Campus Day of Action: Will Protest Problems Impede Movement for Change?

It wasn't until the national guard was called in that the violence was quashed, and ever since those days student protest has been a part of the American college experience.

The anarchist style of protest was alive in various forms during the March 4 Day of Action, a network of events organized by students around the country to voice their disapproval of higher fees and fewer services at public colleges and universities. Unfortunately for many hoping for a more mature, organized protest, participants' messages were mixed, their disruptions turned away other students and members of the public, and their voices often fell on the wrong ears.


Unwelcome Disruptions

University of California campuses were the protest epicenter once again, due largely to a vote in November to increase tuition by 32 percent in light of the state's budget problems, though events took place around the country and abroad. As the Day of Action progressed, it became clear that a significant number of protests were creating public safety problems.

At the UC Davis campus, about 300 students attempted to march onto the interstate to block traffic, but were stopped by police who used pepper spray and clubs to keep them back, The Aggie reports. In Oakland, demonstrators succeeded in holding up traffic for about an hour on Interstate 880, where one participant was injured when he jumped off the freeway. At UC Berkeley, around 800 demonstrators stopped traffic before marching to Oakland, The Daily Californian reports. At the UC Santa Cruz campus, University employees were urged to stay home because demonstrators had blocked access to buildings, according to City on a Hill Press. Across the country, students rallied at the University of Wisconsin's administrative offices, where 15 were arrested for obstructing justice and disorderly conduct, The UWM Post reports.

Disrupting the public is no way to gain positive attention and sympathy for a cause. Using such tactics risks putting the means of protest into the headlines instead of the concerns behind them. Many tweets and updates from the groups, and even by participating student journalists, focused on how many were arrested, as if protest success could be measured in handcuffs (extra points for baton assaults or tasings?). The overall message suffered whenever the focus shifted to unnecessary disruption.

Some students chose not to participate specifically because they disagreed with the means by which activists were disrupting their societies. "I am here for my education, and in my opinion (the rally) is stupid," one UC freshman told a campus newspaper. Another student said she was "really turned off by the riots."


Mixed Messages

And what was that message, exactly? Not only were the demonstrators' means distracting; their lack of a common voice and purpose was as well. One student, freshman Jesse Yeh, told the Daily Californian that the multiple sects involved hurt rather than helped the cause. "There were too many different coalitions thrown into the mix, like for example the impeach Obama people. I feel like all the different groups were sending mixed messages."

In the aftermath of the big day, student activists are now taking divergent paths in determining what steps are next. Some are debating whether the movement should focus on the state legislatures or the public at large. Organizers of the Day of Action protests say that will look to exploit a larger "crisis in government priorities." Many feel less money should be spent on prisons, locking up non-violent offenders, and on wars, and more money should be spent on education. Clearer messaging would have provided valuable guidance for the March 4th protests, and it is certainly hurting efforts to turn their momentum into real change.


Targeting Power

The protests might have left some school administrators scratching their heads. They didn't want their funding from the state to be cut, right? College officials -- despite issues with poor management and salary increases (see California Progress Report's coverage here and here) -- have less to do with protesters' concerns than state lawmakers.

"Going to Sacramento and taking it to the legislators will speak a much louder message than simply waving your hands at Bancroft and Telegraph [on the Berkeley campus]," freshman Ben Brint told the Daily Californian. Yet many of the protests took place on campuses instead of in front of statehouses and state lawmakers' offices. "Continued protests will be less effective," Chancellor Robert Birgeneau said. "Students and families going to offices of legislators and speaking to local officials is the next step."

In his autobiography, Governor Reagan recalled a moment of protest that he wrote he would "never forget." In 1969, at the peak of violent protest, he was scheduled to attend a meeting with the state Board of Regents at a building on the University of California San Diego campus, where a "huge crowd" of protesters had gathered. Despite his security detail's insistence that he enter through a back entrance, away from the demonstrators, Reagan said that he preferred to walk through the front door 150 yards away as planned.

"The protesters had decided to hold a silent demonstration, with not a sound, and everyone just standing and glaring at me as I made the walk; the silence had an effect and pretty soon it began to seem like a very long walk and I was feeling a little uncomfortable," he wrote.

There were no bombs, no guns, no tasers, and no disruptions, yet the moment had an effect on Reagan. Maybe it was only for the moment, but it stayed with him. Well-executed protests can make impressions on the people with the power to have an impact. Restoring funding to our systems of education is a problem too important to be lost in disruption and confusion because of a failure to remember this lesson.