Student protesters said the recent activity among Occupy protesters nationwide does not reflect a new emphasis on education, but rather a possibly more narrow approach to addressing students’ concerns.
The Occupy movement resurged Thursday with the National Day of Action for Education.
BU Occupies Boston members joined local supporters and protested throughout downtown Boston and at the Massachusetts State House Thursday, said College of Arts and Sciences junior Brandon Wood, a BU Occupies Boston member.
Student protesters nationwide took to the streets at the demonstration, especially at colleges in California.
“In California, [Occupiers’] actions are really, really amazing,” said Amanda Achin, a University of Massachusetts Boston senior. “They had one high school [that] had a walk out of 250 students, [and] they had a 99-mile march where today students marched to occupy a capitol building.”
The demonstration marked one of several set for the spring, though members did not elaborate on their plans.
“Student issues are going to be a huge part of the reemergence of Occupy,” said BU Occupies Boston member Kristen Martin in a phone interview.
Martin, a CAS junior, said student debt and similar issues will play a larger role in Occupy protests over the summer and thereafter.
“The increasing amount of student debt is obviously on everyone’s mind and that’s the next level,” she said.
BU Occupies Boston made educational injustices a priority since it was established in the fall, among the numerous other issues raised by protesters.
Wood said Occupy protesters might have narrowed their focus to education for a number of reasons, including a refinement of the protesters’ goals to the change of seasons.
“Maybe we’re just getting better at refining our focus and outreach and really attacking specific issues and refining our general, very broad push for change and getting that done through very specific means,” Wood said in a phone interview.
Wood noted the “flexible” nature of Occupy’s strategy.
“When the weather improves and it gets warmer outside . . . you’ll start to see some different tactics as well, maybe a return [to] some tactics used early on,” he said.
While BU Occupies Boston put more emphasis on contributing to larger general assemblies and Occupy Boston’s efforts, Martin said educational injustices have always been a focus for the campus group.
Martin said Occupy Boston members protested a number of educational issues, including tuition hikes, increasing resegregation of public schools and key funding of public schools and privatization of public colleges. One of the most pertinent issues Occupy Boston addressed was the aftermath of the mortgage lending crisis.
“We had the housing bubble and now we’re creating another bubble, and that’s the student debt bubble,” Martin said. “It’s definitely going to be a big issue that Occupy is going to focus on in the next few months.”
Students at other Boston-area colleges similarly zoomed in on education issues, but college funding has always been on the agenda, Occupy members said.
Northeastern University freshman Katie Soldau said Northeastern focuses more on student debt and rising tuition costs.
“There’s lot more active stuff on college campuses [than in the city], but I don’t think I’d expect it to stay that way once it warms up,” Soldau said in a phone interview. “I definitely think the student group is focused on student issues right now, a lot more than we were in the very beginning.”
Achin said the movement has had somewhat of a setback, but the recent activity marked a large step forward for the movement in its goals for education.
“We’ve seen a little drop in numbers, but it hasn’t been too bad,” she said. “We have a fairly large group of students who are really dedicated to addressing the issues around education in Boston.”
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