College campuses have long been hubs for activism, debate and political expression.
From the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 20th century to today’s demonstrations over immigration, policing and global politics, students have consistently acted as catalysts for change.
Both graduate and undergraduate students have shaped protest movements, often pushing conversations the broader public is not yet ready to have. But protesting is not waving a magic wand and wishing for change, and it is certainly not immediate.
We like to tell ourselves that democracy is powered by strength in numbers, that when the masses band together, change follows.
That’s partly true. But the myth is that it happens quickly. In reality, democratic will is exercised slowly–through private actions like casting a ballot and through public actions like sustained protest that stretches over months or even years.
Look at the “No Kings” demonstrations over the summer. Despite national attention, the political climate has barely shifted. The “ICE Out” protests that have unfolded for months have yet to produce concrete policy changes. Even our own university’s recent protest against fascism, powerful as it was, is unlikely to transform institutional or governmental behavior overnight.
The protest we see on our screens today — as appalling as it may be, and as angry as it might make us–is not an anomaly in our democratic history.
It is part of a pattern that has defined American activism for centuries. In nearly every major movement in this country, from women’s suffrage to the civil rights era, protest has been met with resistance, hostility and, often, violence long before it produced meaningful change.
When people protest against systems comfortable with violence or suppression, the response is often more violence or suppression. Still, that is not an argument for stopping protests. It is the reason they cannot.
In a society with a shrinking attention span, where outrage cycles seem to last hours, not weeks, protest is one of the few tools that forces us to remember.
Students should not protest, expecting change tomorrow. They should protest so that the world their children inherit is even slightly better than the one they were handed.
History proves this point. The women of the suffrage movement did not see the fruits of their labor immediately, yet their persistence secured the right to vote for generations after them.
The civil rights activists who marched and faced brutality throughout the 1950s and ’60s did not dismantle segregation in a semester. Their work came through relentless, often dangerous, collective action.
Today’s student protesters inherit that legacy, and the risks that may come with it.
At public universities, students have First Amendment protections, including freedom of speech, assembly and expression. Private universities, however, are not bound by the same constitutional obligations. Their ability to regulate speech depends on institutional policies, donor pressures and branding concerns.
And regardless of campus type, students who protest face real consequences: conduct code violations, loss of scholarships, interim suspensions, trespass warnings, arrests, police citations and even immigration complications.
Even at public institutions, where speech is legally protected, the boundaries are murky. Schools cannot restrict speech based on viewpoint, but they can regulate “time, place and manner” rules that often determine when, where and how protests occur.
These policies are meant to maintain order, but they can also be used to limit dissent under the guise of neutrality.
The current wave of campus demonstrations is a reminder that, of all the clichés in American political discourse, the sanctity of protest is the hardest to question.
Doubting the loftiness of protest invites more backlash than questioning almost any other constitutional right. People debate free speech constantly.
Maybe that’s because protest, unlike other rights, demands something of us. It disrupts. It inconveniences and forces confrontation with issues many would rather ignore.
But that disruption is the point.
Campus protests may not deliver immediate change. They may not sway lawmakers or administrators at the moment. But they keep pressure alive in a political culture that forgets too easily. They remind institutions, and the country, that the future of America is watching, organizing and refusing to accept the world as it is. Change is slow. Protest is slower. But both are necessary. And history proves that students have never been afraid of the long fight.