Liv Abegglen, a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, practices activism by tearing down anti-immigration posters on her way to class, talking about political issues with friends and encouraging people to vote — more passive methods than her first act of protest.
She still remembers the first protest she attended, sparked by the firing of a Black security guard at her high school. A student repeatedly used a racial slur, and a security guard called out their offensive behavior. However, the school fired the guard because he repeated the slur while addressing the incident. In response, Abegglen joined other students in a walkout to protest his termination. Thanks to their collective efforts, the school district ultimately rehired the guard.
Today, Abegglen doesn’t attend in-person protests as she works to balance school and professional goals.
“I'm kind of afraid of legal trouble. I also want to go to med school, and I want to keep a clear background check,” Abegglen told The Daily Cardinal.
Many factors, including a lack of focus, legal pressures and social media, have contributed to shifts in political activism among UW-Madison students, who seem to be more scattered in their activism initiatives than in the past.
UW-Madison is known for its student protest and activism culture. But today, students protest less in person — a stark contrast to campus protest history, ranging from the Vietnam War protests in the 1960s and 1970s to abortion rights demonstrations in the 1990s.
Student protests lack a clear focus, Abegglen says
Today’s activism efforts on campus are “nebulous,” Abegglen said, who feels that protest initiatives on campus have become “too vague.” She said that in order to enact more concrete change, students should protest more specific issues, like an executive order, rather than a political party.
“I think you'd be more effective if you were to protest something really specific, like protest transphobia, or some other executive order that's terrible,” Abegglen said.
Abigail Adams, a senior at UW-Madison studying political science and Spanish, agreed, telling the Cardinal that activism efforts need to be intentional and focused around concrete goals rather than abstract ideas. Adams is the president of Amnesty International at UW-Madison, a student-led activism organization on campus, and said she has made it her goal to help Amnesty International achieve more tangible outcomes.
For example, Adams said the pro-Palestine encampment protests that erupted at UW-Madison last spring were backed by a good intention, but they lacked achievable goals.
During the encampments, students made demands that the university had no control over, according to Adams. For example, one of the demands asked the university to divest from Israeli-aligned companies. However, the university said it doesn’t have direct authority over investments made by the University of Wisconsin Foundation because it is an independent nonprofit organization.
“To me, that's kind of a missed opportunity, because you have so many students that are so passionate about one specific thing, but then you're not necessarily doing work that could be accomplished,” Adams said. “If they had a bit more time to actually fully organize a lot of that stuff and figure out who exactly they needed to be targeting and what specific policies were changeable, that would have been better.”
Adams said the encampment succeeded at gaining public attention, but in order for in-person protests to be more effective, they need to be more provocative.
“The more public pressure you have, the more likely it is that someone’s gonna listen,” Adams said.
Students lack the legal knowledge needed to properly negotiate, Adams says
Despite students’ passion for political activism, a lack of legal knowledge can lead to fear of legal repercussions that discourage them from participating in such in-person protests, according to Adams.
Abegglen said she was concerned with getting involved in certain protests, such as the encampment, for fear that potential legal consequences may jeopardize her chances of getting into medical school.
Dr. Kathy Cramer, a political science professor at UW-Madison, told the Cardinal institutions like UW-Madison have become more strict with pushing back on student activism in recent years.
During the pro-Palestine protests, the university chose not to permit the encampment, which violated a policy banning camping on university property, though Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin had the ability to carve out an exception that would have allowed the protesters to stay. Mnookin instead authorized the University of Wisconsin Police Department to remove the tents protesters set up on Library Mall and issue arrests.
Public universities receive pressure from state governments and donors on both sides of the political spectrum to maintain congruence with certain ideals, Cramer said, and some students may feel less empowered if there is a lack of trust in the institution to make any real changes.
“I think it's part of a broader public trend where there's just so much less trust in political institutions and institutions across the board,” Cramer said. “I think students feel that, too.”
When students protest, they often ask to negotiate on legal terms with the university, and sometimes, these policies can be difficult to thoroughly understand.
“It's just kind of something that you have to learn as a student activist —figure out how to navigate that, whether that's finding someone who does know about it, like a professor, or finding a student that is very knowledgeable,” Adams said.
Despite these challenges, UW-Madison does more for students than it’s given credit for, Adams and Cramer said.
“I think in general, it supports student activism, and especially when you compare it to other parts of our lives, like at this campus in particular, it prides itself on being a place that is aware of issues in the world,” Cramer said.
Social media changes the landscape of student activism
Many students also use social media to raise awareness of issues and have more access to spaces for political discussion.
While this is a clear asset to student activists who want to spread awareness to larger audiences, it can also create more barriers, Cramer said.
“I'm pretty negative about social media and what it's done for just our democracy generally,” Cramer said. “It’s designed to incentivize communication that's provocative and angry and is going to get attention.”
Though social media provides the option to engage in activism without face-to-face interaction, it can overwhelm students by constantly bombarding them with issues.
“I think having real-life conversations are just more genuine, and a lot of political issues are important and serious enough that they should be given that sort of respect,” Abegglen said.
These types of interactions often feel more meaningful, making it easier for people to front commitment and genuine effort for a cause, Abegglen said.
The presentation of activism on social media can also overshadow the importance of direct action, Adams said. A lot of work done by student activists at Amnesty International involves policy briefs and volunteer work that often gets done behind the scenes.
“Not all activism is raising awareness on issues, and so I think that's something that's often overlooked,” Adams said.
