Last month, sociology professor Richard Biernacki came to his class, “Social Change in the Modern World” with an American flag in his hands. With a knife, he cut the flag into pieces and proceeded to smear mud all over it throughout his lecture.
Hardly an example of apathy, UCSD students took to La Jolla Village Drive to rally against rising student fees in 2004.
Though the act was political in context, Biernacki’s main intent was to demonstrate the power of symbols and to suggest the particular value that the American flag holds. The act steered his class toward a debate that provoked both uproar and support. But what Biernacki successfuly conjured was student reaction.
“He needed to do something that was that powerful,” said Thurgood Marshall College senior Eliana Deutsch, who was present at the flag destruction. “It needed to be pretty controversial to prove his point.”
Deutsch also noted that the demonstration was supposed to prove a point about symbols, but was blurred by political subtext and Biernacki’s admitted viewpoints.
“He’s very blatantly anti-Bush,” Deutsch said. “And he makes that known in class.”
By challenging students’ values, Biernacki pointed to the role of universities as places that support “truthful and ethically justifiable ways of life” and centers for affecting social issues.
“Activism on campus is part of a liberal education, based on personal ethics and exploration of values,” Biernacki stated in an e-mail.
But activism is not new to UCSD. The campus was home to massive protests in the 1960s, including rallies for civil rights and protests against the Vietnam War.
According to former Revelle Provost Thomas Bond, Revelle Plaza was the heart of all student activism at UCSD. Bond even recalls a time when Urey Hall was shut down during one protest and the campus came close to having a student-police confrontation.
On May 10, 1970, Revelle Plaza saw student George Winne Jr. light himself on fire, mimicking the Buddhist monks in Vietnam as a way to protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He died as a result of his actions.
Not only were students more involved in those turbulent years, but professors were also active participants during protests. Herbert Marcuse, a renowned philosophy professor from Germany, spoke at rallies, inspiring a number of people, including former UCSD student Angela Davis, a member of the Black Panthers and a well-known radical feminist and activist.
“Marcuse taught me it was possible to be an academic and an activist, a scholar and a revolutionary,” Davis said in an interview for “Herbert’s Hippopotamus,” the 1996 documentary by UCSD film student Paul Alexander Juutilainen.
Marcuse’s speeches and critiques on capitalist society resonated with leftist student movements. According to the documentary, some saw Marcuse as a threat and Ronald Reagan, the governor of California at the time, tried to terminate Marcuse from his position at UCSD. Then-chancellor William McGill, however, denied the request and Marcuse remained teaching until his retirement.
UCSD was rich with activism in the past, whether students took their own initiative or were influenced by their professors. Over the years, however, the kind of student activism that was present in the late 1960s and early ’70s appears to have faded away. Students seem to focus more on grades, admission to graduate school and being able to make tuition payments.
Bond said that because of bigger financial burdens, student involvement in social issues has shifted from protest to service.
“There is less activism today, but I think … that there is far more student volunteer work than before … and students today are carrying more debt than before and having to work a lot,” he said.
Jeffrey Haydu, a sociology professor currently teaching “Social Movements and Social Protest,” agrees that students are active on a smaller scale, mostly through volunteer work.
“It’s important to think about how local issues are connected to larger structures of power and equality and that means the small projects through which we help others on campus or in the community should really go hand in hand with broader struggles for social change,” Haydu said.
According to Mary Tharin, co-chair for UCSD Cares Week, the yearly event that showcases service organizations on campus was successful in getting students more involved with community service.
“The student body was enthusiastic and engaged in doing community service work, whether it was to make a craft for kids or make a donation,” Tharin said. “I think that there’s definitely a strong sense [on] campus to have that kind of activism and to help out the community.”
Earl Warren College freshman Jaimie Trinh, who is a member of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán, participated in recent protests in San Ysidro for immigration rights, and said that there are those who believe that social change should be accomplished through education. She said that the priority placed on higher education makes it difficult for students to realize the importance of activism.
“[Students] end up solely focusing on getting out of college and passing the next midterm, rather trying to see what else is going on,” Trinh said. “It’s hard to find that balance.”
At UCSD, a science-oriented university, students work hard to keep up their grades and fulfill their academic goals, not leaving much time for anything else.
Eleanor Roosevelt College sophomore Montha Pao, a biology student, said that petitioners stopped her on Library Walk and she quickly signed forms without thinking much about it.
“I would want to be more involved but it’s too hard, especially when I’m majoring in a science,” Pao said.
Recently, student organizations took part in protests against the University of California’s investments in Sudan, whose government has been linked to genocide in the Darfur region. In March, the UC regents voted to divest from several companies connected to business activities that provide revenue for the Sudanese government, a vote prompted in part by pressure from thousands of UC students.
UCLA student and spokesperson for the UC divestment task force Baylee DeCastro said that what might deter students from being involved is the notion that they can make little change.
“[Students] are debilitated by their skepticism,” DeCastro said. “But we were able to paint a compelling picture of the problem.”
What made their effort successful, according to DeCastro, was eliminating this skepticism and acquiring student reaction to the genocide by providing a clear way to help solve the issue. A long-term vision — ending genocide in Darfur — was the source for motivating student reaction and using it toward activism.
“We asked students, ‘Doesn’t that piss you off?’ and channeled that response into action,” DeCastro said.
She also said that simply having a conversation with other students about a topic is a form of activism.
Within UC campuses across California however, the pool of those with a collective, activist spirit may be limited.
“There’s a small group of students who are socially aware … but it’s a small group,” Deutsch said.
Focus Editor Christine Pae also contributed to this article.
