In the 20 years since the bloody confrontations at Jackson State College and Kent State University, college presidents have become more likely to meet student protesters at the negotiating table than to call in the police.
In the 1990’s, “conflict management” is a basic concern of student administrators. The lesson of Kent State and Jackson State (now a university) is that rifles must never again be turned on student demonstrators, the administrators say.
“It’s a constant memory,” says Jay Keyser, associate provost for education-policy programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I see that woman kneeling over the body of a friend. It was just a horrible time.”
Dan Abrahamowicz, dean of students at the University of Toledo, even keeps a copy of the Presidential report investigating the Kent State shootings on his desk.
“We are finding more students are becoming more vocal about a variety of issues,” he says. “We want to make sure we develop an appropriate response so we minimize the chances of miscommunication and a protest that escalates into violence.”
Four students were killed at Kent State on May 4, 1970, when members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd demonstrating against the Vietnam War. Several days later, police killed two students at Jackson State during protests over the Vietnam War and the nation’s racial problems.
Although many administrators today say they try hard to negotiate with students, they say they will call in the police if they feel the protesters have become too disruptive. But in contrast to the protests of the 60’s, student activism today is marked by civility. Rules are spelled out far in advance of protests to limit surprises and possible violence.
At the University of California at Berkeley, students planning a protest may even practice getting arrested by campus police. At some institutions, such as Oberlin College, officials offer workshops to teach students the techniques of non-violent demonstrations.
“Administrators now are problem solvers, peace seekers, and conflict managers,” says Neil J. Smelser, professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley. “There is a patient hearing-out of students. In the minds of administrators, they are prepared to go to all lengths to avoid incidents’ escalating into violence.”
Administrators attribute their willingness to negotiate to the fact that many of them were student protesters 20 years ago and have the memory of Kent State etched in their minds. In addition, administrators say that the demands are less likely to lead to violence these days because students are much more involved in campus decision making. Students frequently serve with administrators and faculty members on committees studying such issues as racial problems, recruiting more minority faculty members, and rising tuition.
“Student government has gone from a social role to a very political role,” says Keith M. Miser, vice-president for student affairs at Colorado State University. “Students sit on almost every committee.”
Some college officials believe that institutions are giving in too much to accommodate students’ demands. “Administrators are trying to appease students,” says Chester E. Finn, Jr., a professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt University. But the administrators are “not showing any backbone,” he says.
“They are conceding power. They are keeping away from horrible confrontations, whatever the price.”
Students today are protesting against racism, tuition increases, and the Reserve Officers Training Corps’s exclusion of gay persons. The students are also marching to preserve abortion rights and to encourage people to help clean up the environment. At the same time, many institutions are reviewing their policies on dissent to make sure that administrators can deal with the tensions.
“Most universities have polices on dissent,” says Colorado State’s Mr. Miser. “But they’re dusty. Universities are trying to define the line between dissent and disruption. They are reviewing policies to make them appropriate to the 1990’s.”
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of those that are re-examining their policies for handling student protests. “How do you deal with demonstrations in a way that free speech is preserved and violence does not occur?” asks MIT’S Mr. Keyser.
Twenty-nine MIT students were arrested last month after they tried to erect a shanty on campus to protest the university’s divestment policies. Faculty members will vote in June on a proposal to form a committee that would advise the institution on how to manage protests in the future. If the proposal is approved, the committee will issue guidelines and monitor demonstrations.
At the University of California at Berkeley, where student demonstrations take place almost every day, administrators talk of protest management. At Berkeley, as at some other institutions, student protests usually follow carefully choreographed rules to prevent the demonstrations from turning violent. Before a protest, for example, many Berkeley student groups meet with university police to agree on how long their demonstration will last and sometimes on how many students will be arrested. Members of the university’s staff and faculty are on hand as observers during the protests to make sure the students do not get out of hand.
“Their mere presence has a cooling effect,” Derry E. Bowles, chief of police at Berkeley, says of the faculty members and staff. “That bottle or rock won’t get thrown because students know people are watching.”
Berkeley’s chancellor, Ira Michael Heyman, goes to great lengths to talk with disgruntled students: Once he even canceled a meeting with the Soviet dissident Yelena Bonner, the widow of Andrei D. Sakharov, to meet instead with students concerned about minority faculty recruitment. “That’s his style and his inclination,” says W. Russell Ellis, provost for undergraduate affairs at Berkeley. “He’s very concerned about students’ getting hurt.”
At the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, also the scene of many student protests, student-affairs administrators have formed a human-relations committee that meets every two weeks to talk about student issues.
“We try to stay on top of what’s on students’ minds,” says M. Ricardo Townes, associate dean of academic services at Amherst. “We try to realize who needs to be talking to whom. There’s a steady information flow so we can be out in front.”
When a meeting with students two years ago about racial problems on the campus ran after the dinner hour, Chancellor Joseph D. Duffey ordered Chinese food for the group, courtesy of the university.
University officials and students are not always able to work out their differences. “Sharing food is helpful, but I haven’t hesitated to arrest students, either,” says Mr. Duffey. “It’s a risky thing to do, but there’s a great risk in not drawing the line anyplace. You run the risk of having other people’s rights trampled.”
At Howard University, police were called in after students took over the administration building in 1989. The students were protesting the appointment of Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater to the university’s board of trustees. The police were withdrawn, however, on the advice of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Washington’s Mayor Marion Barry, and other black leaders.
“It is widely perceived as an error that the police were called to campus that day,” says Ronald W. Walters, professor of political science at the university.
For their part, students say they were shocked when the police arrived. “They came in riot gear with helicopters,” says April Silver, president-elect of the Howard University Student Government Association. “We were unarmed. There were no administrators we could attack. If anybody had been injured, it would have been crazy.”
Although administrators nationwide say they have done a better job of listening to students’ concerns and giving them more say in decision making, some student leaders take a more cynical view.
“Administrators now know how to tap and channel students’ dissent,” says Joe Iosbaker, a founding member of the Progressive Student Network. “They can now defuse it and repress it without the use of ammunition.” The network is a national group aimed at encouraging student activism.
Says Stephen J. Boland, vice-president of the Minnesota Student Assembly: “Administrators are much more effective in squelching student protests. They now put students on a task force and study it to death. By the time the task force makes its recommendations, the students have graduated.”
Administrators say they will continue trying to reach out to students. “Administrators want civility and order, and that is constantly tested on a university campus,” says Berkeley’s Mr. Ellis. “But students are not the enemy. We are supposed to go and talk to them. Discussion is always better than silence. It is always better than the police.”
