PrintOn a bulletin board in Hamilton, students have been debating the state of activism on campus in chalk graffiti. “It’s over dumbass,” reads one comment. Below is a thoughtful reply: “If you think that you live on another planet.”
This back-and-forth hints at the deep emotional response evoked by Columbia’s activist reputation. Whether they are earnest or cynical, most students have something to say—or scrawl—about the matter.
Columbia imagines its history as a series of peaks—moments of activist glory or hullabaloo—that, as they approach the present, come closer and closer to Earth. The collective events of 1968 tower in the distance with images of building takeovers and the protests of a generation of radicals. The 1985 hunger strike for divestment from apartheid South Africa, the 1996 hunger strike that led to the creation of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, and the hunger strike of 2007 that is most closely associated with Gatorade and a papier-mâché octopus are some of the other highlights of Columbia’s activist heritage.
Nostalgia—or thank-goodness-we’re-over-it-ism—tends to arise in conversations that cite these, and perhaps a few other, events. But are we really over it? A close look at Columbia’s current activist scene reveals significant change, rather than decline. An unseen—and successful—activist movement exists on campus. Why does it remain in the shadows?
Work to relocate a gas line between 125th and 129th streets began Monday, Sept. 21 in front of Floridita Tapas Bar & Restaurant. The restaurant, where the Student Coalition on Expansion and Gentrification frequently meets to discuss Columbia’s relationship with its neighbors, has been a flashpoint of the Manhattanville controversy, as its owner, Ramon Diaz, has bitterly protested Columbia’s expansion. But on the street, traffic passed calmly. There were no megaphones. Campus basked in the crisp but mild fall weather.
It might appear that this nonchalance indicates a lack of interest in the plight of Manhattanville. But across campus, SCEG had papered bulletin boards with fliers exhorting students to attend its regularly held meetings. This emphasis on meetings might seem to have replaced demonstrations, protests, and righteous indignation. A more stirring alternative to logistical drudgery is mocked on one not-yet-covered board. “Hunger strike,” reads the chalk graffiti. Added derisively below are the words “for douchebaggery.”
As Destin Jenkins, a Columbia College senior, puts it, “activism here at Columbia is not sexy.” In his attempts to revive an activist coalition on campus and bring progressive campus leaders to his WKCR radio show, Jenkins has witnessed the un-sexiness of campus activism firsthand. It consists of meetings, research, e-mails, wrangling with Lerner Hall bureaucracy, phone calls, more meetings—and a lot more e-mails.
The hours of fliering, meeting, and planning stand in stark contrast to any vision of activism as hunger-striking or building-storming. Students have forgone much of this high-profile work, now relying on a glut of paperwork and logistics in their quest to accomplish more than jaded campus wisdom commonly assumes possible.
Laura Seidman, a Columbia College senior and a member of Students for Environmental and Economic Justice, emphasizes the effectiveness of research and similar leg-work. Green Umbrella, a coalition of campus environmental organizations, of which SEEJ is a member, wanted to have campus printers accept used paper.
The first step was to figure out whom to talk to. Upon discovering that the set-up of such a printer would fall under the purview of Columbia University Information Technology, SEEJ arranged for a meeting. There they discussed feasible locations for the project, and now such a printer is located in Mudd. Setting up printers, like SEEJ’s current campaign for environmentally and socially responsible purchasing, is bound to be low-profile. But the payoff of this sort of mundane, practical work is that it gets things done.
SEEJ member Zak Accuardi, a junior in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, notes that activist groups are moving away from the usual awareness-raising events. These tend to be less effective for issues like scrap-paper printing and socially responsible purchasing—two areas in which it may be difficult to inspire student excitement. But these sorts of projects can succeed without grand campaigns, as the arrangement with the Mudd printer demonstrates.
Accuardi does not dismiss the value of protests and demonstrations, which, he maintains, have their place. The wise allocation of resources—and student indignation and involvement are both resources—is important, especially for smaller campus groups. The apparent trend away from protests and rallies is, then, pragmatic, rather than simply a sign that protests are out of vogue.
Getting the right people together to talk, as SEEJ strives to do, is a logistical challenge faced by all student organizations, especially those whose work takes them off campus. Plugging students into larger campaigns is “a jigsaw puzzle”—one frequently solved by “just a lot of e-mailing,” says David Eddie, a student in the School of General Studies and president of Students for Sensible Drug Policy. Because there is already a lot of activism surrounding this group’s broad mandate for reform, SSDP focuses on supporting other activists, disseminating information, and getting students involved. It “requires a great level of diplomacy” to present the organization professionally and avoid its radical connotations, Eddie says. Very little about the networking, meetings, and conferences that characterize the bulk of SSDP’s work supports the stereotype of the group as solely focused on legalizing pot. Nor do these tireless logistical efforts set this organization apart from the many others on campus.
The Columbia University College Republicans also steer clear of highly visible forms of public protest, though perhaps for different reasons. Derek Turner, a Columbia College sophomore and director of communications for the Republicans, says that the group avoids protests and demonstrations as these are rallying tactics that fall flat without a receptive audience. But, he continues, their alternative approach is not just a place-filler for more visible forms of activism. In addition to connecting conservative students with various opportunities on and off campus, the Republicans participate in debates and host speakers in order to create, as Turner puts it, “a discussion as opposed to a spectacle.” If speakers like Ann Coulter have lead to discussion rather than solely spectacle, the Republicans have succeeded.
Besides the impracticality of the Republicans’ inciting a liberal campus to revolution, Turner notes a general trend: “The days of taking over buildings and obstructing daily life have passed.” If his observation reflects the different times we’re living in, it may also overlook the still-vibrant spirit of traditional activism that plays out on a smaller scale.
That said, rallies, protests, and demonstrations have clearly not met their end. Lucha, a group that has its origins in the Minuteman protests, took part in a march in Washington Heights against domestic violence this past Saturday. Of course, there is a subtle difference between these types of highly visible activism and what might be called the militant activism of an earlier era. It’s easy to ignore the many scenes of activism at Columbia, or to witness them without experiencing any particular obstruction in daily life. This isn’t 1968. We’re again at war—but without a draft, the atmosphere surrounding today’s conflict is different from that surrounding Vietnam. The current University administration, responsive and engaged with the student body, barely resembles ’68’s authoritarian bureaucracy.
The persistent organization and hard work of today’s culture of activism does not represent just the dregs of an earlier, more vibrant era. After all, despite the advent of e-mail and the unattractiveness of imagining campus revolutionaries spending hours printing up event posters, this mundane, logistical work represents the continuity in on-campus activism rather than the inauguration of anything radically new. But once the e-mails are written, meetings adjourned, and fliering accomplished, the groundwork is laid for an exploration of the various social, cultural, and political consequences of bringing about change and for engagement in a move toward an increasingly multifaceted activism.
Though some groups may choose to champion a single cause, all of them recognize that no one issue stands on its own. While the most recent hunger strikers drew criticism for their litany of unrelated demands, many groups today address a similarly broad range of issues (albeit with different tactics).
“We’ve been trying to reject the idea of single-issue activism,” says Katie Miles, a Barnard sophomore and a member of SCEG. As many feel that the moment of the Manhattanville saga has passed, this attitude may help keep SCEG alive in the campus psyche as it connects with other groups, works with housing organizations and citywide and local tenant organizations, and tries to examine “the wider forces we see beyond gentrification.” The group grapples with a variety of issues, such as the effects of policing on gentrification and gentrification’s impact on queer culture. SCEG combines long-term and short-term concerns and relates them to Columbia’s expansion, setting it in its broader context.
Multifaceted activism is more than just a solitary move by a single student organization to remain relevant. Two of SCEG’s goals that might be said to represent the spirit of many progressive campus groups are to promote “an alternative vision for the rights people have living in this city” and “building accountable relationships with people in the community.” Since low-profile activism depends less on its public persona, campus groups are able to delve into issues of race, class, and community without having to target an audience with concise, simplified explanations of their positions.
In the words of Johanna Ocaña, a CC senior and chair of Lucha, the group not only tries “to advocate for social, economic, political progress in working-class Latino communities,” but “to draw connections between different struggles, different injustices and bring those to light.” This means that Lucha not only addresses a wide variety of issues but also examines the relationships among them. Similarly, Eddie explains that his group’s work on drug policy benefits from exploring the comprehensive social implications of drug laws.
In the past, SSDP campaigned for the passage of drug reform legislation, sending a delegation to Washington, D.C. to talk to New York’s senators. The new legislation resolved a discrepancy in cocaine sentencing that was based on the scientific fallacy that crack is more addictive or dangerous than powder cocaine. It simultaneously addressed a social concern: heavier sentencing for crack cocaine targeted low-income African Americans.
SSDP is now shifting its focus to the local arena with the same concern for the social and economic repercussions of drug policy. In an attempt to curb illegal police searches, SSDP is reaching out to the community and working to educate young people about their rights. “These kids get prosecuted for pot possession. … It bars them from getting federal funding for the rest of their lives,” Eddie says. This means no financial aid for college and the accompanying life-long ramifications. Their take on a sensible drug policy is not limited to legal activities but also involves a close examination and unraveling of the implications of laws and engagement with the community to educate it about these technicalities.
This all-encompassing view of activism—one that includes SSDP’s community education as well as SEEJ’s scrap-paper printing—is central to a new mode of campus work. If these groups have their way, it may also be what introduces a taste of the glory days of Columbia’s activism to campus. Leaders of various organizations, from Lucha to Take Back the Night, speak of cultural change. Their goal is not just to affect policy, but to leave the campus in a different state from that in which they found it. This is not about a return to the 1960s; it is a fully forward-looking embrace of 2009 and beyond.
Linnea Hincks, a Columbia College senior and former coordinator of Take Back the Night, refers to “multi-attack activism” to describe the group’s strategy for creating widespread cultural change. TBTN is best known for its annual march and speak-out, but Hincks emphasizes that although the march is a traditional form of protest, it serves a distinct purpose for the group: Due to media restrictions surrounding the march, it’s less about getting out a message and more about creating a safe space. Much of the group’s work aims to bolster consent culture on campus and occurs “not so much through the march itself but through the events throughout the year” and through coordination with other groups. The literal space created by students marching through the streets should ideally be mirrored by a cultural and social safe space on campus and in the community.
It’s a startling sign of the times, or perhaps of our one-dimensional interpretation of past times, that one of the most highly visible of campus demonstrations, one that most resembles earlier protests in the street, is more nuanced and multi-layered. “It’s a movement,” Hincks says, “It’s in some ways a decentralized movement.”
When an event like TBTN, which might appear to be a straightforward demonstration, is far more complex beneath the surface, and when questions of cultural change cross single-issue boundaries, campus groups must adapt. Various decentralized movements pose both exciting opportunities for broad-based change and challenges for the feasibility of working in multiple directions. Nuanced, multifaceted campus activism brings together groups and individuals in challenging alliances.
Attempts at centralization through coalition-building can be organized or more informal. Hincks, for example, is also involved in the Anti-Violence Coalition, which for several years has united some of the groups that do anti-violence work on campus— including Nightline, the Men’s Peer Education Program, the Rape Crisis Center, and the Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Program—to create a central place for the anti-violence movement on campus. This ensures mutual support and that the groups’ work doesn’t overlap. Hincks, who was inspired by increased participation in consent workshops, hopes to expand the coalition “to a larger number of groups.” With recent growth including individuals with diverse interests, Hincks is optimistic that “the movement is really growing.”
There are many advantages to a growing movement, but widespread resonance can be hard to corral. Individual organizations often differ internally over specific issues—TBTN, for example, has struggled over the place of men in the march. Because the anti-violence coalition is a locus of communication it doesn’t need to come to consensus over every issue—that is not its main concern. Other campus coalitions take a similar route; the many queer advocacy groups on campus informally communicate among one another in order to provide logistical support and amplify their individual voices.
While multi-issue activism is the clear trend on campus, Ocaña notes that successful coalitions are frequently built around single shared issues. “I think unfortunately to stay dedicated to social justice work,” Ocaña says, “it, for a lot of people, takes a rallying point which is often a negative event … and sometimes they stick.” The NROTC coalition, for example, was built around opposition to the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, and, she says, the coalition would have fallen apart without it. According to Ocaña, other elements brought into the conversation, such as “predatory recruiting techniques of low income and communities of color,” fell slightly by the wayside. “Stuff like that tends to splinter groups, it’s a problem on this campus and historically.”
Yet the bureaucratic challenges of spontaneously formed coalitions of individuals or groups, as was the case with NROTC, can multiply. Consequently, activism that addresses an immediate issue that has arisen on campus—frequently the most visible of Columbia’s activism— can also be the most cumbersome.
Miles, whose group deals with some of the most high-profile of recent events, notes something slightly more insidious than the mere proliferation of red tape in Lerner. Since the 1960s, the administration has done a good job of assimilating protests, which, she says, can inhibit sweeping change by channeling energy and dissent into approved structures and processes. Activists on campus are responding by intensifying their own organizational and support structures, working across group lines to build a community and effect change.
To combat institutional sluggishness, facilitate change, and perhaps even make activism sexy again, Jenkins hopes to assist in the formation of a new, leftist activist coalition on campus. He aims to revive some of the momentum of the now-defunct Columbia Coalition Against the War in order to provide a place for complex, fruitful discussion. With many CCAW members graduated, Jenkins wants to reengage the new board members of groups that introduced their incoming leadership to the coalition at its last meeting.
This cycle of re-engagement and organization places Jenkins and others squarely in the tradition of decades of activist work at Columbia. The unflagging grunt work of activism rarely captured in glowing retrospectives continues to animate student efforts, but it also nurtures complex, insightful discussions and debates that do not get blasted from bullhorns or Low Plaza speakers. The relationships built among activists—occasionally fleeting, sometimes fraught with politics and difficulties—are the real testaments to today’s quietly tireless work.