movement. Chicago, IL: Haymarket. Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement. (2014). Available at http://familiatqlm.org/ Garcia, I. M. (1997). Chicanismo: The forging of a militant ethos among Mexican Americans. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. Gomez-Quiñones, J. (1990). Chicano politics: Reality and promise, 1940–1990. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. Gonzalez, D. G. (1999). Mexicanos: A history of Mexicans in the United States. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Gonzalez, J. (2011). Harvest of empire: A history of Latinos in America. New York, NY: Penguin.

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Guerra, G., & Orbea, G. (2015). The argument against the use of the term “Latinx.” The Phoenix. Available from http://swarthmorephoenix.com/2015/11/19/the-argument-against-theuse-of-the-term-latinx/ Gutierrez, D. G. (1995). Walls and mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican immigrants, and the politics of ethnicity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Haywood, J. M. (2017). “Latino spaces have always been the most violent”: Afro-Latino collegians’ perceptions of colorism and Latino intragroup marginalization. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 30(8), 759–782. LULAC. (n.d.). History. Available from https://lulac.org/about/history/ MacDonald, V. M. (2004). Latino education in the United States: A narrated history from 1513– 2000. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Mariscal, G. (2005). Brown-eyed children of the sun: Lessons from the Chicano Movement, 1965– 1975. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. M.E.Ch.A, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán. (2007). 2007 National MEChA advocacy agenda: Gender and sexuality. Available from https://drive.google.com/ file/d/0BxbJJHCHxqIRV2ZXLUZHWjNUV2s/view Muñoz, C. (1989). Youth, identity, power: The Chicano movement. New York, NY: Verso. Muñoz, S. M. (2016). Undocumented and unafraid: Understanding the disclosure management process for undocumented college students and graduates. Journal of College Student Development, 57(6), 715–729. Navarro, A. (2005). Mexicano political experience in occupied Aztlán: Struggles and change. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press. Oboler, S. (1995). Ethnic labels, latino lives: Identity and the politics of (re)presentation in the United States. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Quaye, S. J. (2007). Hope and learning: The outcomes of contemporary student activism. About Campus, Enriching the Student Learning Experience, 12(1), 2–9. Rhoads, R. A. (1998). Student protest and multicultural reform: Making sense of campus unrest in the 1990s. Journal of Higher Education, 69(6), 621–646. Salinas, C., Jr., & Lozano, A. (2017). Mapping and recontextualizing the evolution of the term Latinx: An environmental scanning in higher education. Journal of Latinos and Education.doi:10.1080/15348431.2017.1390464 Scharrón-Del Río, M. R., & Aja, A. A. (2015). The case for “Latinx”: Why intersectionality is not a choice. Latino Rebels. Available from http://www.latinorebels.com/2015/12/05/ the-case-for-latinx-why-intersectionality-is-not-a-choice/ Solorzano, D. G. & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical race methodology: Counter-storytelling as an analytical framework for education research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 23–44. Tijerina Revilla, A. (2004). Muxerista pedagogy: Raza women teaching social justice through student activism. High School Journal, 87(4), 80–94. Tudico, C. (2010). Beyond black and white: Researching the history of Latinos in American higher education. In M. Gasman (Ed.), The history of higher education: Methods for understanding the past (pp. 163–171). New York, NY: Routledge. Urrieta, L. (2004). Chicana/o activism and education: An introduction to the special issue. High School Journal, 87(4), 1–9.

Chapter 15

Maintaining Equity: Queer Student Community Improvement Work, Precarity, and Compensation Cris Mayo, with Joshua Stuart

Recent student protests and student-centered educational projects have focused on the problem of having students volunteer for activism. There is some reasonable concern that such student activists are doing diversity work that helps the university as a whole but does not directly contribute to their own well-being since it so often puts them into hostile situations or leaves them open to derision from opponents. While my focus is on campus activism, clearly that issue of extremist response has been visited by the youth organizers of the National School Walkout Against Gun Violence. In a higher education context, student concerns about participating in activism without remuneration stem from slightly different issues, many of which are part of an entanglement of economic precarity, exhaustion with educational initiatives for diversity that go nowhere, and a sense that they are being called on to do someone else’s work—or, at least, work that someone else gets paid to do. The video “Ask Me: What Students Want Their Professors to Know,” aside from providing information on gender-diverse and sexuality-diverse students, in their own voices, also problematizes doing that as part of the regular college curriculum. As Charlèse puts it, “During gender studies, they try to get some of us, me included, that are a part of the LGBTQIA community to sometimes even speak out and try to teach the other students. I feel that this is wrong. Why should we ask students to tell their personal experiences?” In times of increasing

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financial difficulty for students, her point is well taken, especially if students teaching those classes are not being paid, while professors hosting student experts are being compensated for their time. I may be taking her point a bit further than she intended, but I do want to at least suggest that part of her and other student activists’ concerns with having students bear too much of the burden for diversity-related improvements to universities is that they are laboring but not being paid. If, in these times of increased student economic precariousness, we are to ask students to do this work, they should be compensated. This demand to not be called on to act as an instructor without compensation, if I have extrapolated it a bit from Charlèse’s point, is taking place in the midst of renewed/ continued/exacerbated challenges to the public good of higher education. From continued cuts in state funding of state higher education, which shift the burden of cost onto tuition, to conservative moves to undermine the protections of tenure, the good of challenging education and critical thinking are under attack. Students who are willing to take up the public good of pitching into the task of educating their peers about the differences in their midst may find themselves not only more ideologically challenged (once again/still), but also much more financially challenged as they work the triple day of diversity work, school work, and paid employment. Even the contours and intensity of that triple day of work are changing. As Sara Goldrick-Rab (2016) notes, students are taking on more debt, stressed by the shift of costs of higher education from state funding to tuition, and more often than before working multiple jobs. The work of just being a student has intensified. To address the financial situation facing students and the lingering pervasive problems with inequities on campus, this essay will suggest a way to conceive of student community improvement work as consulting and advocacy for the university. This sort of work, even if it is often exactly what unpaid student activists are engaged in doing, needs to be compensated. That call for compensation is not in the least bit unusual: institutions regularly hire outside consultants to do all sorts of evaluations, assessments, and planning projects aimed at improving universities. But as I argue for the need to compensate students for the interventions they do on campus, I also caution against conflating all student campus and community improvement work with activism. The independence and autonomy of student activism—as anyone who has ever become a member of a task force (however important its work) knows—needs its own space and potentially different circuits of accountability than compensated community improvement work that may sometimes become constrained by institutionalized oversight.

Paying It Forward: Justice Maintenance in Higher Education While it would be a mistake to say that financial challenges have not always been a concern for many university students, the state-level disinvestment in higher education

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has exacerbated the financial burden facing students in times of increased tuition rates, increasingly unregulated predatory loans and collection practices, and rising rents, among other problems. Given such conditions, students do not have the hours available to work to improve campus climate, at least not without sacrificing either the hours they need to study or the hours they need to work in paid employment to support their ability to study. Activist work intent on improving university climate, as well as the kind of teaching that helps students understand differences, can entail hours of preparation. Anyone who has worked on political advocacy can recall the parade of meetings, drafts of statements, careful consideration of what kind of message will inspire people to stay the course, what kind of lesson might be effective to opponents, and so on. In the context of working to improve higher education, we can likely all recall a concatenation of requests for increased funding for students of color, and more postdoctoral opportunities for scholars working on issues related to underrepresentation, difference, race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, disability, and gender identity. What may have been initially experienced as activism aimed to once and for all create breakthroughs in practices and policies are increasingly experienced as endless maintenance or even retrenchment work. As student activism pushes universities to realize the promise of their policies, and as students experience more economic precariousness, they are taking on work in maintenance: maintenance of values, maintenance of promise, maintenance of practices only tentatively begun by institutions. Their work is no less visionary or groundbreaking for its maintenance-related properties, but because the term “maintenance” points to the day-to-day labor and necessity of such justice-oriented practices, focusing on that sense of perpetual work may help to give a strong justification for why it should be compensated. Justice is not a task that gets finished. Its work is continuous and, given that the work of improvement is not only continual, it is the maintenance of the core values of the university. It is university work. Calls for compensation have come from student activists, especially students of color, who well understand that their demands are often met with invitations to become part of longstanding subcommittees and task forces. In other words, they know that activism will start a conversation that will be met with even more requests for university service. Increasingly, volunteer activist students of color have demanded compensation for the work they have been doing to change the racist climate of their institutions. Student activists understand that they are part of traditions of activism that have demanded change and that such change has not been forthcoming. In other words, they well recognize the continuation of struggle. The demands by Black student protesters at Oberlin and Missouri each indicate that such protests and demands have happened before; diversity-related complaints have generated reports and plans of action for many years, and that action has yet to adequately address past or current concerns. The continuing need to keep pressing institutions to improve must be recognized as labor in the interests of the betterment of that university. Black student protesters at Oberlin College also

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problematized their role as volunteers by demanding that the university compensate them at a rate of $8.20 an hour for the work they had put into their demands and the continued work to improve campus. They note: Historically, Black bodies have experienced institutionally acquired debt through higher interest rates from insurance companies, mortgage companies, auto finance, healthcare, etc. Therefore, piling on student loan debt goes against tone of the founding principles of Oberlin College & Conservatory, which is to promote the successful prosperity of Black people within the academic sphere and beyond. (Legal Insurrection, 2015)

The calls for educational reform, then, include an understanding of the core mission of students’ colleges and careful scrutiny of how the nexus of race and class affects its students. It might be observed that this is a task of someone in the registrar’s office, student financial aid, or even part of the fiduciary responsibility of a board of trustees. In some sense, then, like other student activist work throughout the history of higher education, students are doing the homework and agitation work that their institutions should have done. To be clear, the demands for compensation are also related to demanding that universities reconsider how they shift the financial burden of running universities in these days of limited state support onto students. As we know, costs are shifted onto students by increased tuition rates, but they are also shifted onto students when universities partner with apartment complexes or other university-business partnerships that now provide housing with the intention of deriving profit for both the business involved and the university. So, student activists at Oberlin further demand “an immediate review and restructure of the Office of Residential Service policies regarding access to housing and meal options. The current policies are financially inaccessible and unsustainable to Black students” (Legal Insurrection, 2015) The demands made by students at Oberlin were not unique. And such demands have drawn the ire of some who believe students are complaining “snowflakes” unable to take up even their own causes without being paid. Conservative websites claim that Sarah Lawrence College students also demanded that women of color be paid for their emotional labor expended in improving campus climate, but the screen captures show only the argument about the python let loose (Croll, 2017). While I think it is important to discuss emotional labor as labor, the work student activists do is more than emotional labor. Emotional labor is part of what they and underrepresented faculty, staff, and administrators do, of course, as part of a regular day of navigating university systems and processes not fully designed to accommodate difference. Such daily emotional labor is part of what sustains underrepresented students on campus and part of what impels demands for recognition of that work and change in those regularized processes of exclusion. What they do as activists, though, is the same sort of work that paid consultants

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do: it assesses institutional shortcomings and points out flaws in academic and student life concerns. Students at University of California system universities and other universities and colleges on the East Coast demanded $15 an hour pay for student employment, free tuition, and “the abolition of student debt” (Mulhere, 2015). Brandeis student demands included calls for greater Black student and faculty recruitment and retention, but also a 15% raise in campus staff salaries (Black Liberation Collective, n.d.). California State University, Los Angeles, Black students demanded many of the same institutional improvements, including more solid funding for the Black Student Union and a $30 million endowment for Black students’ financial aid, citing the fact that many Black students are working two or three jobs. Further, they demanded affordable housing, noting that Black students cannot afford to live near the university. Colgate University demands similarly listed the need for more jobs for students and free transportation to Syracuse so that working-class students would have the opportunity to alleviate the experience of isolation on the basis of socio-economic status. Each of these demands recognizes the obvious connection between the support for minority student learning, the development of inclusive campuses, and the need to take student financial concerns seriously. Students who demand payment are, in their careful analysis of what kind of activity they can afford and who ought to pay when students can’t afford to give their labor away, engaging in a non-ironic neoliberalization of protest that assumes everyone ought to derive compensation for their political work. But if older activists are tempted to bemoan the good old days when people sacrificed time and effort for their protests, we would do well to remember that we likely could afford to do so, or perhaps saw a brighter economic future ahead so were not only able, but were willing to sacrifice in the short term. At least in my case, college tuition was about $500 a semester and rent about $80 a month. Granted, not everyone had this precise experience, but we can likely agree that the difference in costs of a university education and the relative cost of time invested in protest were quite different then. There is a certain economic rationalism in demanding to be paid to improve an institution, especially when so many of the discriminatory institutional processes and practices that seem to so many protesting students to be stubborn refusals of change. The fact is that such improvement work could be considered a kind of repetitive labor needed to continually hold universities to the promises of their missions. In other words, demands to be paid for keeping the university on track show that not only does student community improvement work deserve compensation, but that it will be an ongoing sort of employment, not a one-off rally or sit-in. Part of my argument here is that student activism may now, in some situations, be less focused on public protest and more focused on activist work that can be combined with an increasingly expensive college education. Attention to the number of hours students have to work to afford going to college has jarred many of us into realizing that the modes of student activism have not only changed because of diminishing spaces

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for public protest or shifts to hashtag activism, although those are also changes we need to be thinking about. But it may also be that patterns of activism have had to change because of employment-related time constraints. When students work three jobs to go to school, when they work through the night, or when they hit the usual difficulties of university life and find those multiplied by serious employment responsibilities, they are often simply unable to show up to events organized by older activists who may have more time to devote to such things. Like work-study programs that recognize students’ educational needs would be better served by keeping them at the university, even if in nonacademic positions, our point is to put students into conversation with one another and get them thinking about how to design programming, how to do publicity, and how to do other core tasks related to activism but that do not necessarily require attending a rally or march.

Building Queer Community to Avoid Hostile Climate Queer students may be reluctant to engage in activist activities that put them at risk for hostility from opponents to their causes, and so providing them with opportunities for leadership, design, and/or creating supportive spaces may be a way to mitigate those challenges. When LGBTQ students come from hostile hometowns, sometimes they come to the university to escape having to make an issue out of their sexuality or come to live through the gender transition they’ve waited years for. They may want to get about the task of living their lives in a supportive and growing community and not be interested in protest that opens them up for ridicule and hostility. Part of living their lives involves finding ways to build the community they have been looking for and finding ways to address the shortcomings of policies and practices they experience at the university. Even by working side by side in the LGBTQ+ center, students initiate conversations about what they’d like to do or what kinds of activities they’d like to see at the center, even if they are not themselves ultimately the ones doing that organizing or programming. By pointing out tensions related to student activism in this chapter, I am not suggesting that many students are not activists in the traditional sense, nor that independent student activism ought not to be encouraged. (I’ll return to this point later.) Rather, my intention is to explore how the LGBTQ+ center has shifted its student employees to researching, organizing, and leadership projects aimed at improving the campus and broader community’s experience of LGBTQ issues. Because our students are not able to have free time to be activists, we are reconceptualizing them as compensated student leaders and organizers. To help develop leadership, organizing, and research skills, we’ve started hiring more undergraduates to do the sort of programming that used to be handled by volunteers. We have done this, in part, because we would prefer to see our students working collaboratively and collecting evidence rather than working in

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fast-food or consumer service positions. The point is not to denigrate service work, but to instead think of undergraduate student employment in the same way graduate assistantships are designed: as practical experience to help them bring to bear their academic talents on social problems that affect their academic and community context. Because the tasks related to our center’s programming at West Virginia University are closely allied to the skills and critical thinking capacities they need to develop as students, such activist-scholarship makes sense both to us in a center charged with bringing advocacy and activism together, but also as a campus that prides itself on community and state service. West Virginia University is a community-engaged institution that a few years ago won the Carnegie Classification of Community Engagement and is ranked second in the United States in this category. Students at WVU are required to take a service learning course and, whenever a local river overflows its banks or other unfortunate things occur, students can be seen early Saturday morning lining the street, gloves and buckets in hand, ready to ride buses to affected areas. Colleagues who help place students in community service, though, have noted that there is an overwhelming student interest in working on issues that may seem less challenging to the student volunteers themselves. All service work is laudable, but faculty and staff familiar with the popular trends—working with children or volunteering with Animal Friends, a local animal shelter and placement organization—are concerned that while students may do service that leaves their definitions of community and inclusion intact, it does not put them in contact with people of different races, ethnicities, sexualities, and so on. WVU is a predominately White university, and student activists who want to move their colleagues into thinking more carefully about diversities and differences of race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation, are working in a place where such diversities are not as visible as they are on some other campuses. They are working in an environment that sometimes reflects a comforting sense of what service is, although all service opportunities do provide new ways for students to resituate themselves in their communities, work with people in difficult straits, and get them to think about how to make such practices part of their lifelong learning. Students begin their leadership/organizing work by thinking together about the kinds of projects they feel need addressing at the university, in the community, and/ or at the state level. So far, they have reorganized a languishing Speakers Bureau of LGBTQIA students who go to university classes to share peer-based information on queer and trans community, begun researching peer-based queer and trans-inclusive sexual health programs, and helped disseminate information about LGBTQ+ Center programs by tabling, graphic design, and social media-based work. They have started to organize a group of gender-diverse students and begun planning for a group for LGBTQ+ students of color. Each of these projects has built on their experiences on campus, their organizing with one another, and the readings they’ve done in classes. Jorge Castillo, the LGBTQ+ center coordinator, and Charlotte Hoelke, the Women’s Resource Center coordinator, have also designed a course to help keep student activists, whether center

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employees or those just interested in activism, thinking together about the projects they want to do. These courses have also added credit into the mix of compensation. While I think this is a good innovation that helps the center recognize the level of student engagement in positive community change, I want to distinguish what the students are doing from protest-based activism (however supportive of that I am). In her discussion of the problems related to activism and post-structurally inflected feminist critical pedagogy, Liz Ellsworth (1995) comments on the limits of what can happen in a class. Classes—and educational employment—are circumscribed activities. However much one may want to “open” space or “foster” critical engagement, students have spaces already and criticality enough. If we as educators too readily assume that what we’re doing is offering something like empowerment or whatever other term might signal that we are shepherding them from inchoate discontentment to polished activists, we are likely crediting ourselves with too much and may very well have covered up the difficulties to get there. Other organizations also recognize the necessity of providing some kind of compensation to students. For instance, one of the students in our minor who is active at the center is involved in Stay Together Appalachian Youth (STAY), a project that is partly aimed at creating “safe, sustainable, engaging and inclusive communities” to help stem the tide of younger generational exit from the region (STAY Project, n.d.). STAY recognizes the need for people to be working together to change their communities into the kinds of places they would want to stay in and provides travel support to enable youth to join conferences and collaborate on developing community. Josh Stuart reflects on how his involvement with STAY helps support him as a student and gives him a sense of futurity in the region that is, on the one hand, partially financially supported by the organization but, on the other hand, is centered on young people’s ability to have time and space to develop plans for how they will work with one another: STAY reimburses travel and any type of expense for that travel. STAY is dedicated to teaching you leadership abilities and how to hold your own space and be autonomous and not need adults, to lead their own communities, make an impact. Like holding workshops, wherever we go we try to do a community event so when we were in Whiteburg we did a community event. Summer opportunity for youth by youth, dedicated to youth led workshops, a sex ed workshop, Appalachian activist songs, union songs, and more. It’s located in Highlander so is part of that [continuing tradition]. Workshops are completely up to the youth in the space. We laid out some of the details because it’s been going for ten years and the alumni from STAY is going to come in and talk about how STAY has helped them in their

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careers and communities, but it is just really to give youth an alternative space. Whereas we see this rise in Appalachian nationalism [we had just had racist posters on campus calling on “heirloom” white people in Appalachia to organize], you don’t have to turn to that. There’s a diverse group of people in Appalachia and because it’s such an isolated space, youth aren’t able to organize in that space. It’s just more difficult for youth to be in connection. I wish we had more of a voice. STAY also has a seat at a conference of other organizations from the South, so any steering committee member can go participate in those meetings. Learning from my participation in STAY I’ve learned I have a passion for activism, but I don’t know where to put that. There are a lot of organizations based in southern WV but I don’t see the same organizations up here. . . . Our Appalachianness is kind of erased (up here) in a way . . . but I would like to be more involved in the community in Morgantown and [having the LGBTQ+ Center provide funding for a liaison position between the center and STAY] would be a great way for STAY to be involved in this community. I work fifteen hours a week and I would much rather be doing work that to me is up my alley than cashiering.

This work with STAY will shortly become part of a paid internship supported by the center because it brings attention to queer-related issues to projects aimed at improving youth retention in Appalachia, and it also focuses the center on distinctly West Virginia concerns. As a land-grant university, WVU is already involved with local corporations (helping them to encourage inclusive practices), schools, and anti-bullying projects, and other projects aimed at encouraging LGBTQ people to find community together. STAY also gives us a way to bring some of these projects into conversation with more generalized issues facing the region.

Autonomy and Activism While these compensated but academically relevant activities are important, they are not the only way that student activism can be conceived. There is a potential danger, of course, in having what might be considered activities in some kind of family relationship to activism become too much a part of academic options and too closely connected with faculty supervision. I would fault myself here for having been a little suspicious about what some of the community-building activities entailed, thinking them a little frivolous but then finding out from the students that they were occasions for quite a bit of critical thought and part of how they unwind. My objection wasn’t to anything

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especially provocative, but that they were watching what seemed, to me, relatively uninteresting cartoons. But it turns out, on further discussion, that they were discussing the gender diversities in the series while also having noxious-colored cereal for breakfast, an aspect of the events that I still object to but, at this point, it should be clear that my objections are a form of nagging and not politically noteworthy. I have also talked to a student intent on having our campus boycott the showing of Boys Don’t Cry on campus because some students were critical of its portrayal of violence against a trans person. My opinion was different than theirs but, as I have argued elsewhere, their position was rooted in anger at exclusion and anger at the thought of a panel discussing the film without adequately understanding what trans exclusions felt like at our university. Their point in making the protest was to highlight transphobia; and so even if people disagreed with the particular route of the protest, no one disagreed that transphobia on campus was a problem. The sponsor of the film responded immediately to their demands and cancelled the showing. But the broader conversation on transphobia did not get taken up as a result of the boycott demand, although other students have organized around the issue. Whatever the particularities of our campus situation, the discussion over representations of trans people has started larger conversations about generational differences on trans issues that may point to both a need to have more intergenerational organizing and also to understand that we will see things differently—and thus, need to be aware that sponsored projects will need to give way to independent activism. Boys Don’t Cry and its director have been subject to protest on other campuses and, while I am sympathetic to Jack Halberstam’s (2016) astonishment at the level of vitriol directed against the film and its director, the relatively quick generational changes in how trans issues are discussed are, as Halberstam also points out, worth considering in detail. Halberstam was critical of student activists who ignored director Kim Peirce’s gender and sexual identity, used sexist epithets, and seemed to radically misunderstand the context of the film. In addition, Halberstam provided a broad array of considerations that activists ought to have engaged, including an understanding of the context of the film’s creation, a problematization that all characters be played by actors of the same identity, and the need to face violence against trans people. At a time of political terror, at a moment when Fascists are in high offices in the land, when white men are ready and well positioned to mete out punishment to women, queers and undocumented laborers, we have to pick our enemies very carefully. Spending time and energy protesting the work of an extremely important queer filmmaker is not only wasteful, it is morally bankrupt and misses the true danger of our historical moment.

Protests like the one that drove the director out of a campus venue where she had been invited to give a talk, though, are also protests about the exhaustion with forms

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of exclusion that are not on the terms of those being targeted for inclusion. That frustration may be expressed precisely at the point when others, maybe older, are in the midst of wanting to discuss representation in more detail and constructing the kind of student-based community work we’re sponsoring. Trying to figure out how to improve the campus is the job of faculty, staff, and administrators, though, and so to distinguish the outrage of activists from the more studied approach to such things that are academic employment is useful. Students are very likely to experience situations that lead them to an immediate expression of their political critique. And when that outrage is generated, students will need to concentrate their efforts on honing their messages in the time and place of their outrage. They should not have to worry about being in an academic or employment relationship to people with whom they may have arguments. In other words, not all student activism should be so closely intertwined with instructors or supervisors, and we need to take care that we are not making experiences of marginalization worse by overly scrutinizing their work as leaders or their real volunteer activism elsewhere. Those generational differences or differences in racialized, gendered, or sexuality-based analysis will make a difference. To take a somewhat related situation, a Yale lecturer suggested that students concentrate on their own agency to determine what constitutes offense and even wear offensive or provocative costumes rather than rely on top-down directives from administrators. The ensuing student protests were not against her calls for their agency but against her implicit racism for not joining in the administration’s criticism of racist costumes. To the student protesters, her call for students to be offensive contributed to the exacerbation of their experience of bias on campus. She not only undermined the administration’s message forbidding bias; she encouraged it on the grounds that students needed to act more independently (Stack, 2015). I assume that there may come a point when students will want to protest something LGBTQ+ centers do or will find an invited speaker offensive or will need to take off on their own to criticize something on campus or in the community. Their “capture of speech” (de Castell & Jenson, 2004; de Certeau, 1997) and the time of their outrage are also their business, but not in the sense of economic exchange or compensation. If we aim, in some way, to assist the regularization of social justice maintenance work, we also need to be cautious about creating stultified (Ranciere, 1991) versions of community improvement education. In other words, we are not suggesting that paid employment replaces all student activism, but rather that compensation for a wide array of community-building projects acknowledges the context of student precariousness and the need for universities to better address and welcome difference. But if freedom is to remain free, we still also need to remember that sustenance and support do cost money. We may be providing enabling conditions, through leadership/activism work, but conditions that will need to be exceeded. Like so many school districts that recognize the need to provide food support, if we want to find some ways to be part of the maintenance work of difference and justice, we do need to be part, too, of the material support necessary

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to do that important project. This does not mean we want to control student projects or that we seek to “open” space already open to students or to not encourage “voice” that students already have (Ellsworth, 1995; Orner, 1995). At the same time, compensation is important in encouraging students to continue the kind of unpaid and almost-unrecognized interventions they do as a matter of course because they care about their community. The LGBTQ+ center had a warm greeting on campus when it opened in 2016, but not without its complications. Expensive signs were stolen, replaced, and stolen again. Replacement for the third time seemed a waste of money, so student workers started chalking the name of the center on the sidewalk every day. At a certain point in the election cycle, hostile chalking started to cover our chalking. One day a student who was otherwise not connected with the center came in and asked to borrow some chalk. When she returned it later, she said she’d noticed the anti-LGBTQ+ messages and they just got to her. She hoped we didn’t mind that she chalked over everything but our name. She went on to class just happy that she’d been able to pitch in. When I posted a message about how nice it was so see positive chalk graffiti instead of the usual mocking messages, we later found supportive chalk messages all over, near the center. So, while it is important to compensate students for the work that they do, there is also a need for them to have the freedom to work outside supervised equity maintenance work and learn to live in communities where what they come up with on their own, spontaneously, provides such work.

References Black Liberation Collective (n.d.). Our demands. Available from blackliberationcollective.org Croll, D. (2017). “Emotional labor” payments sought for female student activists. College Fix. Available from https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/35109/ de Castell, S., & Jenson, J. (2004). Paying attention to attention: New economies for learning. Educational Theory, 54, 4, 381–397. de Certeau, M. (1997). The capture of speech and other political writing. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Ellsworth, L. (1995). Why doesn’t this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy. In C. Luke & J. Gore (Eds.), Feminisms and critical pedagogy (pp. 90–119). New York, NY: Routledge. Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). Paying the price: College costs, financial aid, and the betrayal of the American dream. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Halberstam, J. (2016, December 7). Hiding the tears in my eyes—Boys don’t cry—A legacy. Bully Bloggers. Available from bullybloggers.wordpress.com/2016/12/07/hiding-thetears-in-my-eyes-boys-dont-cry-a-legacy-by-jack-halberstam/ Legal Insurrection. (2015). Oberlin College Black Student Union institutional demands. Scribd. Available from https://www.scribd.com/document/293326897/Oberlin-College-BlackStudent-Union-Institutional-Demands

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Mulhere, K. (2015). Student protesters nationwide demand free tuition, $15 minimum wage, no student debt. Time. http://time.com/money/4110102/million-student-march-protesthigh-tuition-student-debt/ Orner, M. (1995). Interrupting the calls for student voice in “liberatory” education: A feminist poststructural perspective. In C. Luke & J. Gore (Eds.), Feminisms and critical pedagogy (pp. 74–89). New York, NY: Routledge. Ranciere, J. (1991). The ignorant schoolmaster: Five lessons in intellectual emancipation. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Stack, L. (2015, November 8). Yale’s Halloween advice stokes a racially charged debate. New York Times. Available from www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/nyregion/yale-culturallyinsensitive-halloween-costumes-free-speech.html STAY Project. (n.d.). About. Available from https://www.thestayproject.com/about-stay.html

Chapter 16

College Students With Disabilities and Their Activism J. Mark Pousson and Karen A. Myers

Introduction Student activism on college and university campuses has many manifestations that perturb the various systems represented in these institutions. For a college student with a disability, activism initially takes the form of self-advocacy, which is not an innate skill but one learned and nurtured. The capacity to advocate for oneself can lend itself to being an advocate for minority groups, which is a hallmark of student activism. This chapter provides an overview of college students with disabilities and their development as student activists; addresses the development of activism through the intersection of self-advocacy, activism, and identity development; and offers implications regarding the development of students with disabilities as activists for student affairs practitioners, faculty, administrators, and students in institutions of higher education.

College Students with Disabilities Demographics According to the 2010 U.S. Census, approximately 309 million people in the United States (i.e., 20% of the population) reported having a disability (U.S. Census Bureau,

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2011, 2012). Within this subset of the American population, 20 million were college students (i.e., 11% of the total college student population reported having a disability) (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012; National Center for Education Statistics, 2015). Since 1978, the number of such students has tripled from 3% in 1978 to the current 11% (Snyder, Debrey, & Dillow, 2016). While the number of students with disabilities in higher education is growing, there is minimal knowledge about their campus experiences, much less about their activism (Kimball, Wells, Ostiguy, Manly, & Lauterbach, 2016; Snyder, Debrey, & Dillow, 2016). The primary reason for the increase in college students with disabilities enrolled is due, in part, to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 (Myers, Lindburg, & Nied, 2013). In the approximately 30 years since the passage of the ADA, young adults, such as college students with disabilities, have taken it for granted that their civil rights would be upheld regardless of having a majority or minority group status such as race, gender, or disability (Myers, 2012). However, had it not been for the activism of college students with disabilities, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the ADA may not have been promulgated by the U.S. government.

Disability Rights Movement Disability activism has a long history with varying disability-specific groups campaigning for rights for its members (Longmore, 2003). Examples include the deaf community seeking to protect sign language as an authentic language in the 18th century; the blind community forming a political lobby in the 1940s; and other groups representing individuals with physical disabilities, learning disabilities, and psychiatric disabilities fighting for inclusion in schools, the work place, and community living (Lane, 1984; Longmore & Goldberger, 2003; Noll & Trent, 2004; Porter, 1989). In the 1970s, a disability rights community with a political identity was formed from the loose assemblage of disability-specific groups (Longmore, 2003; Switzer, 2003). “Nothing About Us Without Us,” a slogan used by disability advocates in South Africa in the 1990s and the mantra for the disability rights movement in the United States, exemplifies the necessity of voice and empowerment of an oppressed population when developing policies related to that population (Charlton, 1998). Like other movements for marginalized and oppressed groups, the disability rights movement was fueled by students on college campuses, using their voices to affect change. Although rarely publicized, “disability activism paralleled, and in some instances preceded, other student protest movements” (Patterson, 2012, p. 474). Students, such as, Fred Fay at the University of Illinois, Ed Roberts at the University of California, and Judy Huemann at Long Island University in New York, led other students to fight for equal access and barrier-free environments for students with disabilities via lobbying, protesting, and forming fraternities and student organizations. Originating from their own experiences at summer camps and rehabilitation centers, their political activism “intertwined processes of consciousness-raising and network formation [transforming their] understanding

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of accessibility—both physical and socially” (Patterson, 2012, p. 474). Following graduation and armed with their strategies, experiences, and rights consciousness, these pioneers of the disability movement converged with other activists in Washington, D.C., and across the country to secure disability legislation protecting the civil rights of people with disabilities. Challenging President Nixon’s resistance to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the legislation included Section 504, prohibiting the discrimination of people with disabilities in federally funded institutions, including colleges and universities. According to Mary Jane Owen, a disability rights activist, “Those of us at Berkeley, we knew how to organize a protest, so we did” (Neudel, 2011). In 1977, protestors with disabilities took over the federal building in San Francisco, chaining themselves together. Shortly after, the Rehabilitation Act regulations were signed. The disability movement forged ahead, promoting access for people with disabilities to all aspects of American life, including employment, government services, public- and privately owned places open to the general public, transportation, and telecommunications. Through intensive meetings with politicians and government committees to protesting inaccessible public busses and leaving wheelchairs to crawl up the steps of the United States Capitol, disability advocates joined forces and voices, calling for access for all. Student protests at nearby Gallaudet University led to hiring the first deaf president of the university in 1988. This bold and passionate action on the part of the students and the administration helped shepherd the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), considered the greatest civil rights legislation of our time. As President George H. W. Bush proclaimed at the signing of the ADA on July 26, 1990, “May the walls of discrimination come tumbling down” (Neudel, 2011). Over 20 years later, college students continue to learn about disability issues and support antidiscrimination through educational programs and social justice initiatives (Myers, Lindburg, & Nied, 2013). Self-advocacy seems to be an underpinning skill set of the activists in the disability rights movement and other legislative movements (Rubin & Roessler, 2008). The self-advocacy of college students with disabilities fueled the societal changes resulting in the passage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Hartley, 2018). It seems this skill set also informs student activism and, in turn, can be viewed as an example of activism (Hartley, 2018; Kimball, Moore, Vaccaro, Troiano, & Newman, 2016). This skill set remains invaluable as college students continue to face external and internal barriers to their academic access and success.

Barriers The external and internal barriers college students with disabilities experience impact their academic access and success. Some external barriers include faculty members’ questioning the legitimacy of the determination of a disability and accompanying academic accommodations (Hong, 2015; Yssel, Pak, & Beilke, 2016). Similarly, faculty attitudes, along with administrators’ concerns about the costs of accommodations, impact

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the academic success of college students with disabilities (Wolanin & Steele, 2004). Students with disabilities visible to their peers, faculty, and staff are often excluded from the enjoyment of the opportunities available to their peers without disabilities (Hatch, Ghere, & Jirik, 2008; Higbee & Mitchell, 2009; Myers & Bastian, 2010). In addition to these external barriers, the internal conflict of identifying as a person with a disability can impact a student with a disability’s academic success. Some students with disabilities often are unaware of their functional limitations and cannot advocate for the specific academic or housing accommodations they need (Marshak, Van Wieten, Raeke Ferrell, Swiss, & Dugan, 2010; Hong, 2015). Other students with disabilities seek to reidentify themselves from high school students with disabilities to college students with disabilities. There are other students with disabilities who seek to reidentify themselves as high school students with disabilities to college students. Some students with invisible disabilities such as learning disabilities, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD), or psychiatric disabilities may choose not to disclose their disabilities and seek to “pass” for students without a disability (Alexandrin, Schreiber, & Henry, 2008; Hong, 2015; Yssel, Pak, & Beilke, 2016). This reidentification is appropriate since disability identity is affected by the various experiences of students with disabilities interacting with their environment (Bronfenbrenner, 1993; Patton, Renn, Guido, & Quaye, 2016). It is within this dynamic between the student and his or her environment that meaning making occurs, which, if determined by others, is viewed as a deficit, but if self-determined is empowering (Dunn & Burcaw, 2013; Johnstone, 2004).

Intersectionality Central to the theory of intersectionality is the person-environment interaction, which creates multiple social identities. Focusing on one social identity is difficult since it can only be understood by addressing its relatedness to other social identities of the individual (Alvarado & Hurtado, 2015; Burke & Stets, 2009). Therefore, it is from the intersections of constructed meanings extracted from the interpersonal interactions with others within the time stamp of past and present history where intrapersonal identities are formed. At the same time these intrapersonal identities are formed, they are fluid and can change over time within the contexts of society and the environment (Prior, 2015). Thus, it is through the intersection of the college students with disabilities interaction with their environment where their social identities such as activist, individual with a disability, and self-advocate are formed. It is the interplay among these three that allows students with disabilities to be activists (Kimball, Moore, Vaccaro, Troiano, & Newman, 2016).

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Student Activism Student activism in higher education has remained a societal and institutional driving force throughout the history of higher education (Broadhurst & Martin, 2014). In the 1960s and 1970s, activism centered on identity and, as a result, there was a movement toward equitable representation of various minority groups on college campuses, prompting the creation of cultural centers and the establishment of ethnic studies programs (Patton, 2010; Umemoto, 1989). Attitudes toward activism have changed over time. The choice of perturbations to interrupt systems has shifted from combativeness (seen as impossible to sustain) to one of negotiation of power through advocacy, which has expanded the range of activist practices (Harrison & Mather, 2017). Activism can be seen as a catalyst of systemic change when students understand the systems in which they seek change. In doing so, they are at the same time observers while immersed in the system (Becvar & Becvar, 2009). The negotiation of power is palatable when there is an exchange between members of the system. Thus, conflicts will arise and continued perturbation of the system will occur until there is resolution suggesting change (Harrison & Mather, 2017). Campus activists’ strategies have expanded from direct protest to serving on campus task forces and developing and implementing educational programs. Working within systems has afforded student activists greater opportunities for systemic change. By partnering with faculty, staff, and administrators, student activism is perceived to be a means for college students to learn about democracy and the necessary tools to be successful as active citizens (Kezar & Maxey, 2014; Quaye, 2007). In the same vein, student activists viewed their involvement in social change as an enhancement of their college education whereby their activism became another context in which to learn course content and see theory become relevant (Harrison & Mather, 2017). Similar to the educational benefits, student activists benefit personally from involvement in challenging the status quo and working for systemic change. Linder and Rodriguez’s (2012) research discovered student activists found their activism as a “safe space” (p. 393) wherein they found connection and inclusion with like-minded students with shared values, whereas without it they would continue experiencing being part of a minority group. Even the experience of conflict is not without educational and personal benefit. Conflict provides the context for educational and personal growth, enabling “critical reflection on [their] own formation to a larger sense of self—one that identifies with all people and ultimately with all of life” (Daloz, 2004, p. 105).

Students With Disabilities’ Activism Students with disabilities, similar to individuals with disabilities, are more heterogeneous than homogeneous, and the forms of activism they use reflect their diversity of disability diagnoses, accommodation needs, and degrees of disability identification.

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All these, independently and collectively, can be obstacles for collective interests and subsequent protests for society and/or cultural change on a college campus regarding the issues students with disabilities face (Kimball et al., 2016). Yet, Kimball, Moore, Vaccaro, Troiano, and Newman (2016) indicated that activism is greater than collective action. Specifically, for students with disabilities, activism is a combination of disability identification in tandem with self-advocacy informing activist behavior. In turn, this developmental aspect of activism informs the activism strategies college students with disabilities use: self-advocacy, storytelling, and collective action, which reflect the traditional images of activism (Ropers-Huilman, Carwile, & Barnett, 2005). Ropers-Huilman and colleagues (2005) determined student activism to be “more than just organizational involvement; instead it implies involvement in and commitment to social change” (p. 298). This perspective of student activism may or may not include resistance, which entails students responding to the belief they “are actively oppressed by the powers that be . . . [and collectively] are in actuality resisting aggression and suppression (Boren, 2001, p. 4). Activism and its resultant behaviors may be driven by ideological and intellectual beliefs, or they could be viscerally and emotionally motivated, as is the case with resistance (Kimball, Moore, Vaccaro, Troiano, and Newman, 2016). An example of the former is a college student in a wheelchair who is modeling successful academic skills for a child in a wheelchair who is in an after-school program (Pasque & Vargars, 2014). An example of the latter is assertive action from members of the deaf community and young adults with developmental disabilities seeking to be more self-directed (Ford, Acosta, & Sutcliffe, 2013; Padden & Humphries, 2006).

Disability Identity Development Identity development theory evolved from the sociological theory of symbolic interactionism, which focuses on meaning making (Burke & Stets, 2009). Symbolic interactionism espouses a twofold process by which individuals define and interpret who they are with regard to others and their social contexts in relation to their environments. This is accomplished through the individuals’ capacity to create meanings specific to people, objects, and situations by interpreting these in relation to their social environment (Longres, 2000). What results from the comingling of meaning making among individuals is a self-mirroring society (Stryker, 1980). Integral to symbolic interactionism is the co-creative capacity of human beings in relation to one another. Human thought, emotion, and behavior allows individuals to cocreate society with others. The overlapping creative process with others affects the individual’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. It is from this co-creative space where interaction with the environment forms the individuals’ identity, self-esteem, self-image, and perceptions of others, though different, yet the same in many ways (Longres, 2000; Stryker, 1980). Over time, individuals continually interpret their own identities and will perceive and respond

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to themselves in a similar fashion as others perceive and respond to them (Burke, 1980). The interpretive process that individuals with disabilities use to determine their identities as persons with disabilities can be problematic, since having a disability for some individuals is only part of who they are and does not define them as persons (Gibson, 2006). For other individuals with disabilities, their experience has included “systematic institutional victimization from all aspects of society,” but has not been limited to the educational system, the medical community, and the workforce (Gibson, 2006, p. 7). Following Burke’s (1980) observation that an individual’s identity can evolve to be similar to the identity others perceive them to have, individuals with disabilities’ identities can evolve in the same manner. The dominant culture expresses its ideas on how individuals with disabilities are to think and behave, and if internalized, individuals with disabilities incorporate this oppressive ideology into their identities and “come to believe they are . . . less capable than others” (Charlton, 2006, p. 220). Depending on the issues drawn from interaction with the environment, the individual with a disability’s identity development may be overshadowed by such issues, leaving the individual feeling angry and resigned and with a thwarted identity development. If the issues do not overwhelm the identity development of the individual with a disability, then there may be a willingness to accept the disability as a gift (Chickering & Reisser, 1993; Yuker, 1988). Since language is the common element shared between the individual with a disability and other individuals in their social environments, it is important for individuals to attend to the “meanings assigned to disability and the patterns of respond[ing] to disability that emanate from, or are attendant upon, those meanings” (Linton, 1998, p. 8). Language allows individuals with disabilities to describe the meaning associated with experiences. It behooves individuals with disabilities to be aware of the external dialogue between themselves and societal members’ meanings associated with disabilities and the subsequent internal self-dialogue in which these associated meanings are evaluated and determined to be integrated into a self-identity. What needs to be challenged or reinforced is the incorporation of the input from society regarding self-identity (Burke & Stets, 2009; Longres, 2000). Within the dynamic of the individual with a disability’s interaction with his or her environment, the process of self-identification through meaning making can be positive and one of acceptance and, ultimately, left up to the individual (Dunn & Burcaw, 2013; Johnstone, 2004).

Disability Identity Development Theory Developmental models suggest levels of identity progression for individuals with disabilities to “understand themselves inclusive of their disability and in relation to other individuals with disabilities” (Patton, et al., 2016, p. 236). Gibson’s (2006) three-stage disability identity development model portrays the identity of individuals with disabilities to be fluid across the stages of development. Gibson (2006) observes that individuals

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with disabilities’ identity development begins with “passive awareness,” whereby the individuals are taught to avoid attention focused on their disability and interactions with other individuals with disabilities, resulting in the lack of role models of others with disabilities. Using such coping responses, individuals with disabilities distance themselves from perceived minority groups as a way to protect their identities. In line with these coping responses, other responses include denial of their own disability, attempts to pass as not having a disability, and overcoming functional limitations (Branscombe & Ellemers, 1998; Olney & Brockelman, 2003). After encountering a significant experience, Gibson (2006) believes the next stage (i.e., “realization”) occurs. Here, the individual begins to acknowledge his or her disability and begins to experience concern for others’ perception of his or her disability and, if internalized, he or she may experience self-hate and anger. If there is resolution between the external and internal meaning making of being an individual with a disability, “acceptance” may occur (Gibson, 2006). Here, individuals understand and accept their differences, interact with others with disabilities, and may perceive themselves as disability activists due to their self-advocacy within the world of people without disabilities (Gibson, 2006). Nario-Redmond and Oleson’s (2016) research reinforces the idea that determining disability group identification results in higher self-esteem and greater participation in activism, thus yielding greater self-advocacy skills for participation in educational campaigns and political protests calling for legislative reforms. One of the salient lessons from the disability rights movement regarding social change is the importance of disability identification, group membership, and collective action (Little, 2010; Lindly, Nario-Redmond, & Noel, 2014). Those individuals with disabilities who had a strong disability identification, expressed pride in being part of the group, and embraced group membership within the disability community were least likely to minimize their disability identity, while valuing the disability experiences they encountered and being supportive of social change (Nario-Redmond, Noel, & Fern, 2013). The endorsement of, and involvement in, social change actions for the betterment of the disability community encourages members to reflect on their experiences of marginalization due to prejudice and not as a reflection of their own deficits. In the end, this reflective practice can protect self-identity, self-esteem, and self-advocacy skills (Hartley, 2018; Kimball, Moore, Vaccaro, Troiano, & Newman, 2016; Major, Quinton, & McCoy, 2002).

Self-Advocacy Self-advocacy has often been included in the literature on self-determination, a concept focusing on the skills necessary to achieve academic goals through self-reflection and persistence (Getzel, & Thoma, 2008; Test, Fowler, Wood, Brewer, & Eddy, 2005). For students with disabilities, self-determination skills involve acceptance of the disability;

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knowledge of its impact on learning and support services to access; the ability to describe the disability and the need for accommodations; and the ability to determine goals to resolve obstacles (Getzel & Thoma, 2008). Yet, self-advocacy seems to ground students with disabilities’ attempts at self-determination (Daly-Cano, Vaccaro, & Newman, 2015). For the purposes of this chapter, self-advocacy will be discussed independently from self-determination. Pertaining to college students with disabilities, Test and colleagues (2005) outlined the components of self-advocacy to include knowledge of self (understanding of one’s disability, learning styles, goals, strengths, limitations, and accommodation needs), knowledge of rights (personal, educational, communal, community resources), communication (negotiation techniques, assertive communication, individual and group problem-solving), and leadership (advocating for others as part of group membership). By utilizing these components, students with disabilities self-advocate when communicating their needs and wants and making decisions about the resources available to them (Stodden, Conway, & Chang, 2003). The question arises whether these self-advocacy skills are innate or learned. Regardless of the debate over nature versus nurture, in one study, college students who reported high levels of self-advocacy also reported higher degrees of adaptation to college (Murray, Lombardi, & Kosty, 2014). Daly-Cano and colleagues (2015) find that students learn self-advocacy from their families, school personnel, and peers. From their research, it seems that families are the main contributors to students’ learning of self-advocacy skills. Students with disabilities’ education in self-advocacy skills often begins in childhood with the observation of their parents advocating on their behalf. An impediment to parents teaching their children self-advocacy skills appears to be K–12 policies. K-12 policies are based on a paternalistic model appropriate for minors, with strong parental involvement, but this model is not transferable to higher education. . . . But the burden is on the individual student to successfully navigate higher education. (Institute for Higher Education Policy, 2004, p. 1).

Parents who present themselves as overprotective and worry about their children’s ability to succeed throughout their elementary and secondary school experiences will thwart the development of the self-advocacy skills their children will need to succeed in college, employment, medical, and social settings (Goodley, 2005; Murray et al., 2014; Murray & Naranjo, 2008). In those families where support and encouragement were given to children to practice self-advocacy skills, children learned to believe they could advocate for themselves throughout their educational environments, even into college (Daly-Cano et al., 2015). By assertively coping with and overcoming external and internalized oppression through the use of self-advocacy skills, students with disabilities learn to be more resilient (Goodley, 2015). Other benefits of utilizing self-advocacy skills include increased

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self-confidence in decision-making skills and better self-concept (Beart, Hardy, & Buchan, 2004). Utilizing these skills allows students with disabilities to confidently find their own voices, know how to disclose the parameters of their disabilities, articulate services and/or accommodations needed, and advocate for the needs of their disability group and for other minority groups or societal issues (Gil, 2007; Kimball, Wells, Ostiguy, Manly, & Lauterback, 2016; Stodden et al., 2003).

Implications for Higher Education Institutions of post-secondary education have opportunities to assist students with disabilities to develop the necessary self-advocacy skills that would inform not only their disability identity, but their activist practices as part of being a member of society. The intersection of self-advocacy, identity development, and activism allows for a holistic development of college students as they prepare themselves for the variety of systems they will encounter after graduation. Here are some recommendations for colleges and universities in their endeavors to increase students’ self-advocacy skills, their identity and development, and activist practices. Institutions may begin teaching self-advocacy through campus activist activities focused on disability issues not included in the diversity and inclusion initiatives on college campuses. Some colleges and universities have adopted the Syracuse University model (Hong, 2015). Syracuse’s Beyond Compliance Coordinating Committee (BCCC) focuses on inclusive policies and practices in university settings to create and support fully inclusive climates (Beyond Compliance Coordinating Committee, n.d.). The BCCC demonstrates its advocacy for equality of opportunity for people with disabilities and policy change in higher education through exemplary disability services, its Disability Studies program, and hiring faculty and staff with disabilities. A nationally prominent advocacy group, the BCCC presents and publishes internationally, supporting and modeling its mission of access and inclusion for all members of the community (Beyond Compliance Coordinating Committee, n.d.). Another option for college campuses is to utilize the offerings from the Ability Institute at Saint Louis University. The institute’s two programs, Allies for Inclusion: The Ability Exhibit (an international traveling exhibit) and the transnational Ability Ally Initiative Workshops, foster the institute’s mission to “promote global inclusion by providing educational opportunities to transform attitudes and develop allies for people with disabilities (Ability Institute, n.d.). Initiated and developed by graduate students at Saint Louis University, the Ability Exhibit is an award-winning multimedia interactive exhibit promoting disability awareness through displays and videos highlighting the disability movement, inclusive language, celebrities with disabilities, disability statistics, disability education quizzes, bullying, and universal design for facilities, curriculum, technology, and student services. Since its inception in 2010, the Ability Exhibit has

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been hosted by colleges, universities, schools, nonprofit organizations, and businesses and has been shown in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Belize. The Ability Ally Initiative workshop is a two-hour interactive workshop addressing inclusion and ally development. Facilitated in the United States, Spain, the United Kingdom, India, Ghana, and Belize, the Ability Ally Initiative workshop has been translated into several languages including Arabic and Chinese. The Ability Exhibit and the Ability Ally Initiative workshop both conclude with participants developing action plans for becoming allies for people with disabilities and pleading to be allies for inclusion.

Conclusion Students with disabilities have contributed to the betterment of society through their past activist practices. Their current activist practices have expanded the notions of activism from past collective resistance protests to advocating for social change through networking and modeling self-efficacy and self-advocacy. What influences these activist behaviors is acceptance of one’s disability, disability group membership, and self-advocacy skills. By collaborating with established advocacy programs, such as Syracuse University’s Beyond Compliance Coordinating Committee and Saint Louis University’s Ability Institute, students with disabilities can spotlight inclusion and awareness of disability issues. Demonstration of these skills may be the perturbations needed to shift the stigmas associated with disability at the micro, meso, or macro levels. The activist practices of college students with disabilities can contribute to the expansion of activism choices of other college students and/or student groups. Collective action still has it benefits, but independent actions of students through self-advocacy can shift ideologies and create social change. Regardless of disability status, college students can learn from each other in their commitment to be agents of social change. In the end, students with disabilities can encourage their peers without disabilities to invest in their own development of self-advocacy skills and self-identity, which, in turn, will inform their activist practices not only in college, but in their lives post-graduation.

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Contributors

Joshua Axelrod is a junior at Tulane University, studying English, political econ-

omy, and Jewish studies. During the academic year he covers university news for the Tulane Hullabaloo and works as a Community Engagement Advocate, facilitating conversations around race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, and ethical community service. Currently, he is spending a semester studying at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a city filled with political division and toxic discourse, to further his understanding of conflict and communication. Cassie L. Barnhardt is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational

Policy and Leadership Studies at the University of Iowa. Her research focuses on various aspects of civic and public engagement, including how college students learn about and enact social responsibility and how universities contribute to democracy and civic life. Dr. Barnhardt has published in the Journal of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, and Review of Higher Education, among others. She is a Fulbright Scholar, and her grant-funded work has been supported by the John Templeton Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. She teaches graduate courses on higher education administration, organizational behavior and management in postsecondary institutions, and research methods. J. Patrick Biddix is Professor of Higher Education and Associate Director of the

Postsecondary Education Research Center (PERC) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research and teaching focuses on research design and assessment, student engagement and involvement, and postsecondary outcomes. His dissertation, as well as several book chapters and journal articles, centers on living wage activism. Dr. Biddix is the author of Research Methods and Applications for Student Affairs (Jossey-Bass, 2018, and co-author of the 2nd edition of Assessment in Student Affairs (Jossey-Bass, 2016).

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He serves as the Associate Editor for Books for the Journal of College Student Development. In 2015, he received a Fulbright Scholar Award to study in Montreal, Canada. Victoria K. Malaney Brown is a doctoral candidate in higher education at the

University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research interests focus on multiracial college students, intergroup dialogue, critical race theory, and student activism. Her background is in student affairs and social justice, including residence education, diversity programming, student conduct, student crisis intervention, and academic integrity. Ashton R. Cooper is a doctoral student in Higher Education Administration at

the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His primary academic interests are Whiteness studies and leadership. He currently works with the Honors Leadership Program and the Leadership Studies minor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Joseph L. DeVitis is a retired professor of social foundations of education and higher

education. Two of his 19 books have earned Choice awards from the American Library Association (ALA), and four others have won Critics Choice awards from the American Educational Studies Association (AESA). He is a past president of the AESA, the Society of Professors of Education, and the Council of Learned Societies in Education. Dr. DeVitis is also the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His most recent books are Colleges at the Crossroads: Taking Sides on Contested Issues (2018), Making College Better: Views from the Top (2018), Higher Education and Society (2016), and Popular Educational Classics (2016). Betsy Eudey is Director and Professor of Gender Studies at California State Univer-

sity Stanislaus and serves as Faculty Director for Advising and Learning Cohorts. She has taught and directed women’s and gender studies programs since 1998, and especially engages in research addressing feminist activism and gender and LGBTQ issues in schools. She also serves as a co-moderator of the Women’s Studies Listserv (WMST-L). Dennis E. Gregory is Associate Professor of Higher Education at Old Dominion University, where he also serves as a Provost Fellow, working with faculty, administrators, and students to assess campus knowledge and provide educational programs around the importance of the First Amendment. He is the author of more than 75 articles, book chapters, book reviews, and other publications. He was a Fulbright Fellow to Portugal in 2014 and a member of the Fulbright Regional Selection Committee (2015–2017). He is the author of The Administration of Fraternal Organizations on North American Campuses: A Pattern for the New Millenium (2003). Prior to becoming a faculty member, Dr. Gregory was a student affairs administrator for almost 25 years and has extensive international education experience.

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Peter Halewood is the Gov. George E. Pataki Professor of International Commercial Law at the Albany Law School in New York. His research addresses the intersection of international trade and commercial law and human rights; campus politics and academic freedom; property law and commodification; and food insecurity. He is ChairElect of the Association of American Law Schools Section on International Human Rights and is an Affiliated Faculty and Advisory Board member at the State University of New York at Albany’s Global Institute for Health and Human Rights. Tess Halpern is a senior in the Commonwealth Honors College at the University of

Massachusetts, Amherst. She is expected to graduate in May 2019 with a B.A. in English, along with certification for minors in both sociology and political science. She is also the Head Editor of the Opinion and Editorial section at the Massachusetts Daily Collegian, where she is also a biweekly columnist. Ebelia Hernández is Associate Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University. Her research interests center on the interconnection between Latinx student engagement and holistic development, and includes using critical race theory and historical research. Dr. Hernandez is a co-author for the forthcoming book, Understanding the Latinx Experience: Developmental and Contextual Influences (Stylus, 2019). Angus Johnston is a historian of student activism at Hostos Community College of

the City University of New York. His writing has appeared in publications ranging from The Chronicle of Higher Education to Rolling Stone. He serves as a mentor and advisor to various student organizations and speaks regularly on college campuses. He can be found on Twitter at @studentactivism. He is currently at work on his first two books. Spoma Jovanovic is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of

North Carolina at Greensboro. She introduces students to community initiatives and activist strategies by collaborating with grassroots efforts to enhance dialogue and action related to civic literacy, cultural understanding, democratic participation, and social justice. Dr. Jovanovic is the author of Democracy, Dialogue and Community Action: Truth and Reconciliation in Greensboro (University of Arkansas Press, 2012) and editor of Partnerships: A Journal of Service-Learning and Civic Engagement. Marvette Lacy is the Director of the Women’s Resource Center at the University of

Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she utilizes collaborative partnerships to develop power-conscious programs, services, and spaces to create a more socially just world. She has also served in residence life and first-year initiatives positions. Her research agenda includes the identity development of Black graduate students, campus-based sexual assault,

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student activism, and critical qualitative research. Dr. Lacy holds a Ph.D. In College Student Affairs Administration from the University of Georgia. Eric Margolis is a retired Sociologist and Associate Professor in The Hugh Downs

School of Human Communication at Arizona State University. He is Past President of the International Visual Sociology Association. His scholarly interests include the politics of higher education, visual research methods in general, and visual ethnography in particular. His most recent books are The Sage Handbook of Visual Research, co-edited with Luc Pauwels (Sage Publications, 2011); an edited book, The Hidden Curriculum in Higher Education (Routledge, 2001), which has been translated into Chinese and Farsi; and The Blackwell Companion to Social Inequalities (Blackwell, 2005), edited with Mary Romero, also translated into Chinese. Cris Mayo is Director of the LGBTQ+ Center, an advocacy and research unit provid-

ing core courses in the LGBTQ minor, and Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at West Virginia University. Her publications in queer studies, gender and sexuality studies, and philosophy of education include Gay Straight Alliances and Associations Among Youth in Schools (Palgrave, 2017), LGBTQ Youth and Education: Policies and Practices (Teachers College Press, 2013), Disputing the Subject of Sex: Sexuality and Public School Controversies (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004, 2007), as well as articles in Educational Researcher, Educational Theory, Studies in Philosophy and Education, Policy Futures in Education, Review of Research in Education, and Sexuality Research and Social Policy. Karen A. Myers is Professor and Director of Higher Education Administration at

Saint Louis University. She is the founder of The Ability Institute and the award-winning Allies for Inclusion: The Ability Exhibit. A college teacher and administrator at nine institutions since 1979, she is an international disability educator and author, most notably of the ASHE monograph, Allies for Inclusion: Disability and Equity in Higher Education (Jossey-Bass, 2014). Roberto C. Orozco is a doctoral student in the Higher Education program at Rut-

gers University. He currently serves as a graduate assistant in the Office of Enrollment Management and research assistant for the Tyler Clementi Center. His primary research interest focuses on the experiences of queer Latinx student activists,with a grounding in critical race theory and Joteria theory. J. Mark Pousson is Assistant Professor of Higher Education Administration at Saint Louis University. He has a diverse background in student affairs mental health services, service-learning initiatives, and disability services. He has also been an administrator of an academic resource center. His research is directed toward college students with disabilities, college student success, and college students’ gender identity development.

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His most recent research publication focuses on the attitudes of university students toward their peers with disabilities. Pietro A. Sasso is Assistant Professor and Program Director of College Student Per-

sonnel Administration at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. He has published over 30 scholarly articles and book chapters. He is the editor of several texts, including Today’s College Students (2014), Higher Education and Society (2016), Colleges at the Crossroads: Taking Sides on Contested Issues (2018), and The Dynamic Student Development Meta-Theory: A New Model for Student Success (2018), and Fraternities & Sororities in the Contemporary Era (2019). His research interests include identity construction of traditional undergraduates (college student development), alcohol misuse in higher education (student health outcomes), the impact of the college fraternity experience, and masculinity in higher education. Michael Soldatenko is Professor of Chicana(o) and Latina(o) Studies and Special Assistant to the Provost at California State University, Los Angeles. His Chicana(o) Studies: A Genesis of a Discipline was published by the University of Arizona Press (2009); it analyzes the genesis and development of contemporary Chicana and Chicano academic thought. Some of his most recent essays appear In Joseph L. DeVitis and Pietro A. Sasso (eds.), Higher Education and Society (Peter Lang, 2015); in Jaime M. Pensado and Enrique C. Ochoa (eds.), Mexico Beyond 1968: Revolutionaries, Radicals and Repression during the Global Sixties (University of Arizona Press, 2018); and in the journal Dialogue (2017). Terah J. Stewart is a doctoral candidate in College Student Affairs Administration

at the University of Georgia. He has served as a student affairs practitioner, engaging in robust social justice and identity work. He has maintained oversight of intercultural and intracultural programs aimed at increasing awareness, support, and communication engagement around equity and social justice issues. His research interests include student activism, resistance, critical race theories, fat-body politics, sex work, and Black experiences in the academy. Joshua Stuart is a senior Interdisciplinary Studies major at West Virginia Univer-

sity, with minors in Sociology, LGBTQ+ Studies, and Creative Writing. At the time of this writing, he served as a Steering Committee member for the Stay Together Appalachian Youth (STAY) Project.