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“I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda.”
–WEB DuBois, whose 141st birthday was yesterday.
Another news story from Britain on the rise of student activism there. Here’s how this one starts:
They are the iPod generation of students: politically apathetic, absorbed by selfish consumerism, dedicated to a few years of hedonism before they land a lucrative job in the City. Not any more. A seismic change is taking place in British universities.
Around the UK, thousands of students have occupied lecture theatres, offices and other buildings at more than 20 universities in sit-down protests. It seems that the spirit of 1968 has returned to the campus.
While it was the situation in Gaza that triggered this mass protest, the beginnings of political enthusiasm have already spread to other issues.
John Rose, one of the original London School of Economics (LSE) students to mount the barricades alongside Tariq Ali in 1968, spent last week giving lectures on the situation in Gaza at 12 of the occupations.
“This is something different to anything we’ve seen for a long time,” he said. “There is genuine fury at what Israel did.
“I think it’s highly likely that this year will see more student action. What’s interesting is the nervousness of vice chancellors and their willingness to concede demands; it indicates this is something that could well turn into [another] ’68.”
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, a law-professors’ group blog, someone put up a link yesterday to a post by a guy who calls himself Gay Patriot West, saying that gay conservatives on campus get a warmer welcome from conservatives than they do from gays.
The comments thread on the Volokh post explored the issue from a few different angles, but it didn’t address one that I consider crucial — the historical context. Here’s the meat of my contribution to the discussion, posted just a little while ago:
Whatever ease gays have around conservatives exists only because of limitations on conservatives’ political power.
Fifty years ago, you could be imprisoned or institutionalized for being gay or lesbian. You could be jailed for hanging out with gays. You could lose your business if that business catered to gay people. Forget having any job security, or any recognition for your relationships, or any social deference to your life choices except in the most anomalous subcultures. To be gay or lesbian in the United States fifty years ago was to live in fear of disclosure and persecution.
Most of that has changed. But it has changed despite conservatives, not because of them. To a large degree it has changed over the vocal and forceful opposition of conservatives. It has changed because conservatives’ power has waned, because conservatives’ power has been constrained, and because conservatives have realized that most Americans don’t agree with their most anti-gay positions. And yes, it has changed because many conservatives have become less hostile to gays and lesbians, buoyed along by a broader cultural transformation that they did not initiate.
To the extent that it is easy to be a gay person among conservatives today, that is because of the weakness of traditional conservative values in American society today. The idea of conservatives as second-class citizens, deprived of basic civil rights, is a right-wing fever dream. That of gays and lesbians being deprived of basic civil rights is a matter of historical record.
The Gay Patriot has his ease because his side has been defeated in a thousand hard-fought struggles over the last half-century.
One other thing that I could have mentioned: The social and political climate for lesbians and gays in America has changed least in the last half-century in the parts of the country where conservatives remain strongest. It has changed the most in those places where conservatism is weakest. Gay Patriot West went to the University of Virginia law school. He lives in Los Angeles today. His experience of being a conservative gay man reflects those facts of his geography.
Our ongoing coverage of the NYU takeover continues here and on our twitter feed.
Most of the Take Back NYU protest’s demands relate to campus governance and accountability — student representation on the NYU board of trustees, disclosure of financial data, fair labor practices within the university. In that list, two demands stand out:
- That annual scholarships be provided for thirteen Palestinian students, starting with the 2009/2010 academic year. These scholarships will include funding for books, housing, meals and travel expenses.
- That the university donate all excess supplies and materials in an effort to rebuild the University of Gaza.
A lot of people are asking where these demands came from, and an overnight statement from TBNYU provides a partial answer. Here’s an excerpt:
By demanding investigation into war and genocide profiteers, providing aid to Gaza, and offering scholarshipts to Palestinian students, we are demanding that the University heed our own voices immediately. Through these demands we are also stating our solidarity with the students who have occupied their universities in the United Kingdom and elsewhere demanding aid for war-torn Gaza.
That last sentence is crucial. Since early January, students at more than twenty universities across Britain have staged sit-ins demanding administration action on Palestinian issues. Two weeks ago, students at the University of Rochester in upstate New York held a similar protest. Today’s NYU occupation follows those actions in form, and by making Palestinian issues part of their list of demands, TBNYU is linking its protest to the others in content as well.
By calling for support for Palestinian students and the University of Gaza, TBNYU is sending a message to student activists on both sides of the Atlantic. It is declaring itself to be part of a new international student movement.
Will that movement materialize? Will student sit-ins start to spread in the US as they continue to do in the UK? Too soon to tell, obviously. But the inclusion of the Palestinian demands wasn’t random, it was calculated.
Observers, like commenters here, who claim that it shows a lack of strategic sophistication on TBNYU’s part have it exactly backwards.
Our ongoing coverage of the NYU takeover continues here and on our twitter feed.
Students at New York University took over the Kimmel Center Marketplace, a dining facility on campus, late last night.
The occupation website is here, and a list of the students’ demands follows…
studentactivism.net 
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