Protests at the University of Missouri and Yale University over conflicts surrounding racial tensions, administrative inaction, and free speech have sparked protests at campuses across the country.
Protests and walkouts have occurred at Ithaca College, Vanderbilt University, Smith College, and the University of Iowa, according to Inside Higher Ed.
Students at Smith and Iowa rallied to show their support to protests at Missouri, whereas protests at Ithaca focused on the removal of the president for “his failure to adequately respond to several racially charged incidents,” and students at Vanderbilt have focused their ire on a black conservative professor for her criticism of Islam.
A hashtag on Twitter, #BlackOnCampus, has become popular for students to channel their frustrations and issues over racial incidents at various colleges.
At Smith, about 200 students joined in for the 20-minute walkout, according to the Daily Hampshire Gazette. At Ohio University, “more than 100 people” gathered to support the protests in Missouri, according to The Post.
Other protests have happened at Claremont McKenna College and Emory University, and more than 20 colleges have planned protests or solidarity actions this week, according to The Blaze.
Given the number of protests that have broken out during the past week, some have labeled it as “the beginnings of a full-blown campus revolution.”
The protests have shifted beyond the original incidents that sparked them into expressions of frustration about the climate on college campuses and how they treat issues of race, free speech, and the way in which universities present to prospective students.
At Smith, for instance, protests went beyond empathetic gestures toward Missouri.
The New York Times reported that “the students who gathered on Wednesday spoke of ‘microaggressions’ — tone-deaf slights directed toward minority students — and continuing difficulties of being a student of color on a contemporary college campus, and encouraged their peers to raise awareness of them.”
Those concerns echo a narrative that college administrators can be unresponsive to the concerns of minority students. Especially in the case of Yale, former students have written about the mental health climate and students being fed an inaccurate representation of the university before enrolling.
The attempt to shift the conversation illustrates the complexity of issues behind the discord on campus. In short, concerns over freedom of speech, campus culture, mental health, and race prevent a simple narrative from explaining the common threads across university campuses.
The desire of some students to disregard freedom of speech, and protestors to limit media access, are a cause for grave concern. Journalists have been quick to point out the danger of stifling speech, and others have focused on speech restrictions in worries over an “authoritarian turn” in higher education. Calls for safe spaces at colleges have also come under fire for concerns over subverting the goal of education.
Whether the protests will coalesce around one issue or splinter with each campus acting independently remains to be seen.
