A Better Way to Protest?

Ryan Ke

Section 1

Week 4           

            “A Tale of Two Campuses: Berkeley and Davis respond to Occupy movements,” by Alan Markow, addresses the two very different reactions from administration to students protesting about the same issue on different campuses. Concerned about the recent University of California tuition hikes, students protested on both the UC Berkeley and UC Davis campuses. The Berkeley administration responded by announcing their acknowledgement of the student’s concerns and announcing a new financial aid plan. On the other hand, The Davis administration seemed to ignore the primary issue and instead only mentioned the damages that the protestors had caused to Dutton Hall.

            I thought this article was interesting because it showed both the positive and negative sides of this particular occupy movement. To be clear, I do agree with the cause behind the student protestors and I find it odd and disheartening that the Davis administration seemed to dismiss this important issue.  However, I do find merit in the administration mentioning the damages caused and the resulting overtime work hours of the custodians and other staff. No matter how small relatively, I believe these issues are not to be ignored by the students and other protestors. Again, I am affected and I believe in the cause of these protestors, but I only wish that there was a different way they could have gone about it. Are there other, less disruptive, ways for students to bring up social issues and still be taken seriously? If yes, what? If no, how can that change?

Here is a video of a protest at Dutton Hall.