It’s not often that I come across a student protest action that’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard of before, but this is one of those days.

Last Wednesday student activists and others at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, a Canadian university some seventy miles northwest of Seattle, held a teach-out on “food democracy” and sustainability issues. There was music, a slate of speakers, pamphlets to read, and tea. At the end of the event the group planted a garden.

On the lawn.

In front of the library.

They ripped up the sod, built some raised beds, and planted a variety of vegetables and other native plants. They planted, they mulched, they designed rock borders. They put up fences to keep rabbits out.

On the lawn of the quad, in front of the library.

Oh, and they have a great name, too: Resistance Is Fertile.

As the group’s blog describes it, “The event showed that gardening and food security could be possible, inspiring, and fun at UVic.  No leaders, political doctrines, or organizing structures: each person digging and gardening for their own reasons.”

Police showed up, of course, and made warnings but no arrests — participants formed a human chain to protect the gardeners. (There were, organizers say, five hundred people there, including a group of elementary school kids.)

It wasn’t until late that night, around midnight, that they returned … with bulldozers. One student was arrested for “assault by trespass” for standing in front of a ‘dozer, but before long the new gardens had been plowed into mud. When students marched on the administration building in protest the next morning, they found it locked. Later, they say, one male senior administrator violently shoved a female student who was trying to get inside.

The group has, in addition to their blog, posted a YouTube video and an online ‘zine.

They promise to return to the quad this Wednesday at noon to rebuild the garden.

Thanks to the New School Reoccupied blog for the heads-up on this action.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a critique of another historian/blogger’s essay about campus sexual assault policies. That post spurred a long back-and-forth in comments about the concept of “enthusiastic consent” —  a standard under which consent is defined not as the absence of objection but as enthusiastic participation.

At the time, I said that I wasn’t endorsing enthusiastic consent as a legal standard or as a standard to be used in campus judicial proceedings, because I hadn’t done enough research to have a settled opinion on the question. Since then I’ve done a little more research, and I’ve done a little more thinking.

This morning I read a post from the abyss2hope blog that helped me clarify some of the stuff I’ve been mulling recently. For starters, the post relies on the concept of affirmative, rather than enthusiastic, consent, and I find that language far more appealing.

Enthusiastic consent is a great concept when we’re talking about what makes good sex, or what makes ethical sex, but it’s a little blurry for use in a court of law. Consent is properly an either-or proposition — either it exists or it doesn’t. Enthusiasm, in contrast, is a sliding scale. You can be a little enthusiastic or a lot.

The concept of affirmative consent, in contrast, preserves the idea that consent is binary while articulating the definitional shift that’s taking place. As Marcella at abyss2hope puts it, traditional consent defines consent as “opt out,” and affirmative consent defines it as “opt in.”

What does this mean?

Well, it means that in a traditional definition of consent, a person initiating sexual activity is free to operate under the assumption that consent exists until consent is explicitly withdrawn. When you initiate sexual contact, you’re presumed to have a green light to keep moving forward until you’re told to stop.

Under an affirmative consent model, consent can never be assumed. It must always be confirmed. Both parties must “opt in” for consent to exist. When you initiate sexual contact, you have an obligation to pay attention as you go to whether your partner is receptive.

And no, this doesn’t mean you have to get a verbal “yes” in response to each act. It just means that if one person is doing all the initiating, that person needs to be responsive to their partner’s reactions. An overt affirmative response, whether verbal or non-verbal, constitutes an opt-in. In the absence of such a response, you back off or you ask what’s up.

That’s it. That’s all there is to it. If you don’t know whether your advances are being well received, you don’t keep advancing. Pretty simple.

As for the question of whether such a standard can work in a legal setting, Marcella points out that we know it can, because it does. Here’s how the state of Minnesota defines consent:

“Consent” means words or overt actions by a person indicating a freely given present agreement to perform a particular sexual act with the actor. Consent does not mean the existence of a prior or current social relationship between the actor and the complainant or that the complainant failed to resist a particular sexual act.

Consent, in the state of Minnesota, requires “words or actions … indicating a freely given agreement to perform a particular sexual act.” It is not satisfied by a showing that the complainant “failed to resist.”

And I have to say, I’m sold. As a legal standard, this strikes me as straightforward, reasonable, and proper.

Let us all know what you’ve been up to, what you’re working on, what you’re reading, what you’re writing, what you’ve got planned!

Formspring.me is a neat little website that does one simple thing: It lets you ask people questions and read their answers. The questions are anonymous — unless you choose to identify yourself — and they stay private until an answer is submitted.

I set up a Formspring.me account a couple of weeks ago, and I’ll be posting the questions and answers here on an occasional basis. If you’ve got something you’d like to ask, go right ahead.

What ignited your interest in engaging students in this particular manner?

I was involved in student activism and student government as an undergrad, and started researching student history because of that. I quickly realized that there were a lot of important stories that hadn’t been told, so I went to grad school to learn how to tell them. Everything else has just flowed from that.

Formspring.me is a neat little website that does one simple thing: It lets you ask people questions and read their answers. The questions are anonymous — unless you choose to identify yourself — and they stay private until an answer is submitted.

I set up a Formspring.me account a couple of weeks ago, and I’ll be posting the questions and answers here on an occasional basis. If you’ve got something you’d like to ask, go right ahead.

Question: Did you also study student activism in other countries? Have you found striking parallels/differences in patterns of student activism in different countries and even in different types of US institutions?

Answer: I’ve only done a little research on student activism outside the United States — it’s a vast topic, obviously. One thing that’s kept my study focused at home is the fact that so much of the work I do is on under-studied eras and topics. If I were only a historian of American student activism in the sixties, for instance, it’d be a lot easier (and more tempting) for me to branch out into comparative work.

The question about parallels and differences in activism in different kinds of American higher ed institutions is a great one, and two answers leap to mind immediately.

First, there’s public vs. private. Students at public colleges and universities generally have a lot more leverage over their institutions, and their organizing reflects that. Student governments are stronger at publics, legislative lobbying has more direct impact, regents and trustees can be influenced through the politicians who appoint and confirm them. There are certainly private campuses with strong traditions of activism, but in general there’s more going on at the publics, and that’s been true for the last 40 years.

A second big distinction is between residential and commuter colleges — it’s just a lot easier to organize students when they live on campus. And that doesn’t just apply to sit-ins and rallies, either — a residential campus is likely to have more vibrant clubs and organizations, more student participation in events and activities, more sense of community overall. So even when there’s not a lot of overt “activism” going on, there’s a base of student connectedness that can be tapped into.