Student activism is work done by students to effect political, environmental, economic, or social change. It has often focused on making changes in school but can range in scope. Student movements have been in existence almost as long as universities have. As early as the 4th century, students were engaged in protests against professors with unpopular political views. During the middle Ages, the universities of Paris and Bologna were often the scene of violent confrontations between townsmen and students. Students played an important role in almost every one of the major revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries.

In the United States, student unrest took on political overtones during the American Revolution. The Intercollegiate Socialist Society was formed in 1905 to advance the ideas of Marxism. Socialist activity and student protest grew during the Great Depression. The American Youth Congress was a student organization which lobbied Congress against racial discrimination and for youth programs. It was heavily supported by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Many students spoke out against McCarthyism in the 1950s. Protests in the 1960s centered on freedom of speech, the civil-rights movement, and the Vietnam War. Groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) rose to prominence. SDS advocated democracy and economic justice and criticized corporate-military interlocks and unresponsive government bureaucracy. Their tactics included sit-ins, mass demonstrations, teach-ins and student strikes. SDS eventually spun off the Weather Underground. The 1970 student strike for peace involved 200 campuses. Police response was often violent. This was the case at the 1968 Democratic Convention and in the 1970 Jackson State and Kent State killings. These specific organizations closed in the mid-1970s.

There was an increase in U.S. student activism in the 1990s. The popular education reform movement has led to a resurgence of student activism against standardized testing and teaching, military/industrial/prison complexes, and the influence of the military and corporations in education. There is also a call for sustainable change. Major campaigns include work for funding of public schools, against increased tuitions at colleges, and the use of sweatshop labor in manufacturing school apparel. There is also increasing activism around the issue of global warming. Antiwar activism has also increased leading to the creation of the Campus Antiwar Network and the restoration of SDS. Modern student activist movements vary widely in subject, size, and success. All kinds of students in all kinds of educational settings participate. They are from all races, socio-economic backgrounds, and political perspectives.

There are a number of student organizations opposed to the way things are today. College students are increasingly engaged in well-organized, thoughtful and morally outraged resistance to corporate power. These activists, more than any student radicals in years, passionately denounce the wealth gap as well as the lack of accountability by corporations. Modern movements have an anti-hierarchical spirit – one group made all decisions by consensus. They do have leaders and spokespeople.

Student activists have managed to put many administrators on the defensive. Industry, too, is getting nervous. Top officials of the Fair Labor Association, founded in 1996 by the Clinton Administration, have been touring campuses, trying to convince students of their organization’s good intentions.

In the recent history of student activism, the new emphasis on economics represents quite a shift. A decade ago there was plenty of student organizing, but it was fragmented and sporadic. Most of it focused on what some liked to call “identity politics” – fighting the oppression of racial and sexual minorities, and of women. There was little sense of solidarity among these groups.

That political moment is over; partly because in the larger world these moderate goals don’t speak to student idealism. By contrast, economic causes are enjoying a resurgence, both in numbers and in vision. Student activists are building strong relationships with unions. The unions are showing strong dedication to the new generation.

Part of the problem with early-to-mid-nineties student “identity politics” was an obsession with representation—only queers could talk about homophobia; only people of color could talk about racism. This limited its constituency. Such first-person politics also restricted activists’ ability to work together and find common ground. Yet its premise laid the foundation for one of the core assumptions of the current anti-corporate movement, which is that because we are consumers, we are personally implicated in the depredations of capital. A crucial problem for the anti-corporate movement is how to appeal to a wider public without reducing politics to shopping.

Not all students come to anti-corporate activism with a radical outlook. People are drawn in by the extreme, but then they start seeing how the whole system works. It’s impossible not to feel at least cautiously optimistic about this new movement.

Social activism starts with voting. According to the 2004 U.S. census, 36 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted in the 2000 presidential election. That number skyrocketed to 47 percent in 2004.

Students aren’t as involved today because the modern student is more pressed for time. More students also have jobs today than in the past. Because there are so many different groups with different agendas, it’s hard for students to organize a mass protest. Students also have less to complain about today than they did 40 years ago. If you would like to participate but are limited by time or work, sending e-mails to senators and representatives is a start.

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