{"id":585,"date":"2019-05-05T00:04:32","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T04:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/aas303\/?p=585"},"modified":"2019-05-05T01:01:32","modified_gmt":"2019-05-05T05:01:32","slug":"anti-colonialist-reforms-for-higher-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/aas303\/2019\/05\/05\/anti-colonialist-reforms-for-higher-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Anti-colonialist Reforms for Higher Education"},"content":{"rendered":"

The archive is first the law of what can be said, the system that governs the appearance of statements as unique events. But the archive is also that which determines that all these things said do not accumulate endlessly in an amorphous mass, nor are they inscribed in an unbroken linearity, nor do they disappear at the mercy of chance external accidents; but they are grouped together in distinct figures, composed together in accordance with multiple relations, maintained or blurred in accordance with specific regularities; that which determines that they do not withdraw at the same pace in time, but shine, as it were, like stars, some that seem close to us shining brightly from far off, while others that are in fact close to us are already growing pale. \u2014Michel Foucault<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Given the prevalence of extreme amounts of data in the digitization and technology of our modern day and age, I attempt to be selective in order that our records of recent historical events don’t “accumulate endlessly in an amorphous mass”.\u00a0 In this “archive of the present”, I selectively choose artifacts of three separate but related movements to highlight the radicalism of social activism in the decade of 2010.<\/p>\n

Through the lens of the internet one might be awash with information so much so that it drowns out these radical black protest movements.\u00a0 We may see unending coverage black celebrities, twitter feeds of our favorite media feeds, the first US black president, and an overarching image presenting black communities fully integrating themselves into the landscape of mainstream definitions of “success”. In this lens it might appear that any radical protest movements such as the 1960’s and 1970’s are a thing of the past.<\/p>\n

I chose reform for higher education to suggest a continued radicalism about race, the effects of colonialism, and social concerns, up through the present day. These activists show that the racial concerns of the 2010’s go beyond celebrity, on-trend presumptions about success, and instead continues to address divisive and uncomfortable issues about race that remain matters of national and global importance. By highlighting activist acts and effects in the realm of higher education, I attempt to show 2010’s are still a decade of protest not so unlike other historical decades.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Section1: #RhodesMustFall Campaign, University of Cape Town<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Click on the excerpt above to view the full mission statement<\/a> on the #RhodesMustFall facebook page. This document is important because it includes the list of the demands, which help explain the extent and depth of the campaign, its large-scale goals, how it led to sub-campaigns such as #FeesMustFall, and the great extent of the impact of the campaign.<\/p>\n

What made this campaign radical?<\/h5>\n

I argue that this campaign arose within a history of similar demands and student concerns that had been made repeatedly over many years. But in the next three pictures, I highlight this particular campaign as particularly radical in its breadth, depth, strength of numbers, how many people were involved. In addition, the mission statement above highlights the depth of the demands, showing the great extent of this campaign. Combining these two: the magnitude of the demands, combined with the strength and effectiveness of the protest tactics, means they gained victories on many issues that had previously been raised many times over with little success.<\/p>\n

The following three images\u00a0 highlight the symbolic radicalism of the tactics and the great number of participants uniting behind a common goal, which I suggest are the two main factors that made this protest movement so uniquely powerful and effective.<\/p>\n

Removing of Cecil Rhodes Statue<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This action was powerful due to its strong symbolism. This photo also highlights the creative and unexpected tactics used by the campaign to spearhead its protests. Finally, though the other photos don’t capture the immensity of this campaign, this photo does, and shows the great number of students who were a part of this protest.<\/p>\n

Occupying Bremner<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Students had a sit-in in Bremner administration building for many days. This action was powerful due to its symbolic nature of location, mobilization and space. It symbolized taking back a space considered representative of colonialism and de-colonizing this space.\u00a0 In addition the protest strategy highlights the power of the movement due to its physically impeding what it is protesting by occupying that space.<\/p>\n

Make-shift housing<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Putting up a make-shift shack on campus highlights the creative tactics used to bring publicity and attention to the #RhodesMustFall campaign. This demonstration highlighted the lack of housing faced by many students and many residents of Cape Town.<\/p>\n

Document 2: Swarthmore Student Protests<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This photo highlights the radical nature of the protest at Swarthmore: it used the same tactic of occupying spaces to prevent problems that had repeatedly been brought to the attention of administrators from being ignored yet again. In the above photo, students occupy the administrative building at Swarthmore, just as the #RhodesMustFall protesters occupied the Bremner administration building at University of Cape Town. The Swarthmore protesters also occupied the fraternity houses they were protesting, again forcing action and response to their protest, otherwise face the consequence of losing the use of the fraternity space. This tactic is both creative and effective.<\/p>\n

Although the primary focus of Swarthmore’s protests were sexual assaults, it was also the culture of hatred and violence generally perpetuated by the fraternity Phi Psi, including homophobia, sexism, and racism.<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. \u201cTwo student-run publications, the<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Phoenix\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>and\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>Voices<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em>, last month published more than 100 pages of what appear to be Phi Psi meeting \u201cminutes\u201d from 2012 to 2016. The logs detail explicit behavior and racial prejudice by fraternity members\u201d.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n
    What made this campaign radical?<\/h5>\n

    By using protest tactics like these, issues repeatedly raised in student complaints can no longer be ignored. I believe this event constitutes radicalism because if it were not for the work of these protesters, the actions may have continued to be overlooked, as they had been for years.<\/p>\n

    What made this a radical event of the 2010’s?<\/h5>\n

    In the following excerpt from a survey of Princeton undergraduate students, the University attempts to gather information about race on campus so that the University can improve its efforts. For two reasons, I argue that this indicates student voices in the 2010’s had an impact on Univeristy policy. The first reason I suggest this is the fact that this survey itself (which asks for feedback on all arenas of student life, not just race and diversity) only began in 2013. In fact, note that it says underneath two of the questions (S13Q17 and Q19) that they are new as of 2018. Secondly, Princeton created a task force on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion \u201cbeginning in Fall of 2014\u201d (Source), so this suggests unprecedented changes in approach occurred during the decade of 2010’s.<\/p>\n

    [Edit]:<\/h5>\n

    Looking at this article<\/a> about “Occupy Nassau” from Black Justice League on campus seems to fit nicely into that timeline. There are two additional questions added to the student survey in 2018, and the Occupy Nassau occurred in 2016. This shows how student protests may have been a major part of the change in campus climate, in addition to possibly being an impetus to the two questions added in 2018.<\/p>\n

    Not radical enough?<\/h5>\n

    One might question whether only 6 of the approximately 180 questions should have addressed questions of race.\u00a0 One might also ask about whether the way the questions were posed were methodologically sound for the kind of information the University wishes to gather. (Are they well written and specific enough? Not to mention they are grammatically incorrect and hard to understand e.g. S13Q17,\u00a0 “…have you felt singled out or targeted for different or less favorable due to”.\u00a0 That sentence does not make sense read literally.)<\/p>\n

    One might also ask what concrete changes are being made based upon the data from this survey, which I personally lack internal information about. Nevertheless, the questions asked during the survey, to me, show the effects that student concern about race relations on campus have on student body and campus community, and indicate that action by students to call into question important and underaddressed issues on campus have not gone unheard. What is radical about this third piece is that it shows despite a lack of overt and dramatic protest, something radical has occurred beneath the scenes to incur a change in administration actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The archive is first the law of what can be said, the system that governs the appearance of statements as unique events. But the archive is also that which determines that all these things said do not accumulate endlessly in an amorphous mass, nor are they inscribed in an unbroken linearity, nor do they disappear<\/p>\n

    Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5-archiving-the-present","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/aas303\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/aas303\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/aas303\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/aas303\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/aas303\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/aas303\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":618,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/aas303\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions\/618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/aas303\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/aas303\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/aas303\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

    Document 3: Princeton undergraduate student survey<\/h2>\n

    I close my archive with a different kind of document. It is not a photograph or record of an event such as the events of the above two protest movements, at University of Cape Town and Swarthmore College. This last document, rather, is an internal document of Institutional Research from Princeton University. These are excerpts from a survey given to Princeton undergraduates about their experiences with campus life.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    (Click to view the rest of the survey, below).<\/p>\n

    This last document is a more subtle indicator of the changes that have occurred at an institutional level as a response to student voices. Although not all student voices are made heard through newsworthy protests such as the Swarthmore and University of Cape Town, other student groups have more gradually, consistently, and indeed less overtly held student meetings on campus, discussed issues with administrators individually and as groups, wrote letters and emails, and petitioned their Universities through their own acts of “protest”, asking to address issues of equity and race at their institutions.<\/p>\n

    I suggest that we can see visible changes resulting from these deliberate, consistent, but subtler protest acts by looking at the lens of gradual shifts in institutional policies. In this vein, I present an example of one such gradual change by looking at an undergraduate student survey sent to ask students about their experiences about the campus climate and student life.<\/p>\n