Two of my classes were canceled this week, due to a strike
that many students chose to coordinate at Indiana University. The strike was
advertised for weeks, leading up to a two day event that would be a
demonstration by the students.
The issue at hand was tuition costs. Indiana University, as
a state funded school, has seen increases in funding from the state of Indiana
in recent years, yet tuition has also been rising every few years at a fairly
regular and steep rate. While an oversimplification, this was what was at the
center of the protest, and was the reason that the academic world was turned on
its ear last week.
When I arrived at one of my classes, I was made aware that
the central headquarters for the protestors was the academic building where I
was going to have to take my Media Life class. They were using my classroom as
a meeting room, until my professor told them that we had to begin class. At
that point, I got to take a very good look at the individuals who were, for
lack of a better word, orchestrating this event.
My first impression of the group that was protesting was
that it appeared as though they were also boycotting the plumbing and barbering
industries, as it looked as though none had received a bath or haircut in many
moons. While a goofy thing to notice, it speaks volumes about their
credibility. A group that is attempting to catch the ears of the administrators
and board of governors of the University is first catching their noses. While
you don’t need to be a professional to make a change in your school, it sure as
hell would help if you acted in a mildly professional way.
As I thought more critically of the strike, I came to two
conclusions. The first was that a strike from classes is a quite useless form
of demonstration in this particular case. The complaint is that students are
paying too high a price for a particular product (in this case, their education).
As a form of protest, they decided that they would stop taking advantage of the
product, i.e. not going to class. The problem with this type of protest is that
they have already paid. The money has already exchanged hands. They are, in
most basic terms, wasting their money even further than they claim. My
half-joking solution to the problem was that the protestors should be going to
more classes, not less. In a week where a student paid to go to 15 credit
hours, a real protest would be to sit in on 45 credits worth of class. This
would be effective from the protestor’s perspective, because it would allow
them to get more for their money, and it wouldn’t hurt that the potential havoc
that comes from a surplus of students in a class would disturb the gentle
rhythm of academia.
My second conclusion was much more startling, and a little sadder.
I came to realize that this group was interested in protesting for the sake of protesting.
While the cause does have its merits, it was clear from their reactions to
their obstacles (being sent away from a board meeting, not being able to
demonstrate publically because it was raining) that it was more important to be
demonstrating against SOMETHING, rather than against THIS particular thing. It
was clear that the group was the kind who was angry, looking to be upset,
looking to play the victim. While the group can’t be summarized as a
collective, it would be fair to say that once the large demonstration was
gathered, there was a sincere lack of leadership to drive the mass of
protestors toward any particular goal. That indicated, to me at least, that
this was a protest without a passion. It was a demonstration without a drive.
Now it is Little 500 week, and everyone will forget about
the reason they missed class last week. They will go to the next excitement,
and we will continue to pay an extraordinary amount of money for school, and we
will plod along until someone else says, “son of a gun, this sucks.” As someone
who greatly believes in doing what it takes to change the world, this
particular protest just proved that unless there is a true burning desire to
change, we are just spinning our wheels.
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