youth activism

Students at the University of Texas had a dilemma: support their candidate of choice for President by placing a sign in their residence hall window and face disciplinary action for doing so, or allow their First Amendment rights to be violated. They have that dilemma no more, thanks to students taking stands and the media shining a light on an un-American policy.

On Thursday, the university revoked its policy against signs being placed in residence hall windows and cleared the record of the two members of the University Democrats who held their ground and refused to take down the signs in their windows.

“We are very pleased with the decision and even more pleased that the university came to its decision so quickly,” said junior Connor Kincaid, who, along with his roommate and cousin Blake Kincaid, a sophomore, faced disciplinary hearings Wednesday afternoon after refusing to take down a campaign sign they had placed in their Brackenridge Hall window.

“We didn’t take this personally,” Connor Kincaid said. “We don’t harbor any resentment to the university; we feel vindicated.”

Administrators, of course, maintain that it wasn't the students or the media attention that made them change their minds. It merely "brought the issue to [their] attention." Right.

Powers told The Daily Texan that the media attention generated by the issue did not pressure him to change the rule, but brought the issue to his attention.

“I felt we ought to revisit and revise what the rules ought to be — something I think we should do from time to time,” Powers said.

If I was the Kincaid cousins, or any other political activist on that campus, I would be extremely sensitive to efforts by the administration to start walking back on their conciliatory talk. The reason for the ban in the first place was for beautification purposes. Here's a local news outlet covering the story before the university backed down:

But anyhow, now that the policy is temporarily revoked, what's very encouraging about this situation is that, once again, we have an example of Millennial activism. Zack Hall, the president of the University Democrats, explained the importance of collaboration in order to preempt any challenges to student rights.

Zack Hall, University Democrats’ president, said he is cautious about the future and calls on the university to ensure that political groups on campus be allowed to contribute to the committee process.

“It’s certainly a victory for students, and it’s a victory for the freedom of expression on campus,” Hall said. “Good things happen when the College Republicans and University Democrats work together.”

Both student organizations said they plan to continue working together to ensure students’ rights are not violated by the university.

And now, this discussion is on Millennial terms:

A committee will be created, comprising university officials and students, to evaluate whether the housing department should keep or change its ruling on signs.

So no unilateral decision by administrators on this, but a committee made up of students and staff will discuss the policy. This is what happens when Millennials observe a problem and work together to find a consensus on solving it. No loud protest was needed. No sit-ins were needed. But positive change was still created. Well-done.

Unbelievable.

The University of Illinois is grappling with the effects of a state law passed five years ago that was designed to keep state employees from campaigning for candidates on state time. In doing so, they have created quite an uproar among faculty and staff.

The university's administration has sparked outrage by telling faculty, staff and graduate students that a 5-year-old state law designed to prevent state workers from campaigning for candidates on state time or with state resources meant they could not express support for candidates or parties through pins, T-shirts or bumper stickers while on campus. Nor could they attend any political rally or event on campus, the administration said.

"They're trying to control our bodies and our voices any time we're on campus. These policies are clearly a violation of our 1st Amendment rights," said Dan Colson, an English graduate student who, along with other students, professors and free-speech experts, has lashed out.

Colson and others argue the University of Illinois was unfairly expanding state law and that academic freedom meant campus communities should not be held to the same standards as other state employees.

Unfortunately for Colson and civic-minded Americans across the state, the state took things a bit further.

But the governor's Office of Executive Inspector General, which investigates ethical violations, said it would act on complaints of political activity on college campuses depending on their severity.

And it delivered a sweeping twist, saying the state law meant that university students, not just employees, were prohibited from participating in political rallies on campus—an assertion at odds with the University of Illinois' interpretation of the law.

"Anything that benefits a political campaign is prohibited on state property," said Gilbert Jimenez, deputy inspector general. The results of any investigations of campus activity would be turned over the university's board of trustees with recommendations for discipline, including possible dismissal, Jimenez said.

Is Mr. Jimenez serious? Any activity on a college campus -- including that activity led by students -- is prohibited?

A trip to the University of Illinois website after reading about this has left me puzzled. This is from their "institutional commitment" to public engagement page:

"The term "public engagement" reflects the reality that so much of what we do takes the form of faculty members collaborating with communities, agencies, and organizations to address critical issues..." Chancellor Richard Herman, September, 2004

Chancellor Herman said this, wrote this, whatever, and then set up a task force studying civic engagement activities on campus. An excerpt from a university press release:

Chancellor Richard Herman appointed the task force in January and asked it to create a sharpened and sustained curricular and co-curricular emphasis on advancing the public good. The 26-member group, which includes representatives from campus units ranging from the department of architecture to WILL-AM/FM/TV as well as the University YMCA and Urban League of Champaign County, plans to strengthen connections between the campus and its communities, from the local to the global levels.

The effort is part of Herman’s Strategic Plan for the Urbana campus, an initiative to “establish Illinois as the leading public research institution that engages students in civic commitment and community-based learning experiences,” to help students meet the challenges of modern citizenship and address the most pressing societal problems.

The task force is leading a campuswide effort to identify the many existing dimensions of civic engagement, to help define it for the Urbana campus, encourage innovative thinking about it and make civic commitment more prominent in campus life and the identity of the institution.

So fine, the U of I is committed to civic engagement, or at least trying to find out what it means to them. But it's no wonder that only 16% of Millennials know what "civic engagement" means when they're getting mixed messages like this. U of I wants to "[engage] students in civic commitment," but its students aren't allowed to practice politics at its most fundamental level? In his article "Putting Politics Back Into Civic Engagement," in the Campus Compact Reader (Special Ed. 2003), Harry Boyte, the co-director of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs's Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the University of Minnesota, hits the nail on the head: "We need to put politics back into civic engagement in higher education if we are to open up and democratize the ways in which knowledge is produced, diffused, and adopted. This is key to democratic change of every kind in the 21st Century."

Boyte, of course, is right. Higher education and civic engagement are and should always be closely linked. But let's remember that the scapegoat here should be the state of Illinois. The policy currently on the books is no doubt faulty enough to warrant a revision. Fine, perhaps the intent of the policy -- to keep state employees from participating in political activity on state time while working -- is logical. But when a professor or staff member, not working and on their own time, walks across campus and is not allowed to voice his opinion on political issues, that not only proves that the law is too broad; it becomes unamerican. Mr. Jimenez, the deputy inspector general, is apparently victim to a civics-deprived education. The law clearly has First Amendment issues on its own, but then Mr. Jimenez comes along and broadens the scope -- students are not even allowed to express their beliefs.

This law absolutely needs to be changed. We don't need students coming from Illinois who are as civically ignorant as Mr. Jimenez and its state legislature.

And I'm hoping U of I proves the words on their website aren't merely there to keep up with other institutions who are committed to civic engagement. It can do this by aggressively lobbying for a revision of the law.

Here's another write-up at The Chronicle of Higher Education in case you're interested.

Rock the "tween" vote.

This year, in an effort to mobilize voters in this historic presidential election, Usher launched the "I Can't But You Can" voter registration campaign geared towards youth ages 17 and under. This nationwide campaign began this summer in Atlanta with 350 youth registering nearly 1,000 new voters. The Campaign will be expanded to 8 cities simultaneously on September 27th and is projected to educate more than 4,000 youth and register 17,000 new voters nationally.

In conjunction with ServiceNation's Day of Action ( www.servicenation.org), the "I Can't But You Can" Campaign will host voter registration rallies and drives in cities across the US on September 27th. Participating cities include: Atlanta, Boston, Kansas City (KS), Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, New Orleans and Oakland. At the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the USC Marching Band will perform, MTV's Quddus will serve as Emcee for the Voter Registration Rally while KIIS-FM's DJ Drew will get the crowd pumping. All across the nation, we're engaging youth to make certain their voices are heard on Election Day!

"This is such a historic election that I wanted to find a way to give youth 17 and under a voice," says Usher. "I wanted young people to understand, that this election does impact their life. It affects the type of education they receive, if they'll receive healthcare when they're sick and if they'll have help getting into college."

Count me as a fan. I like that Usher is 1.) spreading the word that one does not have to be able to vote to be politically engaged, and 2.) reaching young people even earlier in their lives than most GOTV campaigns. Also, when you think about it, many of those young people too young to vote in this election will certainly want to vote in the next election after registering voters during this cycle.

It goes without saying, the more politically engaged young people we have now, the better citizenry we'll have in the future.

Some post-debate reading:

• Newsweek just put out an open letter to young Obama supporters from a Millennial born on the cusp, Jonathan Darman. I like it all but this part, which unfortunately happens to be the crux of the letter.
  

  With the new fiscal reality, neither he nor John McCain should get away with promising everyone what he or she wants. In debates they will be pressed to explain their priorities. Seize this opportunity. To get the best of Obama, young people, cut out the blind devotion. Get off the Huffington Post. Stop the Facebook blasts. If you really want to be the change you've been waiting for, start holding Obama to some of his promises to our generation. In these waning days of the campaign, ask not what you can do for Barack Obama, ask what Barack Obama can do for you.

  This once again assumes that internet activism doesn't get anything done. Not cool.

• Is Friday night the best night to have a debate in order to attract more youth attention and involvement?
• A Columbus Dispatch piece visits a debate-watching party near Ohio State University to get feedback from both College Dems and College Republicans organizations on campus.
• Michael A. Cohen of the New America Foundation penned a decent piece appearing in the New York Times a few days ago on the state of the race.

  His words at the end dovetailed with the coverage of Obama's performance in the debate so far:

  All of these elements make the presidential debates so crucial for Mr. Obama — and so potentially dangerous for Mr. McCain. Unlike an acceptance speech before a partisan crowd or campaign advertisements, debates are the single best opportunity for a relatively inexperienced presidential candidate to show the electorate their qualifications for America’s top job. Indeed, Mr. McCain’s debate performance will be of almost secondary importance. If Mr. Obama, who already has the political wind at his back, is able to show that he has the proper facility with the major issues of the days to go head-to-head with Mr. McCain, he will go a long way toward erasing the doubts that many voters still have about his experience.

  Since June this election has been Barack Obama’s to lose. Because of his consistent message discipline, Mr. Obama has ensured that with approximately 40 days until Election Day, this is still the case.

• An actual example -- in Frederick County, MD -- of the energy from this election reinvigorating local parties.
• A piece on the Student Voter Act of 2008 -- Rep. Jan Schakowski's the lead sponsor -- that would require all institutions of higher education receiving federal funding to offer students the opportunity to register to vote while registering for classes.
• An article from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern examines preparations being made for another surge in the youth vote this November.
• "Youth Activism Isn't Dead, Just Different" -- a good piece by Ned Resnikoff found on Pushback.

With a Category 4 Hurricane Gustav bearing down on the Gulf Coast today, there are decent odds that we will be seeing images much like we saw in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina. Fingers crossed, the disaster relief will be managed much better, and as a result, hopefully many more citizens living along the coast have been able to move inland, but the radar and satellite images are still menacing. After having worked in Mississippi each of the last two Marches, assisting families in rebuilding their homes and their lives from Hurricane Katrina, it's tough for me to watch this storm slam into the coast. The satellite looping continuously on The Weather Channel makes my mind loop back to 2005, and I replay my experience, realizing that the storm had a significant impact on me, but in a larger sense, I also understand that it was an opportunity for our generation to put our collaboration and volunteerism skills to use. For those that are concerned that Millennial activism is limited to the internet, this post is for you.

First, my story. In 2005, I was a senior at Allegheny College in Meadville, PA. As Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast, we had just started class. I remember attending class and then returning to my residence hall room to watch -- in horror -- as those tall signs along the coast started to snap off and fly to the ground, and as houses were washed away. After the storm sailed through, the images were even more shocking. Bodies were all over the place, even on CNN. I remember calling my friend as I watched people trapped on roofs, looking up desperately at the news helicopters that were circling; we both were just astonished that we were seeing this in America, and that there was no help on the way. Along with another friend (who actually took the lead), we put a fundraiser together for the college community. We set up tables at various locations in the community one Saturday, and we were able to raise about $2,000. We also volunteered at a telethon at an Erie, PA TV station, and we raised $13,000 within our hour time slot. We were proud of what we had done and not just because we organized it spur of the moment, but because we worked together for a good cause.

After I graduated from Allegheny, I took a job working in Residence Life (supervising RAs) at a small, public school in Northwestern Pennsylvania (which I still have). As I explained above, the last two years I participated and co-organized an Alternative Spring Break trip to Gulfport, Mississippi. The first year I traveled with seven students and another staff member. We worked with the Presbyterian Church and stayed at a "volunteer village" for a week. Food and shelter was provided for a very minimal fee, and the school took care of transportation. Each morning, we'd get up and travel to our work sites, which were very different. We all were able to observe the difference in response between an affluent neighborhood and one that was less well-off. We met members of the community that were still recovering from what had happened. As I left that year, already knowing I wanted to return the following year, I remember realizing that it's not so much the actual physical labor that we offer that is important to them. It is the time that is invested. They had stories to tell, and so often, they had no one to hear them.

We returned the following year (this past year). The difference a year makes is impressive: as we traveled along Highway 90 the year before, destroyed signs and ruins of restaurants lined the coast; but this year those restaurants had been rebuilt. But at the same time, there was still work to be done. Luckily, the popularity of the program had grown; instead of taking just seven students, our institution committed funds for 28 students to travel. Seven staff members traveled with them, making for a total of 35. Because our campus is part of a larger state-wide system, we reached out to our colleagues at other campuses and asked them to participate. In total, approximately 75 people from all across Pennsylvania traveled to Gulfport this year to help with rebuilding projects -- and hearing stories. We received press coverage from our hometown paper, as a reporter and a photographer traveled with us. We are planning on going again this year, assuming that Gustav's impact is not so severe that it keeps us away.

But it wasn't just us. Youth volunteerism and civic engagement had already shown marked increases over the past few years:

Two-thirds of college freshmen (66%) believe it's essential or very important to help others in difficulty, suggests a survey of 263,710 students at 385 U.S. colleges and universities.The 2005 report, by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles, found feelings of social and civic responsibility among entering freshmen at the highest level in 25 years.

Volunteerism by college students increased by 20% from 2002 to 2005, says a study released last week by the federal Corporation for National and Community Service.

And after Katrina, financial support and youth volunteers flooded the Gulf Coast region. A report from The Corporation for National and Community Service speaks to this:

AmeriCorps NCCC, a team-based residential program for 18-24 year-olds, has made Katrina response its primary focus these past three years, deploying more than 4,000 members to intensive assignments in the Gulf. NCCC members have refurbished 9,500 homes, built 1,450 new homes, completed 52,000 damage assessments, and trained and supervised more than 227,000 volunteers.

...

National service has also fueled the post-Katrina “brain gain” of young professionals who have moved to the Gulf to start new organizations and provide leadership to the nonprofit sector. This is especially true in New Orleans, where scores of AmeriCorps members came to serve and then stayed to work, plunging into jobs and volunteer initiatives to improve their adopted home.

The numbers above aren't even a totality. I actually am having a difficult time finding total numbers of youth volunteering for Katrina relief efforts. 10,000 college students went to the Gulf Coast within that first year alone, while thousands more went on trips in succeeding years.

We know that Millennials use the internet as a utility to further their activism; it's not the be-all, end-all. The collaborative nature of Millennials, along with their penchant for volunteerism and sheer size, yields a generation of young people determined to make a difference and capable of doing so; the 'net serves as a conduit through which this difference-making potential flows. The characteristics of Millennials are geared for events like disasters; in being able to collaborate and work through institutions and organizations to fix problems like the devastation from Katrina, the climate crisis, and the economic recession, the Millennials fuel this nation's evolution -- they just so happen to use the internet and social networking sites as tools to do this.

Yes, this activism differs from that of the 1960s. Youth today are not parading around college campuses with placards, staging sit-ins in administration buildings, or burning flags (by and large). But that doesn't mean the sense of urgency isn't there. If you talk to many young people today, we're engaged because this country's trajectory is so... alarming. And with this generation's addiction to immediate gratification, it's not surprising that volunteerism has become so popular -- young people today want to see the immediate results of their actions, whether it's loading that next web page, or appreciating the outcome of their latest good deed.

Going back to Sally Kohn's essay in the Christian Science Monitor from June, the actual outcomes of the Millennial Generation's social activism are blurring too much with the focus on technology. Sally accurately outlines what she asserts was the social activism found in the 1960s.

On their own, for example, none of the activists in the civil rights movement had sufficient power and influence to end segregation. Coming together in local committees, led mainly by young people, they used the tools of face-to-face community organizing, developing shared strategies to address shared problems. And they took shared action; in sit-ins and Freedom Rides, they formed groups that were more than the sum of individual parts.

Emphasis added. The bold and italicized is what Millennials already do today; so I don't think it's any wonder why many Millennial activists, like Daily Kos's georgia10, were confused by Kohn's piece. In fact, this model was represented in many volunteer efforts all across the country, especially along the Gulf Coast the past few years. Youth came together in groups, whether they were students, church members, or responsible citizens, organized around a problem they wished to solve, and they took action. And yes -- what they accomplished in those groups was far more than what they could have done individually.

As Gustav strikes this week, please remember that while there will be people suffering, and those horrifying images of three years ago might be on our TV screens again, another army of youth -- along with others -- will be waiting to serve. I know no better example of Millennial activism.

Some reading for your Sunday:

• David Sirota's latest column is spot-on, criticizing the obsessive focus we all have with the presidency, and examining how that hurts the quality of our nation.
• A post from the Utah Amicus blog discusses the College Democrats of America's role in the surge in youth political activism.
• More College Democrats -- An Obama blog post on the meshing of the Obama campaign with the College Democrats' efforts this fall at the College Democrats convention.
• More evangelicals: The Rothenberg Political Report has yet more polling information with regard to evangelicals voting in the presidential election.
• "You Don't Have to Burn Bras to Be Politically Active," an op-ed by Jessica Sidman in the Dallas Morning News, discusses a topic we're all well-aware of around here -- Boomer youth political activism versus Millennial youth political activism.
• A story in the Providence Journal on Obama's appeal to youth and how the campaign uses technology to connect.
• A California newspaper discusses the Democrats' advantages given the current national political climate bringing the political views and demography of young people into the analysis.

caption: The Dude w/ his real life counterpart, Jeff Dowd

Everybody knows "the Dude" from the 1998 cult classic The Big Lebowski. But what you may not know is that Jeff Bridges' now-classic character is based off a real life person, Jeff "the dude" Dowd.

As a young man, Dowd was a major player in the 1960’s antiwar movement, was an outspoken draft resistor and spent time in jail as a political prisoner.

Like his film character, Jeff currently lives in L.A. He is a talented filmmaker and one of the founders of the Sundance Institute. His autobiography, "The Dude Abides: Classic Tales and Rebel Rants from The Dude" is slated to be released this year. Check out his website: www.jeffdowd.com.

I recently sat down with the Dude to discuss his experiences with youth organizing in the 60’s and how it compares to today.

Give it a Listen.

Download the mp3.