Campus Protests and Occupation in the Digital Age

In 1996 I was the Democratic Party nominee for Wisconsin's 54th assembly district--the same seat that Lori Palmeri holds today. At that time the district was more solidly Republican, and I faced an uphill battle against an incumbent seeking his fifth term. 

Given my status as a college professor, it seemed natural that I would make education policy one of the cornerstones of the campaign. I frequently wrote up policy statements on what I thought needed to be done for Wisconsin's public K-12 schools and the University of Wisconsin system. All policy statements were sent as press releases to the region's establishment print and broadcast media. Not once did a reporter or editor call to ask for follow-up or do an in-depth story. This was true even for non-university related issues like tax rates, welfare reform, and environmental policy. 

State and local police broke up an encampment at the UW-Madison Library Mall. Picture from the Madison Cap Times 

When I met television reporters that year, I would always ask them what I needed to do to get more and better coverage of what was a very competitive race. All of their suggestions centered on the need to create or be associated with some kind of spectacle: lead a rowdy march that results in police involvement, get into shouting matches, have my supporters protest outside my opponent's private residence, etc. Friends who had experience running for office warned me that mainstream media were more interested in performance art than issues, especially performance art featuring confrontational tones and appearances. Even though by 1996 I had already been a media critic for a number of years, it still shocked me to experience how right those friends were. I was experiencing the truth of the old journalistic aphorism, "When a dog bites a man, that is not news. But if a man bites a dog, that is news." 

I thought about all this recently while watching the crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses across the country. According to CNN, since April 18 protesters have been arrested on more than 25 campuses across at least 21 states. More than 1,000 people have been arrested. Republican politicians, who have spent the better part of this century lecturing the nation on how there is not enough free speech on campuses, are now cheering on the arrests of pro-Palestinian students. This has been especially comical in the state of Texas, where governor Greg Abbott, who regularly mocks DEI activists who want campuses to stand up to hate directed at students of color and those identifying as LGBTQ--the same Greg Abbott who four years ago bragged about enshrining free speech protections at the University of Texas--now supports the expulsion of students for participating in what HE calls "hate-filled" pro-Palestinian protests.  On Texas Public Radio, Alex Morey of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression had the perfect response: "What we're seeing here is this hypocrisy of big double standards saying we love free speech, not this speech." 

It is certainly true that pro-Palestinian campus protests have provoked hysterical reactions from Republicans, uncritically pro-Israel Democrats, campus administrators cowed by Congressional bullies, and other "free speech champions for everyone but pro-Palestinians." Yes, each one of these groups of bad faith actors has placed their rank hypocrisy fully on display for the world to see. But revulsion at bad faith actor hypocrisy should not blind us to legitimate questions that can and must be raised about the nature of public protest in our time, and why it is now so common for peaceful assembly to transform so quickly into occupation of public spaces and physical confrontation. 

First, let's remember the words of the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. 

The author of the First Amendment, James Madison, was much clearer about his intentions in the original draft: 

The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext abridged. 

The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable. 

The people shall not be restrained from peaceably assembling and consulting for their common good; nor from applying to the legislature by petitions, or remonstrances for redress of their grievances. 

I for one wish that Madison's draft language had become the actual First Amendment, as it is clearly a much more explicit endorsement of the rights to worship, think, speak, write, become informed, and organize to hold the government accountable.  

It is tempting to read the First Amendment as protecting five distinct rights (religion, speech, press, assembly, petition) that operate in isolation from each other, but the truth is that each individual right requires the others in order to remain free from government interference. The press, as the great "bulwark of liberty," has a special obligation to create an information environment conducive to promoting an enlightened citizenry so that religion, speech, assembly, and petition are not dominated by bad faith actors pursuing personal interests above the common good. As noted eloquently way back in 1955 by Elisha Hanson, counsel for the American Newspaper Publishers Association: 

The right to have a free press is the right of the people, not a privilege of a particular segment of our economy engaged in the business of gathering and disseminating information in the printed form. Publishers are but trustees of this right. 

Hanson was concerned chiefly with newspapers, but his comments clearly apply to modern news media platforms--broadcast, cable, and digital. 

I don't think that anyone today can say, with a straight face, that the corporate media today are a "bulwark of liberty" in the sense envisioned by Madison and Hanson. They are bottom line outfits that treat audiences not as citizens, but as bargaining chips needed to negotiate advertising rates. The question for media owners is not how do we best inform the public so as to create and maintain a healthy democracy, but how do we keep the public's eyes and ears glued to content so that we can charge the highest possible rates to producers of automobiles, alcohol, and other products for the privilege of getting access to those eyes and ears. 

Seen in this context, students occupying campus buildings to bring attention to issues and causes makes complete sense. The First Amendment envisions a public sphere in which an independent press plays a critical role in providing accurate, timely information that becomes the basis of peaceful assemblies and petitions. That is not the public sphere we have, unfortunately. Occupying public spaces becomes a kind of performance art necessary to guarantee ANY sustained coverage of the underlying issues. 

Occupation tactics did not begin with pro-Palestinian activists, of course. In the early 1930s, homeless and destitute citizens set up encampments known as "Hoovervilles" to dramatize their plight. In 1932 the United States military was called in to evict the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans who had occupied Washington D.C. as a tactic to demand their war pensions. And while we watched Columbia University's Hamilton Hall occupied on April 30, we should remember that Columbia students did the same thing to protest the Vietnam War on April 30, 1968. 

Student encampments and arrests at Columbia University

Today's student occupations of campuses have less in common with the 1930s and Columbia '68 than they do with the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011. The Hoovervilles, Bonus Army, and Columbia '68 protests were all responses to issues (the Great Depression and the Vietnam War) that were well known to all Americans, touched everyone deeply, and were covered extensively by the press. The Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011, in contrast, was designed largely to bring attention to issues marginalized or ignored by the corporate press and sold-out politicians: economic inequality, money in politics, corporate greed, austerity budgets, and big finance. 

Given the state of corporate media today, do pro-Palestinian students really have any viable alternative to occupying and desecrating campus grounds? Has the corporate press shown any willingness to cover Middle East wars in-depth and honestly? Is the role of the United States government in providing the weapons of war used to kill innocent civilians ever covered seriously? Absent an occupation, would the press even bother to explain what divestment means? Answers: NO, NO, NO, and NO. 

For better or worse, occupation protest tactics are the only language the contemporary corporate media understands. The spectacular images get more clicks, shares, and downloads for corporate media's digital arms. Images of police breaking up encampments and arresting protesters also brings more attention to traditional media. 

In short, be wary of explanations for campus occupations that place blame for them on outside agitators, radical professors, narcissistic students, or haters. Pro-Palestinian activists, like activists working on all causes where passions run deep and public opinion is divided, have to operate in a corporate media environment that requires maximum conflict to guarantee at least minimum coverage. I dare say that if mainstream media met its First Amendment obligations, we would not need as much politics as performance art in order to get a hearing for critical issues.