Forty years ago, Kent State University went from a virtually anonymous Midwestern college campus to the infamous university at which four students were shot and killed while protesting the United States’ invasion of Cambodia.
On the day of the shooting, which has its 40th anniversary today, thousands of students flooded the university commons, delivering fiery speeches and calling for a definitive end to the Vietnam War.
Provoked by protesters who were yelling and throwing rocks, Ohio National Guardsmen suddenly fired their rifles and pistols in what they claimed to be “self defense,” killing four students and injuring nine.
To some students, the Kent State shootings epitomize an era of student activism that no longer exists and has been replaced by a generation of students who are increasingly cynical about their ability to effect social change.
“Many of the problems we face are so far above any of us students that I have no expectation that me protesting, or the whole school protesting, will get anything changed,” said Shea Ryan, a fourth-year history and psychology student.
“In the ’60s and ’70s, activism was everywhere and constantly on the top of everyone’s mind, but now protests don’t permeate the school’s culture like it did before,” he added.
However, Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, associate professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, argued that student activism has not decreased. Rather, its nature has merely evolved from the student militancy of the 1970s to the politically savvy and technology-based activism of today.
“People are a lot more pragmatic now and have become a lot more politically savvy about how to get their messages across,” he said, noting that students today know which politicians to lobby in order to effect change.
Christopher Santos, the campus organizing director for the External Vice President’s office at UCLA, which coordinates advocacy efforts centered on fee and financial aid policies, also noted the vast differences between today’s activism and that of 40 years ago.
“It’s different times and a different issue that we have at hand, and we’ve started building a movement that’s very peaceful and very strategic, where our main goal is for higher education to be reprioritized again,” said Santos, a third-year psychobiology student.
This new movement, which is focused on engaging with state legislators to bring about institutional change, is exemplified by last November’s protests at the UC Board of Regents meeting, as well as the mass lobbying campaign in Sacramento early this year.
“In March, the governor was proposing to cut Cal Grants, and all of a sudden he came out in favor of higher education. And it was because of the protests,” Santos said. “The governor said it himself.”
In addition to having a greater focus on institutional change, student activists today are connected and active through online media, allowing for more effective and sustainable organization, Hinojosa-Ojeda said.
“Social media has facilitated the ability for people to get involved in a lot of different causes,” he added, noting that social media and youth activism were some of the determining factors in President Barack Obama’s victory.
However, Santos stressed that social media was not a substitute for actual student participation.
Ron Arruejo, the legislative liaison for the University of California Students Association, also emphasized that student mobilization is an interactive process in which activists need to personally attend general meetings of interested student groups and unions, educating members about the issue so they know what they’re fighting for.
But regardless of the means of mobilization, UCLA student activists like Arruejo and Santos are confident that students, even today, have the power to enact social change.
While broad-based movements directed toward a single issue are far rarer today than in the 1970s, with students more dispersed across a huge number of different issues, students are still very involved in activism, according to Hinojosa-Ojeda.
“I rarely meet a student now who’s not involved in something ““ I find a lot of different students involved in a lot of different causes,” Hinojosa-Ojeda said.