Week 7 - Kaitlin Zheng

Kaitlin Zheng
Section A03
Week 7

When a basic and necessary right is being violated, the only options one would have would to either let that right be taken away from them right in front of their eyes and not speak out, or there could be a fight to protect those rightly given powers. In Robby Cohen’s “Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Paving the way for campus activism,” college students spoke out against the university for denying them their basic, moral right to free speech and advocacy on campus. It is astounding to know that these rights – ones that are clearly written in the U.S. Constitution – were being barred from these citizens of the nation. The Free Speech Movement was soon born after the university told civil rights college student activists to remove their advocacy campaign off of campus. Students began a sit in to protest their rights to free speech and soon led to more and more non-violent protests to garner opposition to the university wrongdoings. The protest at Berkeley was indeed successful when the Academic Senate was in support to provide resolutions for the free speech issue in its entirety. It’s important to understand that this very event launched the inspiration for mass student movement across the nation at numerous college campuses ever since. Students still to this day fight for freedom of speech and demonstrations as seen in the UC Davis pepper spray incident yet they are still denied their rights given to them through the Constitution. This reflects that although the Berkeley Free Speech Movement sparked a flame of student activism, there is still ways to go in which universities can provide a guaranteed and rightful option to protest non-violently.

Question: The issue of the University of California, Berkeley and its denial of free speech and activism was not spoken out against until the civil rights advocacy incident occurred. That signifies the unawareness of students beforehand to the denial of their rights. Does the university regard student rights as secondary to their agenda when it inconveniences them or did the university always deny students of their basic right to freedom of speech ever since the creation and foundation of the institution?

References:
1. Cohen, R. (1985). Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Paving the Way for Campus Activism. OAH Magazine of History. Retrieved November 05, 2017.
2. Klein, Robert W. (1964, December 07). Mario Savio, leader of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, is restrained by police as he walks to the platform at the University of California's Greek Theater in Berkeley on Dec. 7, 1964. Received on November 05, 2017 from http://www.npr.org/2014/10/05/353849567/when-political-speech-was-banned-at-berkeley