Theories of freedom

I often tell college students that only part of their education takes place inside a formal classroom. The rest of that education unfolds through the relationships they build, the ways they get involved in campus life, the opportunities they embrace to expand and challenge their existing frameworks, and their willingness to put knowledge into practice.

For college students right now, this is a huge moment of learning. Student activists around the country and the world are building encampments to demonstrate their opposition to the genocide in Gaza, demand that their institutions divest from Israel, and to show solidarity with each other. Taking over space on a college campus to make demands of the institution is a time honored and recognizable part of student protest. Also familiar is the university’s administration showing disapproval of the students’ organizing efforts. In the past few days, there has been comparisons drawn to protests against the US war in Vietnam, Kent State massacre in 1970, the Black Action Movement at the University of Michigan in the 1980s, the anti-apartheid movement and its shantytowns on many campuses, the 1968 sit-in and protests at Northwestern, but there are many more examples of students taking collective action on a campus to make change. Those protests have largely been successful and produced much of the social change they intended both on and off the campus. For example, the establishment of interdisciplinary programs in Critical Ethnic Studies and Gender & Sexuality Studies, along with greater commitment to recruiting and retaining minoritized students and faculty, came directly out of such collective efforts to challenge and change institution’s policies and practices. At UIC, the cultural centers, the interdisciplinary programs, the support services for minoritized students – all of these came from student protest.

In this moment, university leaders, who were themselves college students at some point, should have become students of history.

Instead, many have chosen to advocate for and unleash violence against their own students and faculty, and invited in police whose aggression and antagonism turned highly organized and non-violent encampment spaces of protest into warzones. As I write this, hundreds of armed New York City police officers have descended on Columbia University, located in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, at the invitation of the institution’s president, Nemat Minouche Shafik. Columbia’s student-run radio station, WKCR-FM and its cadre of journalism students are doing a valiant job in reporting on the chaotic and dangerous situation with a level of poise, clarity and a faithfulness to telling the truth and revealing the biases in mainstream media reporting in real time. They are documenting the moment. Their instructors and parents must be very proud of them. A similar situation is unfolding simultaneously at City College of New York and University of California at Los Angeles.

Versions of this overzealous militarized response to student protest are unfolding on college campuses around the country, from here in Chicago at Northwestern University to Indiana, Wisconsin, Texas, Florida, and California. In all of this unnecessary chaos, faculty have been resolute: they have shown up to defend students at the encampments and been arrested for doing such, written letters that denounced the violence and the administration’s leadership, and called for a more principled, ethical and informed response by the institution’s leaders. The snipers, pepper spray, arrests, full on physical assaults, university vehicles as police transport, fabrications – there is no more serious breach of trust than this. We talk a lot about students’ needs to have a sense of belonging and to feel physical and psychological safety on campus. I am not sure how one restores students’ – and parents! – faith in an institution that is so willing to subject young people to harm.

Thankfully, there are university leaders who have chosen not to go down that path of violence and repression. Instead, they chose to recognize that student protests have been part of campus life for decades, to embrace the difficult conversations, and to leave themselves open to the possibility that positive social change will flow from the moment. They chose to bear witness to the incredible ways that students are putting their education into practice – experimenting with different ways of expressing their truths, building authentic relationships, and re-imagining what just relations can look like. The difference in strategies between a Wesleyan vs. Emory, or a Brown vs. Yale leads me to wonder: what is the constellation of factors that accounts for the rush to violence in some cases but not others? What else do we need to understand about how university administrators perceive students? How they understand power? Who really matters in the university? What happens when students are no longer prioritized?

In this moment, college students are learning that universities are yet another site of inequity and struggle, repression, and control. But they are also recognizing that struggles for social justice are interconnected. Their willingness to question, organize, devote energy and make demands of the institution is what changes history, not their silence. They will become the scholars, journalists, cultural workers, writers, politicians, and leaders who will be invited back to campus in 50 years to talk about their participation in this moment. They will remember April 2024 for how it changed them and changed the world, and how their institutions often failed to protect their right to speak up.

In the weeks, months, and semesters ahead, we will continue to make sense of this moment. I hope that UIC faculty, departments and student groups across the university will take the opportunity to educate and engage the campus – through teach-ins, artmaking, theme semesters, conferences, and whatever other formation that folks come up with – about students’ roles in social justice and social change movements. Our students deserve to learn about what previous generations in and outside of the U.S. have found important to struggle for. And they deserve to learn in an environment that is free from threats of violence or attempts to stifle their voices.

May Day at UIC

May 1 – May Day – is usually a day for recognition of labor struggles and advocating for stronger workers’ rights. The first May Day celebration took place in Chicago in 1886 as part of workers’ demands to have an 8-hour work day. It is also a moment to highlight the ways that women workers are central to the world’s economy, at the same time that their labor is undervalued, underrecognized and made invisible. This year, there will be walkouts from schools, sickouts from work, and rallies by labor groups in support of Palestine and undocumented people.

At UIC, graduate and undergraduate students as well as faculty are joining their voices in protest of current efforts of the University of Illinois to implement new rules about public statements by campus units. A protest took place at 3 PM on the quad. There has not been much public discussion of this issue, so the protest is an important learning opportunity for all of us to understand how proposed university policy will affect our lives going forward.

Celebration time for student-parents

We are closing out a challenging semester on a fun note!

On Friday, May 10, WLRC and Little Sparks, the new student-parent program at UIC, will host a family fun day at the Student Recreational Facility (Rec Center) on Halsted. We welcome all student-parents to bring their children for a fun-filled day. The event is intended to build community among student-parents, as well as to recognize those who are graduating this semester. Please spread the word – there will be prizes for those who come early!

Congratulations to the Class of 2024

To all the students and their families who are graduating in the coming days – hearty congratulations to all of you! You began college during a particularly difficult moment in world history – the COVID-19 pandemic – and are ending it in another. But in between, you have persevered and done your best to make yourself, your instructors and the people who love you proud of who you are and are becoming. May your path forward be smooth and your successes be many!

As we wrap up the semester – submit grades, clear off our desks, get ready for the next phase of things – I hope we can remember to take good care of ourselves and each other,

Natalie Bennett