Is student protest DEAD?

IU has changed a lot in 35 years. \nIn 1969, 150 students locked the board of trustees inside Ballantine Hall for three hours due to a fight about tuition increases. In 1970, 10,000 students gathered in Dunn Meadow to protest the Vietnam War.\nBut the spirit of protest that fueled them is still strong. Students have just put down their signs, lowered their voice to a more civil tone and found different ways to change the world.\nDunn Meadow is a lot more empty than past decades, but does that mean the voices of protest have been silenced?\n"Lack of protests? Are you serious?" Courtney Williams, president of the Black Student Union, said about the decrease in student activism.\nIt seems that waving signs, chanting and marching are all now old fashioned. Some, such as Williams, say today's student activists are expressing themselves in different ways, including letter writing and educational seminars. Others claim that students are more apathetic. Either way, activism has changed in Bloomington.\n"There doesn't always need to be a visible aspect to someone's political fight," Williams said.\nProtesting is just another way of expressing political action, and if students are still politically active, the decline in protesting doesn't matter, Williams said.\nAfter a Sept. 18 incident involving the IU Police Department detaining students in search of a firearm, the BSU had a letter-writing campaign that was effective, she said.\nThe number of protests has definitely decreased from 20 or 30 years ago, and those protests have fewer students, said IU Dean of Students Richard McKaig.\nThe demographics of the protestors have changed as well. Many protests on campus are not even student driven, said Steve Veldkamp, director of student activities.\n"Most of the protests have been about religion or abortion from folks outside the University," Veldkamp said.\nBut when students do protest, it is not just about walking around with signs trying to get the most attention possible, said Lillian Casillas, director of the Latino Cultural Center.\n"When something happens, the reaction is usually to do something educational," Casillas said.\nLast year, La Casa held a silent protest to educate people about racist comments that were said on campus, Casillas said. Another example is the affirmative action bake sale in 2003 where different races were charged different prices for cookies.\nAlong with education, student clubs and organizations are focusing on volunteerism and community service instead of the traditional protests, said Jared Fallick, president of the IU College Democrats.\nThe overwhelming outpouring of student support for Hurricane Katrina victims is a good example, he said.\n"The spirit of student activism still lives very strongly today but in new and different forms," Fallick said.\nThe issues that get protested have also changed. IU students used to protest more about the internal rules and regulations of the University. The amount of protesting these issues has decreased much more than those about world issues, McKaig said. \nAfter the University announced a tuition increase in 1969, students held two rallies with 8,000 people and another two with more than 2,500 people in a two-week span. That series of protests culminated with 150 students amassing inside Ballantine Hall and locking the board of trustees inside.\nThe new athletics fee is an internal IU issue that could have erupted in protest, but a possible reason no large protests happened is because students have "established methods to express their views" like the IU Student Assocation, McKaig said.\nThe decline of protesting on the IU campus is part of a larger national trend, said Emma Cullen, political vice president of the IU College Democrats.\n"The protests over the Vietnam War left a mark on everyone, and they are certainly not seen in a good light," Cullen said.\nPeople characterize protests as run by "radicals," and even though this characterization is wrong, it leads to fewer protests, Cullen said.\nUrsula McTaggert, a member of No Sweat!, a campus group against sweatshop labor, said she has noticed the amount of protesting at IU is much lower than other schools.\nNo Sweat! held a rally a few weeks ago about the use of sweatshops to make IU apparel. She considered the rally successful because 30 people attended, but said at the University of Michigan, where she was an undergraduate, "a 30-person protest would be quite small."\nFew students attend the weekly Iraq War protest outside the Monroe County Courthouse, said Tim Baer, organizer of the Bloomington Peace Coalition.\nStudents usually come regularly for a few months but then stop. Without a draft, students don't feel directly affected by the war, he said.\n"Students are comfortable," he said. "People are just wrapped up in their own lives"