The history of student activism at Hopkins and nationwide

BY MICHELLE LIMPE, Editor-in-Chief

At the very core of society’s progress, activism has always been integral to sparking change. From macroscopic protests advocating for women’s rights to smaller movements concerning local issues, the freedom to assemble is ingrained in the very founding of the United States.

College students especially have always taken advantage of this right. As they transition from childhood to adulthood, undergraduates have a unique understanding of the topics that are affecting both the younger and older generations, and they have the opportunity to make an impact

Though not particularly known as an “activist university,” Hopkins has had its fair share of important milestones in activism throughout the years. In many ways, it has mirrored the trends seen in the histories of peer institutions amid ongoing tensions with the administration and movements on nationwide issues.

Emeritus Professor Stuart Leslie came to Hopkins as a postdoctoral fellow in 1981. He commented on the notion that Hopkins students are not as active compared to students from peer institutions in an interview with The News-Letter.

“It’s our smaller size, tradition and our majority STEM students,” he said. “Hopkins doesn’t really have a tradition of activism. There were antiwar protests in the ’30s and protests against or in support of civil rights issues, but they were small protests. STEM students don’t traditionally have as much of a role in protests as humanities students.”

While students may not have seemed as active in recent decades to Leslie, he highlighted that the by movements and protests.

A Brief History Of Student Activism

While there have been many examples of youth activism throughout history, the earliest record of student activism at a U.S. university was the “Great Butter Rebellion” of Harvard University in 1766, where students protested the university for serving rancid butter.

Student rebellions sparked across many college campuses — including the University of Virginia, Yale University and Princeton University — most of which were violent and unorganized and even resulted in a few deaths among students and professors.

At this time, the students primarily used mischief and pranks as their form of protest, in 1817 to demonstrate against their university’s administration. Despite the recklessness of their organization, these early student protests paved the way for improving campus life in the future.

In the 1820s and 1830s the hottest protest topics stemmed from student dissatisfaction with faculty, issues with fraternities, unsatisfactory food options and the suppression of student rights. These early calls to action led to many reforms within U.S. higher institutions that are still present today, such as establishing student governments, expanding the diversity and availability of organizations and extracurriculars, and increasing the transparency between administrations and student bodies.

However, from 1900–1950 there was a shift in the types of issues that drove student activism. In addition to calling for change at local levels, issues. Alongside this, students began to expand their perspectives on the role of colleges as not only existing to educate students but also preparing them to be responsible and engaged members of society. They protested compulsory religious and military obligations and joined labor unions and civil rights marches.

Students even had to fight for their right to protest. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley was born to oppose the restrictions set by California universities to limit political activities on campuses. In the 1960s and 1970s, students and faculty became more involved in politics and society as increased accessibility to education, which had been fought for through protest, brought in a more diverse set of voices.

Spurred on by the Kent State University shootings where unarmed protestors were shot by the Ohio National Guard, the student strikes of 1970 were notable, nationwide, concerted walkouts across universities and high schools in response to the Vietnam War. Students from over 900 colleges participated, leading to school suspensions and closures.

Alongside the evolution of protest topics, there was a shift in the manner of protest from the use of violence and gunpowder to written and spoken words. While the focus and manner of activism may have evolved, authors Frank L. Ellsworth and Martha A. Burns assert that the “essence of activism” has remained the same: “an insistent restatement of the need for both societal and institutional reform.”

Student Activism At Hopkins

The same issues that have given rise to protests research.

They demanded increased Black undergraduate enrollment, more representation among changes to the curriculum and archives to better campus.

Though they had been granted admission to the University’s graduate programs starting in 1907, no women were admitted at the undergraduate level on Homewood Campus until over at the time.

“I don’t recall any big demonstrations on behalf of Baltimore with the community,” big deal out of engaging the community but not in an

“You’re not here just to study in the classroom,” the issues that will determine what our future looks like, and you should