Statewide education cuts should be protested not ‘celebrated’
Published: Monday, March 8, 2010
Friday’s headlines should have read something like, “College students celebrate education cuts.”
This isn’t an indictment against the estimated 3,000 activists that showed up at Cal State Long Beach for Thursday’s nationwide “Day of Action for Public Education.” Many of the demonstrators recognize that what is happening to education at all levels in California is a human rights tragedy in the making.
Although their objectives were not defined clearly enough to qualify as effective civil disobedience, they at least brought passion to the pavement.
Unfortunately, Thursday’s action was more celebration than protest. Rock bands, singing, face painting and dancing? Get real. What victory justified a carnival? The tactic only diffused the intended message that students — the ultimate consumers in higher education — demand better treatment. Woodstock was a concert, not a student movement.
Dissent would have been better served by opening the microphone so all stakeholders had an opportunity to express their grief with the systemic abandonment of public education. That chance was denied by short-sighted organizers. Ask the student who tried to access the mic, only to have it yanked away by a faculty union representative.
Every politician on the map knew they only had to hide for a heartbeat before it was safe to show their faces. The silence from those students who refused to join the fray echoed loudly in the chambers where budgets are inked. You could practically hear your elected representatives chuckling, “No noise in the streets means the masses are satisfied.”
When lawmakers perceive the overwhelming majority is content with the status quo, their day is done; they simply move on to the next special interest. At best, they heard mild whimpers of discontent buried 20 minutes into local news broadcasts. Most mainstream newspapers either tucked student protest stories below the fold or relegated them to inside pages.
In essence, it was a non-event. Certainly, no students, parents, faculty or employees darkened political offices, which should have been the next step on a continuum of meaningful physical protest. Letter writing campaigns and e-mail bombs are largely ignored. Paid staffers handle that mess with the delete button or a trash compactor.
The main reason most students didn’t show up was because it wasn’t about them, or at least that’s what they believe. Present conditions are nothing near what the future might be if this downward spiral continues; current students’ children will be deprived of educational opportunities. But they see no sense of urgency if it means skipping a class to carry a sign.
The trend for student complacency and apathy was replicated nationally. It wasn’t an anomaly of CSULB. Today’s students must realize that the current emergency will worsen dramatically if they don’t take a stand now and address this as a potentially crippling civil rights dilemma.