A march for activism

About 40 students marched to President Jon Westling’s office on Thursday in protest of various students concerns. The “campus-wide day of action” was a desperate attempt to revive the activist spirit characterizing the campus in the late 1960s when students protested about issues such as the Vietnam War. Because there are no longer issues unifying students school-wide, protesters combined several to increase support and participation. Instead, this approach trivialized the importance of each issue individually.

The protest focused on so many widely diverse issues, ranging from getting cable television in dorms to creating a rape crisis center to changing the non-discrimination clause. How can anyone compare cable television to a rape crisis center or the non-discrimination clause? Some of the issues do not even compare to the importance of the issues that students tackled in the past. And when presented with so many concerns, how could Westling or any other administrator adequately address them all at once?

The marchers seemed to be more interested in the protest itself than in making any real change. While participants and organizers have demonstrated their passion for their causes in other more effective ways and have made significant strides toward progress, this march did not help them in their struggle. Students should continue to take small steps toward change by meeting with administrators, writing proposals and gathering supportive data rather organizing marches. If the march had attracted more participants, it would have made a greater impact — but such a low turnout does not indicate that a huge number of the student population supports their causes.

Student activists should try to focus on small, directed action to make changes at the University, unless they can encourage real supporters among students. Otherwise, protests like Thursday’s march will not make a huge impact on the administration or produce significant results.