{"id":10573,"date":"2015-05-26T14:59:29","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T14:59:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/?p=10573"},"modified":"2015-05-26T14:59:29","modified_gmt":"2015-05-26T14:59:29","slug":"the-renaissance-of-student-activism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/naacpms.org\/the-renaissance-of-student-activism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Renaissance of Student Activism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThere has been a real powerful sense … that the future they were promised has been taken away from them.\u201d<\/h2>\n

2015\/5\/21-<\/strong>Maybe the campus protests seemed rather isolated at first. Dissatisfaction with the administration. Outrage over bad decisions. A student altercation gone bad.<\/p>\n

For example: The protest at Florida State University last fall, when students didn\u2019t like the idea of having the Republican state politician John Thrasher as their school\u2019s president and launched a campaign\u2014#SlashThrasher\u2014against his candidacy. Citing the lawmaker\u2019s corporate ties, various groups staged demonstrations, including some who\u00a0organized a march<\/a>\u00a0to the city center.<\/p>\n

Or the protest at the University of Michigan in September, when, amid frustrations over their football team\u2019s losses, students\u00a0rallied at the home<\/a>\u00a0of the school\u2019s president to demand that he fire the athletic director. They had more on their minds than lost points: The director had neglected to remove the team\u2019s quarterback from a football game after he suffered a serious head injury that waslater diagnosed as a concussion<\/a>. (The Florida students\u2019 protest failed to change minds at FSU, but Michigan\u2019s athletic director was quickly sent packing.)<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m proud of our history. I\u2019m not proud of Dave Brandon being a part of that history.\u201d pic.twitter.com\/JDLSWXM7YE<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Ace Anbender (@AceAnbender) September 30, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There was the\u00a0confederate-flag fiasco<\/a>\u00a0at Bryn Mawr, which resulted in a mass demonstration by hundreds of students who, all dressed in black, called for an end to racism on the Pennsylvania campus. A week later, more than 350 studentsstaged a similar protest<\/a>\u00a0further north, at New York\u2019s Colgate University. That one\u2014dubbed #CanYouHearUsNow\u2014likewise aimed to to end bigotry among students and faculty; it was in part prompted by a series of\u00a0racist Yik Yak posts<\/a>.<\/section>\n
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Just as has been happening in communities at large, campus protests against racism and bigotry\u2014along with related types of discrimination\u2014have become commonplace. Students at the University of Chicago hosted a#LiabilityoftheMind social-media campaign<\/a>\u00a0last November to raise awareness about institutional intolerance. A \u201cHands Up Don\u2019t Shoot\u201d walkout was\u00a0staged the same month by hundreds of Seattle high-schoolers<\/a>. Roughly 600 Tufts students\u00a0lay down in the middle of traffic<\/a>\u00a0in December for four and a half hours\u2014the amount of time Michael Brown\u2019s body was left in the street after behind shot. Students at numerous other colleges did the same.<\/p>\n