Week 7
A03
This week’s reading “Berkeley Free speech movement: Paving the
way for campus activism” was a huge reminder of the battles students had to
face in order to achieve the level of academic and intellectual freedom people take
for granted today. Academic freedom is an issue that is constantly battled for even
today because academic institutions are notorious for trying to censor what
they don’t like. However, the Berkeley Free
Speech movement was the catalyst for the progressive reputation that the UC System
has throughout the nation. Activism and
progressive movements are a huge part of the culture at the UC schools (especially
Berkeley in particular) and this is because UC Berkeley students in the nineteen
60’s opposed the social and political censorship that was forced on them by their
administration. Eight hundred students who were peacefully protesting were
arrested by police officers that were sent in by California’s governor at the
time. Since then Berkeley had been known
for having massive protests and demonstrations for issues on a normal basis and
has inspired many of the other UC’s to follow along.
This is an image I took on snapchat of a protest that was happening the when I visited UC Berkeley a few weekends ago.
Question: how can we make political opinions more safe to talk about in academic settings?
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