Protesting and the college experience go together like roasted marshmallows and chocolate, or liver and onions. Although the staggering majority of campus (or inter-campus) letter-writing campaigns, marches, and demonstrations will not wind up on state, national, or international news, some have left indelible impressions on history.
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Columbia University:
The 1968 protests at Columbia University targeted three different issues: the Vietnam War, the school’s involvement with the Institute for Defense Analysis, and a nearby gym proposal with segregationist policies. Most infamously, this involved the complete takeover of campus buildings, a direct violation of school rules to relegate demonstrations to outdoors, and even threats to take then-dean Henry S. Coleman hostage, the former in . Joined by allies out of Barnard, participants often found themselves as ideologically at odds with one another as they were Columbia itself, with noticeable divisions along race and class lines. Even more noticeably, African-American students refused to take part in any violent displays, while white students wound up claiming arrests and 150 injuries, though 30 students of different backgrounds landed suspensions. Still, though, people listened. Columbia cut ties with IDA and Princeton bought up the gym plans for its own campus.
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Kent State University:
“This summer I hear the drumming/Four dead in Ohio,” the Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young song mourns. In May of 1970, the Ohio National Guard was dispatched to Kent State University in response to four days of students protesting Nixon’s announcement that the United States planned to invade Cambodia. By day one, the mayor already declared the situation a state of emergency, as around 500 students started out peaceful and gradually escalated to burnings, broken glass, and tear gas. By day four, four students lay dead and nine more sustained serious injuries. The tragedy sparked more protests around the nation, including a march of 100,000 in Washington, D.C. and 4 million American students on 900 campuses led to shut downs and even more fatal student shootings. Including…
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Jackson State College:
Not even two weeks after the incident at Kent State, two Jackson State College (now known as Jackson State University) students lost their lives and 12 more wound up injured during a protest against the American occupation of Cambodia. Like its counterpart in Ohio, the Mississippi-based institution saw its initially peaceful protests take a turn for the violent, and 75 local police units responded to reports. While no charges wound up filed, the gunmen responsible for killing and maiming the involved students received reprimands for escalating the situation and overreacting to the displays by shedding blood.
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Tiananmen Square:
Although the defining date for the Tiananmen Square massacre fell on June 4, 1989, tensions directly leading to the violent events began percolating as early as April. China’s government officially declares that the 300,000 troops sent in response to student demonstrations killed and injured nobody. However, witnesses and evidence declare between 241 and over 2,500 fatalities and roughly 7,000 injuries on both sides of the conflict. Probably the most infamous example of a student protest in history, the Tiananmen Square slaughter began as a May hunger strike against a visit by then-Soviet head Mikhail Gorbachev, attracting around 300,000 at first. Such a bold display against China’s communist regime sparked sympathetic demonstrations in over 400 cities around the country — even Party-affiliated individuals and organizations declared their allegiance to the Beijing gathering. Martial law was declared in early June, leading to violent, tear gas-clouded rioting in the surrounding neighborhoods. And, of course, the horrifying death and injury toll.
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Delhi University:
Rajiv Goswami, the former student body president of Delhi University, became the public face of protests against then-Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh’s desire to implement the Mandal Commission in 1990. This would have provided more economic opportunities for individuals hailing from traditional marginalized castes via quotas, and self-immolation arose as a major form of disagreeing with the legislation’s tenets. Even though Goswami kickstarted the trend, his contemporary Surinder Singh Chauhan was the first to die as a result of the practice, though the former suffered from severe health complications until his passing at age 33. Some estimate that up to 150 students around India emulated the Delhi University example, and while other factors factored into the decision, the Mandal Commission has yet to happen.
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University of California Davis:
One of the most memorable Internet memes of 2011 made light of the pepper-spraying incident at University of California Davis. Twenty-one students taking part in the Occupy protests on campus found themselves on the receiving end of the burning substance, which cost the school $630,000 in settlements and a slice of Photoshopped infamy. As peaceful demonstrators hooked arms across the quad entrance, riot gear-clad cops just let loose with the capsaicin, unleashing a backdraft from fellow protestors around the United States and outsiders considering such a measure unnecessary force. Ten arrests, nine of them students, went down as well, with police targeting those who set up tent camps on campus.
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Occupy Student Debt:
Considering the Occupy Movement’s focus on the 99%, it makes sense that college students and graduates struggling with the question of paying off loans in an unstable economy find it an agreeable cause. Citywide protests sprang up in response to the original on Wall Street, eventually growing to encompass concepts. Enter Occupy Student Debt. Its main goals revolve around making public colleges tuition-free, loans with no interest, and transparency regarding how tuition dollars get spent. Participants and supporters believe that predatory lending practice contributed to the economic downturn and that education is a basic human right. Unlike the other student protests listed here, this one cannot really be pinned to one particular campus or landmark.
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Quebec:
Some believe the 2012 students protests across Quebec stand as one of the largest social justice movements in Canadian history, with thousands showing up to march and camp out in the streets of Montreal. On campus, 12,000 enrollees at Universite de Montreal and 27,000 at Universite du Quebec a Montreal boycotted their classes in response. Demonstrators from multiple colleges and universities did not officially tether themselves to the Occupy ideology, but their ultimate desires very much overlap. Specifically, the belief that tuition increases leave graduates with high-interest debts they can’t reasonably pay off, especially in an economy with few full-time jobs open. They hope rallying against hikes begins dismantling the catch-22 that college means earning a higher salary over time but requires considerable financial strain to get there; not to mention the fact that starting the career necessary to pay everything isn’t exactly guaranteed these days.
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Demo 2012:
An estimated 10,000 British students took to the streets of London in November 2012 in opposition to the very same fiscal and employment concerns as their American and Canadian counterparts. Like Occupy and other similar movements these days, Demo 2012 relied largely on social media to organize – #Demo2012 on Twitter and Instagram, for example — and spread its core messages. The National Union of Students originally backed the rally and march, which the media actually covered and mapped in real time. Although the event already concluded, the NUS continuously updates the website, Facebook, and Twitter with news of progress and failure in the higher education realms concerning them most.
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Al Jazeera University:
On December 3, 2012, Sudanese government officials arrested 53 students taking part in a nonviolent sit-in and series of demonstrations at Al Jazeera University, with four found dead in a nearby canal days later. The international community believes the deaths directly correlate with their seizure and subsequently placed pressure on the Ministry of Justice to launch a full investigation. Before the tragedy erupted, participants were making a statement to the school regarding the tuition protocol for students from Darfur. Darfur Peace Agreement granted them payment waivers should they elect to attend university, but the school failed to honor this initiative. And supporters of social justice wound up losing their lives because of it. Counter-protests in nearby cities burst onto the scene in solidarity, with the country’s government and the students supporting it taking pains to quell them. One incident at Khartoum’s Omdurman Islamic University involved teargassing and beatings by the police, with one dorm catching fire.
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