Word: duking
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...recent months, student demonstrators at Duke and Georgetown unversities and the University of Wisconsin at Madison have attracted national attention and succeeded in bringing about policy changes at those schools...
University presidents across the country have something new to worry about. Over the last few weeks, a wave of students protesting sweatshop labor have targeted the offices of college presidents who haven't agreed to the code of conduct demanded by the activists. At Duke, students seized President Nannerl O. Keohane's office for 31 hours. At Georgetown, a four-day occupation of President Leo J. O'Donovan's office ended last week after Georgetown acceded to the student demands. And it could happen here. Daniel M. Hennefeld '99, one of the organizers of the sweatshop protest at Harvard earlier...
...taking over a building is by its nature a violent act, and though the takeovers at Duke and Georgetown may have come and gone without forcibly removing deans from their offices, there's no guarantee that it won't happen next time. Some would argue that, in extreme situations, violence (or, in the words of a 1969 Crimson editorial, "militant action") is justified. But it's hard to believe that forcing deans and secretaries from their desks is truly justified under any circumstances...
...crop of student activists have even tried to make that calculation: protesters occupying buildings today do so almost as if it's part of a public relations game. The headline "Students Occupy President's Office" no longer resonates with earthshaking, symbolic significance; it's a tired cliche. Administrators at Duke hardly took the students occupying their offices seriously, instead praising them for their cleanliness and studiousness. Everyone seems to have forgotten that, however routine and perfunctory taking over administration buildings may have become, symbolic action can become very real, very quickly. The potential for real damage, real violence, remains...
Putting aside ethical considerations, are confrontational tactics even effective? The Georgetown and Duke sit-ins both succeeded in forcing the administrations of those schools to come to the bargaining table with activists. But both of these groups, in a sense, got lucky; the takeovers never evolved into an actual physical confrontation (though, most likely, the students never intended to take the protest that...