Holmes: Students regain focus

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By Tyler Holmes

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Deep in last Thursday’s edition of The University Daily Kansan was a wire story from the Associated Press: “Students protest huge tuition hike at University of California.”

The day before, California’s Board of Regents met to discuss a 32 percent increase in undergraduate fees — essentially tuition — equivalent to $2,500, by next year. This was in response to the massive revenue shortfalls California, and to a smaller degree the other 49 states, have been experiencing for more than a year.

About 1,000 people demonstrated in protest at UC-Berkeley on Wednesday and 14 protesters were arrested at UCLA, where the Board of Regents meeting was held, according to the article.

On Thursday, as the plan was voted on and approved by the Regents, simultaneous protests took place on the campuses of UC- Los Angeles, Davis, Santa Cruz and Berkeley.

This response reminded me of the late 1960s anti-war movement and subsequently, of Mark Rudd, one-time leader of the dissident group Students for a Democratic Society and co-founder of its violent offspring, The Weather Underground. Rudd attended a number of events around town and campus two weeks ago promoting his new book, “Underground.”

Rudd said that he thought violent action, in the context of some of the nonviolent movements of the 20th century, was unacceptable and that only through the organization of mass political movements could real change occur.

While visiting Jonathan Earle’s “Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in American History” class, Rudd charged students with submitting to an entertainment culture that shied away from the political action that should, he argued, be the central focus of their lives.

Perhaps the economic climate will force students to speak louder on the national stage. I think students should do this regardless.

Not that I don’t like music, television or sports. I do. But the current economic crisis and way the government deals with it — placing greater burdens either on the present or on the future — will have an enormous impact on the way our generation will do business and interact on the global stage.

State institutions, including the University, continue to increase costs at rates of 5 to 6 percent a year. The national debt recently passed an unfathomable $12 trillion. And the promise of opportunity, as national unemployment soars past 10 percent, remains unfulfilled. Those are all issues for students: issues that students should organize and vote on, so as to ensure their presence in representatives’ platforms.

Forty-one students at UC-Berkeley were peacefully arrested after a day-long occupation of a classroom building on Friday.

The precedent of nonviolent means of protest and dialogue with elected representatives is vital, and the call to action by the enormous fee hike must be heard.

I hope students’ future actions reflect that. And many thanks to the students in California’s public university system for doing so already. It’s about time we all joined the national discourse.

— — Holmes is a Overland Park sophomore in political science.

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