Dear Editor,

Thank you for your prominent coverage of the Sept. 4 protest by the Recognize Us movement asking the University administration for stronger action to eliminate racist, sexist and ableist culture on campus, and the accompanying coverage about the legal actions of the Theta Tau students. I’m writing to respond to your editorial which says that “the activist group Recognize Us needs to change its approach if it wants to best advocate on behalf of marginalized students” (Sept. 5).

Your piece does not articulate clearly, to my reading, what is counterproductive about the group’s mode of protest, except for disparaging the small size of the demonstration. You write that the group should go for “a more collaborative approach” and imply that the demonstrators are not “communicating with the university.”

I support both the cause of Recognize Us as well as the methods. Your main argument seems to be that the movement should be more civil and less confrontational. I am reminded of critics of Black Lives Matter protesters who complain that shutting down highways is too inconvenient a way to protest, and even taking a knee during the national anthem is bringing politics where it does not belong.

Disruption is the purpose of protest, and it is communicative. If the university administration wanted to, as your article quotes the protesters as suggesting, “fund scholarships not frats” or “prioritize the actual experience of marginalized students on campus,” a collaborative approach would be called for and useful. But the university administration has the power over how money is spent on campus, and protest is the tool of those who lack power.

On the topic of communication, I’ll note that, as a transfer student new to campus, I did not know the protest was happening Tuesday evening or I would have been there. The protest certainly communicated a message to the university administration. And, even better, it communicated the presence of the movement to the student body by being an event worthy of coverage by your esteemed publication.

Sincerely,

Amelia Lefevre

Junior, Writing and Rhetoric

Published on September 5, 2018 at 7:21 pm