Reading Response #2 to “Berkeley Free Speech Movement:
Paving the way for campus activism”
When
I read this article I was amazed by how determined the students are in obtaining
the free speech rights and how they would never give up until the end. Their
perseverance is very admirable. In addition, it was very interesting to see
that the student demonstrations also inspired the faculty to join in the cause
for free speech. Most of the faculty “came to feel that the arrest of hundreds
of students was too high a price to pay for the defense of the university’s
outdated restrictions on free speech”. The part of the movement that I liked
the most was how the success of the FSM sets an example to the students of the rest of the
nation and gave them “confidence to believe that although they were young, they
could, with sustained effort, bring about substantial political change”.
Reading about the UC Berkeley strike makes me realize just how important
freedom of speech is to the students in the US.
Question:
How would our nation be different today if UC
Berkeley did not have a problem with the freedom of speech, thus giving the
students no need for a strike? If the FSM didn't occur, where would students gain the “confidence to believe that although they were young, they
could, with sustained effort, bring about substantial political change”?
-Jianying Yang
Section A02
Mario Savio climbs on top of the police
car and addresses the crowd of the student protesters around him.
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