The growth of the student protest movement has sparked a series of debates about strategy and tactics, and those debates have gotten more intense in the wake of the March 4 Day of Action. Activists and their critics have legitimate disagreements about methods and goals, and those disagreements are now being aired in public with growing frequency.
I’m going to be talking a bit about those disagreements soon, but first I want to clear away some of the straw men that have popped up recently. If there’s going to be a debate, and there should be, let’s have it in good faith, with a coherent approach.
I read an essay this morning that suffers from all of the weaknesses that I’ve got in mind. In an opinion piece in the online journal Politics Daily, Muskingum College senior Joshua Chaney argues that March 4 represented a missed opportunity because “participants’ messages were mixed, their disruptions turned away other students and members of the public, and their voices often fell on the wrong ears.” That’s a legitimate argument, though it’s one I mostly disagree with. But unfortunately Chaney gets the specifics of it completely wrong.
Here are four things to bear in mind when writing, talking, or thinking about contemporary student protest:
1. Mixed messages come with the territory.
Chaney complains of the March 4 protesters’ “lack of a common voice and purpose,” calling for “clearer messaging.” That’s all fine nad dandy, but it avoids the central question: clearer messaging from whom?
The contemporary American student movement isn’t an organization or a political party. Nobody was screening March 4 actions and giving out credentials. There was no seal of approval. This was a grassroots event. Nobody was in charge. Nobody had the power to impose a common agenda on the events, because the events weren’t coordinated or conceived by a central body. Anybody could mount an action on March 4, and just about everybody did. That’s how social movements roll.
“Student activists are now taking divergent paths in determining what steps are next,” Chaney says. Well, of course they are. They weren’t all on one path to begin with. That diversity is a reflection of the vigor and vitality of the movement, but even if it wasn’t, it would be an inevitable result of the