This morning I appeared on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal to discuss American student protest past and present. I’m working on getting the video embedded, but in the meantime a partial index of the (many!) topics we discussed follows.

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01:37 — The role of student activism in shaping the American university.

02:45 — Conservative and non-partisan student organizing.

04:54 — The rising cost of higher education in the United States.

06:31 — Was Mizzou a turning point for American universities?

09:30 — The history of protest among high-school and younger students.

11:29 — The Israel divestment movement.

14:02 — Media scrutiny of student protesters.

16:38 — Are student activists “children”?

18:27 — Should higher education be free?

19:20 — Student struggles for a direct role in university governance at public and private colleges.

20:30 — Student networks and social media past and present.

22:57 — Activism by and for students with disabilities.

25:53 — Racial tensions and racial justice organizing on today’s campuses.

26:57 — Free speech, hostility to speech, and “whining.” (Multiple questions.)

33:42 — Student protest outside the US, “no-platforming” in Britain.

35:49 — Hate speech and threats, self-segregation, and “trivial” student protest.

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I’ve previously appeared on a couple of panels that C-SPAN has televised, but this was my first experience participating in a call-in show on the network. I have to say, I really enjoyed it. The callers gave me a chance to range quite a bit more widely than I usually do in interviews, and though I tripped myself up a couple of times (1766’s butter rebellion took place at Harvard, not Princeton; the Student Homophile League was chartered at Columbia in 1967, not 1968), I was grateful for the opportunity to engage with such thoughtful, diverse perspectives.

When I arrived in the studio I did not expect to be talking about no-platforming in Britain or efforts to “cure” left-handedness in 20th century American schools, and I’m glad to have had the chance to do both.