Living on a college campus brings with it a special uniqueness. Everyday smiling people go to class, a friendly and youthful atmosphere pervades the beautiful surroundings and every other week one is greeted by the jeers of another activist group chanting a protest “song.”

Acts of protest and civil disobedience have a long history. Most commonly we look at Gandhi’s use of civil disobedience to facilitate India’s independence, but protest has long been the trigger for political change from America to France. But what did these protests that initiated such profound social and political change have in common that today’s protests completely lack? Effectiveness.

When Americans wanted to protest the Tea Act of 1773, they dumped 10,000 pounds worth of tea into the ocean. When Gandhi wanted to protest the British Salt Tax which gave Britain a monopoly on salt production, he led a group of protestors to defy the law by collecting salt on their own. When the Stanford Coalition for Peace and Justice wanted to stop the war in Iraq, they blocked traffic in San Francisco. Is it any wonder why Stanford activist groups rarely forward their stated objectives?

An effective protest is marked by dedication, resolve, maturity and most importantly a demonstrable point. The agenda of the protest must be readily self-evident from the process. These days, it is more common to see someone with a microphone in White Plaza whose net effect is a small surrounding group of people wondering “I wonder what these guys are protesting?”

The most common justification for these protests is that they “spread awareness.” But if the goal is really to “spread awareness”, these groups need do little more than hand out copies of the Washington Times for students to education themselves with. Furthermore, the flyers that these protests proliferate under the guise of “spreading awareness” are usually a half-page of biased news bytes full of misinformation.

It is time Stanford comes to grips with its own protest culture. The war in Iraq, Patriot Act, and worker conditions are all serious issues that warrant a serious addressing. Yet, these complex issues rarely receive more than the knee-jerk emotional responses of a few that appear to be more interested in living out a 1960’s fantasy than developing real world solutions to real problems. Contorting a child’s rhyme into “Bush and Condi sitting in a tree, K-I-L-L-I-N-G” not only fails to promote a cause but in fact undermines it by underscoring the pettiness of those engaging in the protest.

The acts of our protest community dishonor these causes through both their lack of sincerity and ineffective presentations. To truly be a University of higher thought, Stanford must no longer allow dishonest groups to spearhead Stanford’s engagement of such pressing political issues.

SCPJ: www.stanford.edu/group/peace