The spring flurry on American campuses has caused some to say it’s like 1968. It is not!
As someone who was on the ground as a reporter in 1968 please understand that while some of the visuals are similar, what is playing out this spring is far different.
The protest movement of 1968 was focused on a singular objective, to raise hell mobilize public opinion and force a change of policy on the war in Viet Nam. 1968 was punctuated though by assassinations which fevered the frenzy of the national delirium. The murders of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were accelerant to a nation on fire.
The intellect of 2024 is vastly different than 1968. There are multiple “causes” and even aberrant reasoning behind the current occupations, forced entry of buildings and festival like eruptions on campuses this week. Some, there is no way to measure how many of the participants are sadly misguided and even ignorant to facts. Most administrators behave as if they are ignorant of history. At IU, the president acted in contradiction to long standing policy and history. The presidents have been boneheaded resorting to behavior more befitting a prison warden than an overseer of academia. There is good reason for the votes of no confidence. Schools have failed to recognize the teaching and learning moments presented by this time in history.
Where have these presidents come from? Apparently the land of professional academic careerism includes no training in reality, or history, or the constitution.
The head of the Indiana state police, called to IU where a sniper was stationed on the roof of the student union, said he didn’t really understand the first Amendment.
Welcome to America 2024 where we get our news with dance moves from TickTock and influences and where precious young things adopt restrictive dress for solidarity with what? a patriarchal terrorist group who slaughter babies and who keep women oppressed and repressed. There is no sane reason an American college student would voice support for Hamas or Hezbollah. They are enemies of even their own people, certainly the freedom of thought and expression the protestors are exercising. That behavior under Hamas and Hezbollah would cost them their heads.
It is a signal of failure, a nail in the coffin, that American students cannot possess two truths in the same thought. One can, and should, be against the violence and be for Palestinian and Jewish people. Hamas has done no favors to the Palestinian people. Netanyahu’s war policy is criminal and is detested by the people of Israel. A university student today should be able to discern the difference between Jewish people and the State of Israel, between Palestinian people and the evil of Hamas and Hezbollah.
In 1968 when protests around the world targeted the US War policy in Viet Nam, the anger was not with American citizens rather with the US Government. The victims today are largely the Palestinian people, but Jews in Israel, as well as Muslims and Christians also suffer.
In 1968 a few idiots carried the Viet Cong flag or sang about Ho Chi Minh, but they were rare. The bulk of the animus and demonstrations was toward the war policy. Americans disagreed with the government and carried out their right to protest.
Of course, those air head students who betray their ignorance have the right speak their less than reasoned minds and state their views as much as those who speak with knowledge and conviction. This could be a time of great learning, challenging the easy assumptions and misdirection of “influencers” and their own lack of intellectual vigor.
That is a point lost on university presidents, chancellors, state police superintendents, local and campus cops whose first response is to start pushing and shoving on rights.
Breaking into building, stopping the function of a school, denying others their rights, speaking or chanting hate, intimidating or harassing other students is wrong and there are policies and laws to handle it. One need not point weapons of war at children, even belligerent children.
Response must be measured and appropriate with an eye on history. I covered street demonstrations where tear gas cannisters flew and where people were manhandled and truncheoned. In those days police looked like police and were not outfitted to look like a combat ranger squad ready for lethal action. Recall that just two years after 1968, as the nation remained ripped apart our own national guard, city and state police shot and killed college students. 4 students died and nine were shot at Kent State by Ohio National Guardsmen. Two weeks later 2 students were killed and 12 were wounded by cops at Jackson state In Mississippi. Those tragedies followed a national commission that decried police and government heavy handedness in the city and street violence of 1968. You’d think cops, and college Presidents would have some residual memory.
What happened at the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968 was called a “police riot” by a national study commission. The police beat and brutalized hundreds of demonstrators and others. The cops turned on the media too. In what was called “a rare moment of collective courage” all of the major newspapers telegrammed a protest to the Chicago Mayor. NBC News Anchor Chet Huntley reported “the news profession in the city is now under assault by the Chicago Police department.” CBS Anchor Walter Cronkite was also outraged by the strong-arm tactics.
If you are interested, and I would hope that means a few academic leaders too, you can look back at 1968 via on line archives at Vanderbilt University, or CSPAN.
This is not like 1968 and it is simplistic notion to say so.
See you down the trail.
