The new radicals
Kent State students work to promote social change both on campus and abroad

Story by Brian J. Barr
Photos by Jen Norris

It’s hard to examine student activism without resorting to comparisons of the late 1960s and early ’70s. That was a time when a war had escalated to the point where it was hard to find an American citizen who had not been affected by it. Student activists grew visible in circles that opposed the war and are now often associated with historical representations of that period. The various progressive campaigns that followed the war (anti-nuclear weapons, power, anti-apartheid and environmental) featured students raising awareness. But student activism never again achieved the status it had during the anti-war movement.

“Student activism often goes in ebbs and flows,” says Patrick Coy, assistant professor of political science and applied conflict management at Kent State. “And right now it’s in a peak.”

Now, Coy says, the peak of student activism surrounds issues of globalization, fair labor and animal rights, to name some dominant ones, and peace and war to a lesser degree.

Steve Brown, a professor of political science who has been at Kent State since 1967, has seen the ups and downs of social and political movements on the Kent campus and says that often these phases of interest happen when progressives feel threatened by the country’s conservative leadership. While this may be true, Coy says there are many other factors in the growth of activism today. The dissemination of information through the Internet, increased awareness and the abuses of police power against activists in Seattle, Quebec City and Genoa, Italy are among those reasons.

Brown pointed out that throughout these ups and downs there has always been a “backwash” of individuals who have been dedicated to raising awareness of progressive social and political issues.

Today, the progressives on campus find themselves part of the peak in student activism. While it may seem there is a difference between the students and the rest of society, Coy says there is not. These student are merely employing their democratic tools to enact change, the same tools each citizen has.

What follows is a glimpse at five students who employ those tools on campus and abroad.