Student Protest

Here is a video that I found on youtube.com about students at UCLA protesting the tuition increase. After doing some research, many of the student protests that have happened recently have protested tuition increase. I think that students have a right to protest their tuition rates, especially when they keep getting higher and higher. The way in which they protest however could be a problem.

If you notice in this video, most students were marching with signs and yelling their opinion. This protest allows students to show their freedom of speech. However, by the end of the video the news anchor did state that some students were arrested and some of the campus police were injured. How do school administrators know when they need to step in and control the student protest? I think that many college campuses need to know what the students are allowed to do in a protest. Every student has a freedom of speech but there has to be some kind of rules that they follow when they are expressing themselves so the campus is still a safe place.

When do officials stop student protests? How do students organize a protest? Is it a violation of the freedom of speech?
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051031/protest_and_pushback_on_campus

Here is another example of a student protest at George Mason University. A student stood by a marine recruiter with a sign that said “Don’t trust recruiters, they lie!” He just stood close to the marine recruiter and stayed silent. Other students came in and started a rally against this student calling him names and then violently attacked him. Campus police stepped in and pulled out pepper spray as they were taking the student out of the rally. This article was written in 2005, but still situations like this happen today. Did this student have a right to stand there silently? I think he did have a right. I personally don’t necessarily agree with that he was protesting, but he had every right to stand there and start a protest. So why did the officials step in? I think because the safety of a student was being violated and I think they campus police had to remove the student protester for his own safety.

There should be rules that are followed by student protests on college campuses. I know recently the KKK came to Ole Miss to set up a protest. There weren’t organized by students, but the college administrators had to allow them to come onto campus. If they didn’t allow them to come to campus it would have been a violation of freedom of speech. This protest was performed in a very professional way. They had barriers for the protest that kept the crowd out of harm’s way. This is an example of protest that could have gone completely wrong and it ended with no one getting hurt. I think that college campuses need to have a protocol for protests that are organized. I think that protests can sometimes happen unexpectedly in which the college police officials should go through training and be prepared for the unexpected to take place.

I think that student protest and freedom of speech have to go hand in hand and can be very tricky to follow rules and make everyone happy. Administrators should be aware of the rules they have on campus for student protesters and be prepared for the unexpected.