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Higher Education for American Democracy and the Channels of Student Activism

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Higher Education for American Democracy and the
Channels of Student Activism
Jeffrey L. Kidder & Amy J. Binder
To cite this article: Jeffrey L. Kidder & Amy J. Binder (2022) Higher�Education�for�American
Democracy and the Channels of Student Activism, Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning,
54:1, 33-40, DOI: 10.1080/00091383.2022.2006566
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2022.2006566
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.. 33
By Jeffrey L. Kidder and Amy J. Binder
Jerey Kidder is a Professor of Sociology at
Northern Illinois University in DeKalb,
where his work addresses a variety of topics
within the area of cultural sociology. His
most recent research focuses on collegiate
activism with an emphasis on the intersec-
tion of political identities and worldviews
in students’ lives.
Amy Binder is a Professor of Sociology at
the University of California, San Diego in
La Jolla, where she studies higher educa-
tion from a cultural, political, and organi-
zational perspective. Beyond research into
collegiate activism, her recent work also
explores the career pipelines available to
students at elite universities.
In Short
An unintended consequence of
Higher Education for American
Democracy was to make colleges and
universities a premier site in which
disagreements over political ideology
would play out in the public sphere.
On today’s college campuses,
progressive student activists are
embedded in their school through a
variety of institutional-level supports,
from multicultural centers to the
course curricula of social science and
humanities departments.
Conservative student activists
increasingly rely on extramural
support provided by a well-funded
constellation of outside organizations
critical of higher education.
34 C • J/F 
Released in the wake of postwar con-
cerns over European totalitarianism,
Higher Education for American
Democracy oered a blueprint for a
more socially inclusive college experi-
ence—one that could help bolster informed and
thoughtful civic participation throughout the
nation. Much of the six-volume report commis-
sioned by President Harry Truman proved pre-
scient in transforming colleges and universities in
the United States over the second half of the 20th
century. However, there were also blind spots in the
underlying analysis (e.g., downplaying the role of
women). Additionally, federal policies and institu-
tional adaptations enacted in response to the report
resulted in unintended consequences. One such
twist was that the massication of postsecondary
learning did more than simply fortify civic values.
Higher education also became a battleground over
what democracy means and how an inclusive
society should be governed.
In ways that would have been unimaginable in
1947—a time when very few Americans planned to
continue their studies beyond the 12th grade—
higher education has evolved into a focal point for
contentious political action. As enrollments ex-
panded and matriculation diversied in the de-
cades following War World II, college campuses
became key sites in which young people mobilized
for le-leaning social change. e role of collegians
in the civil rights movement and protests against
the Vietnam War highlight this reality. And, while
the radical politics of faculty have oen been
exaggerated, many professors held beliefs far to the
le of the general public (and indeed still do).
In response to the growing impact of the postsec-
ondary sector and its association with progressive
ideologies, the conservative movement embarked
on a project to fashion an alternative intellectual
infrastructure comprising foundations and think
tanks. And while segments of this movement work
to foster right-leaning thought within academia,
much of the Republican Party today seems deter-
mined to roll back government spending for
colleges and universities.
Taking the massication envisioned by Higher
Education for American Democracy as the back-
drop, we reveal how collegiate activism is shaped
through two broadly opposing channels that steer
students into divergent types of political mobiliza-
tion and bring them into contact with dierent
social and organizational networks. e progressive
channel draws participants further inside their
schools through a variety of institutional supports.
e conservative channel, on the other hand, relies
primarily on externally funded groups, oen with
an agenda critical of the mission of higher educa-
tion. Within each main channel there are also
eddies moving ideologically similar activists along
somewhat dierent trajectories.
Our analysis relies primarily on semistructured
interviews with 77 politically engaged college
students conducted in the fall of 2017 and spring of
2018—that is, the rst full school year aer the
election of President Donald Trump. All student
respondents were enrolled at, or had recently
graduated from, the University of Arizona, the
University of Colorado Boulder, the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, or the University of
Virginia. ese four publicly supported campuses
are located in states considered toss-ups in presi-
dential elections, upping the stakes for political
activism. ey are all agship schools in their
respective university systems. Students were se-
lected based on their aliations with campus-based
political clubs, such as College Democrats, College
Republicans, Young Americans for Freedom, Black
Students Associations, socialist groups, and so on.
Personal referrals were used to reach an even wider
array of collegians, such as those who participate in
transpartisan dialog groups and in university-spon-
sored multicultural centers.
inking about the institutions and groups
behind the political clubs operating on campuses,
as well as considering the practices that are encour-
aged or discouraged by them, better illuminate the
organizational structures that make certain types of
student activism more or less acceptable in dierent
social contexts. Our work sheds new light on the
implications of massication of postsecondary
is is an Open Access article distributed under
the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/),
which permits non-commercial re-use, distribu-
tion, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited, and is not
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.. 35
learning and the challenges faced by colleges and
universities in times of extreme partisanship.
The Conservative Channel—Pulled
Outside From the Right
Amanda and Ariel are two right-leaning students
involved in the conservative channel for student
activism. In many respects these two students have
similar proles. Both were raised in civically
minded families who discussed politics around the
dinner table. Each imagined making a career out of
conservative activism. Both were highly involved in
political clubs at their schools, and each benetted
from a number of options made available by na-
tional organizations assembled on the right.
Yet, while there are many things Amanda and
Ariel had in common, important dierences set the
two women apart. First, their ideological orienta-
tions diverged in a key area: Amanda’s moderate
viewpoint aligned with the dwindling anti-Trump
faction of Republicans, putting her at odds with
Ariel’s enthusiastic support of then-President
Trump. Because of this, the two women gravitated
to dierent political clubs on campus, which meant
they also ended up connecting with very dierent
organizations forming the conservative channel
beyond their own universities.
For Amanda, responsible political engagement
is about leaving the more sensationalistic, con-
frontational organizations behind. A student at
the University of Arizona (UA), she was dispirited
by the reactionary tone of many of the conserva-
tive clubs at her school. While she originally
joined the College Republicans, she eventually le
the group. “I came to campus and was so disap-
pointed aer my freshman year; [… the chapter
is] really ultra-right at this point.” Her displeasure
with the populist organization, Turning Point
USA, was even more intense. “I just want to make
[it] really clear: I would never join Turning Point.
e reason was that “they like conict” but “that
doesn’t appeal to me.” At the national level, the
ascendancy of Trumpism also led Amanda to
forgo attendance at the extremely popular and
highly inuential Conservative Political Action
Conference (CPAC), an event she once loved. “I
wouldn’t even go to CPAC” anymore. “e year
[Trump] was sworn in, I didn’t go.
Disappointed with Trumpism and UAs “ultra-
right” groups, Amanda nevertheless remained
deeply interested in politics, and she did not want
to give up on conservatism altogether. Rather, she
sought out new opportunities as she cultivated a
more rened ideological perspective. She was
getting her degree in the philosophy, politics,
economics, and law program, a small, interdisci-
plinary major that promotes critical reection on
the fundamental values that shape society—which
is also a program known on her campus to be a
home base for intellectual conservatives. is
program is associated with (but not formally
attached to) UAs controversial Center for the
Philosophy of Freedom, founded in part by money
from the Charles Koch Foundation. In addition,
Amanda was a leader of the Executive Council, the
student outreach program of the American Enter-
prise Institute (AEI), a well-known conservative
think tank in Washington. As a member, Amanda
and ve other carefully selected UA students took
part in AEI’s annual conferences and helped plan
events at her school about topical issues.
On the ip side, Ariel was a passionate Trump
supporter from the University of Colorado (CU).
She thought that Trump’s presidency was a much-
needed corrective to the conservative status quo. “I
think he’s good for the [Republican Party], because
I think the party needed some shaking up.” In
contrast to Amanda, who admired establishment
Republicans like Je Flake and John McCain, Ariel
was unsure if she even wanted to identify as a
Republican anymore. Focusing her invective on
precisely the politicians Amanda respected, Ariel
complained that Republican members of Congress
were bungling Trump’s agenda, and, in this way, she
said, “I feel like the whole Republican name has
kind of lost its way.
Given her support for the president, Ariel was
not interested in a group like AEI. And she did not
bother joining the College Republicans either,
dismissing the latter group as destined for irrel-
evancy. Rather, Ariel was the president of CU’s
Turning Point chapter, an organization that not
only spent 4 years staunchly defending the Trump
administration, but also made a name for itself by
adopting mockery and antagonism as its primary
political tactics. Turning Point also maintains the
Professor Watchlist, a website for broadcasting
instances of “leist propaganda” on campus. Ariel
36 C • J/F 
appreciated “all this money” that the national
organization sent to her club. is included help for
bringing right-wing provocateurs Ann Coulter and
Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at her school. Both
events sparked large street protests by progressive
students at CU.
Unlike Amanda, Ariel thought CPAC had only
gotten better in the Trump era. She found it ener-
gizing to see the pundits and populist politicians
that got top billing aer 2016. Ariel also liked the
“summits” hosted by Turning Point and the train-
ings oered by a conservative media organization
called PragerU. As she explained, “Turning Point
was kind of my start,” which then led her to con-
nect with PragerU. “And it’s just a continuing
domino eect of getting involved with these core
groups.” As Ariel saw it, her activism for these
organizations “opened up incredible opportunities.
e most recent of these was a trip to Los Angeles
to meet with other top PragerU student “ambassa-
dors” (known as PragerFORCE). ere, Ariel
networked with the groups director, expecting it
would help her get a leg up in conservative politics
aer graduation.
Amanda and Ariel are good examples of how
conservative college students ow through the
same channel, even while carving distinct paths
through the political landscape of the right.
Amanda was following a more civil route. is does
not mean that the AEI niche she chose was without
controversy. Partisan tensions are oen so high on
campus that ideological clashes can seem unavoid-
able. Regardless, Amandas preference was for
engaging in what she believed could lead to biparti-
san agreement, both while enrolled in college and
in her political life beyond graduation. Ariel, on the
other hand, sometimes spoke favorably of dialog
and reaching out to progressives, but much of the
mobilizing in which she took part, such as booking
Coulter and Yiannopoulos for speaking events, was
explicitly designed to incite anger from her class-
mates. is is the provocative route increasingly
popular with conservative students, and it is one
with a growing donor base behind it.
e external groups discussed here—AEI,
Turning Point, and PragerU—are just a tiny
sampling from a much larger universe of organi-
zations making up the conservative channel of
student activism. ese three, like other groups in
the channel, are heavily nanced, giving them the
resources to excel in their particular areas of
focus. AEI supports right-leaning scholars and
nurtures future policy makers through a well-
funded annual internship program, a summer
honors program, and even a recruitment funnel
for full-time jobs aer graduation. AEI eschews
confrontational politics, but it is still highly
critical of higher education and casts doubt on
much of what is learned through a liberal arts
degree.
Turning Point, on the other hand, embraces
confrontation by explicitly seeking to mobilize the
culture war on campus. It provides all-expenses-
paid conferences and contact with national and
regional eld representatives who help students
plan provocative events at their schools. PragerU is
unique in that its focus is making slickly produced
video shorts tackling social and cultural issues from
a “Judeo-Christian perspective.” ese videos,
promoted on- and oine by PragerFORCE student
ambassadors, rack up hundreds of millions of views
and have been making waves in conservative circles
for years.
Distinct as these three organizations are, they are
unied in creating skepticism about the role of
colleges and universities in American political
culture, and they are especially critical of the
professoriates impact on the lives of young people.
In their own ways, therefore, each organization
helps pull undergraduates outside of their schools
by oering extra-institutional funding streams and
encouraging alternative knowledge sources. In the
case of AEI, there is a highly visible career funnel
for activists too, providing a well-marked pathway
into postbaccalaureate political work.
The Progressive Channel: Pushed
Inside From the Left
Unlike outside conservative organizations that
direct huge sums of money to student activists
and sow doubt about the purpose and value of
academia, outside progressive organizations
generally express their faith in higher education.
For example, le-leaning groups and individual
donors provide billions of dollars for research,
nancial aid, endowments, and centers that serve
students and faculty. Yet this largesse rarely targets
student activism. Instead, le-leaning
.. 37
philanthropists generally assume that colleges and
universities are already serving progressives’ best
interests. Further, the American le is a patch-
work of constituents, with organizations designed
to address a panoply of concerns. is spreads
resources thin and leaves little available for cam-
pus politics explicitly. Finally, college students
support for the Democratic Party is oen just
assumed by organizers. Conservative groups, on
the other hand, work vigorously (if not always
successfully) to connect young people to the
Republican Party. Given the contours of this
political landscape, le-leaning students have
come to expect little support from groups external
to their campus.
To be clear, it is not that outside progressive
organizations do not exist in higher education.
ey most certainly do. ere is U.S. PIRG,
Planned Parenthood, NextGen America, and many
others. Indeed, the full list of liberal and leist
groups with on-campus ties is likely to be much
larger than the list of conservative organizations.
However, these organizations play a signicantly
smaller role in progressive students’ mobilizing
tactics than the outside groups operating in the
conservative channel.
Moreover, for the le-leaning groups supporting
campus politics from the outside, they are dedicating
far fewer resources to collegiate activism than
organizations on the right. is relative lack of
external funding creates a more insular relationship
in progressive campus politics. e lower the nan-
cial support for students from the outside, the more
activists turn toward resources available from within
their schools to accomplish their goals. e more
connected activists become inside campus units, the
fewer ties they forge with external organizations.
If students on the le are wanting for resources
from the outside, what they do have going for them
are strong ideological connections inside their
colleges and universities. Although not to the
caricatured extent many conservative critics de-
scribe, le-of-center beliefs prevail in higher
education. In the social sciences and humanities,
students will almost inevitably take classes with
professors espousing progressive ideologies.
Schools invite speakers who advance liberal and
leist viewpoints. Administrators frequently col-
laborate with progressive activists to achieve diver-
sity goals, even if not to the full satisfaction of most
activists concerned with the issue. Politically
engaged students on the le are also able to make
use of multicultural centers, such as for Asian
American, Black, Latinx, women, or lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sexual and
gender minorities (LGBTQ+) students. Such
centers oen amplify the perspectives found in
particular academic departments, and they provide
institutional backing for progressive initiatives on
campus.
All of this leads le-leaning students to have a
sense of embeddedness and anity within their
schools. But perhaps counterintuitively, such close
ties can blind progressive students to the many
ways their ideologies are actually supported—day
in and day out—on campus. is taken-for-granted
sense of belonging is a far cry from how conserva-
tives describe their college experiences, but sh are
unaware of the water in which they swim. us, the
inverse of students on the right feeling alienated at
their schools is that progressives feel at home
without thinking much about it—until they may
push for greater institutional change than academic
bureaucracies normally aord.
e multiple institutional attachments of Lydia, a
leist student at Arizona, provide an example. “My
freshman year, I was an intern in the Women’s
Resource Center,” and “I also have done stu for
Housing and Residential Life. ere is one program
called Advocates Coming Together. I was the
co-director for that, and that was kind of like
general social justice education for some residents
who are part of that group.” Lydias list went on,
including a stint as a peer advisor in the dorms,
coordinated by the Oce for Equity and Student
Engagement. Aer her sophomore year, Lydia
moved from the Womens Resource Center to
LGBTQ Aairs, where she became acquainted with
a network of students forming the advocacy group
Marginalized Students of the University of Arizona
(MSUA). Lydia also worked for the campus Safe
Zone program over the summer, “which is a train-
ing program about LGBTQ identities.” Although
Lydia was unusually involved on her campus, her
experiences show how institutional spaces on
campus are plentiful, interconnected, and animated
by issues progressives care about.
Multicultural centers are especially signicant for
le-leaning students, helping political engagements
in two crucial ways. First, these centers serve as the
38 C • J/F 
crossroads where collegians meet like-minded
peers. is is important for building the alliances
that are essential for successful mobilizing. Atlas, a
liberal student at UA, explained that MSUA “is a
coalition of all the dierent cultural centers and a
lot of the dierent politically active groups” whose
goals are “just kind of spelling out for the university
what is needed from them in order [for students] to
feel successful and feel like we had a place at the
table.” Sheridan, an MSUA member, said that the
original point of the coalition was to “come to-
gether to create a list of demands from every
center” on campus. Lydia spoke of the social ties
shared by members of these groups, “ere were
students from the dierent resource and cultural
centers, [and they] are the ones who got together
because we already had that established relation-
ship to each other.
Second, beyond serving as hubs where students
become acquainted with one another, multicultural
centers are spaces where activists can seek direction
from sta on how to frame their demands to school
administrators. Alexa, another MSUA member,
pointed to the delicate balance required of these
relationships, saying sta “didn’t want to step on
our toes” by being too directive, but “sometimes it
was helpful when there [were] sta at our meetings
to give us advice when we wouldn’t know what to
do.” Further, many of MSUAs demands were
requests made on behalf of multicultural center
employees, underscoring the synergistic relation-
ship between progressive activists and the profes-
sional sta members who work in the centers.
Further, the professional sta in the multicultural
centers are sometimes former activists themselves,
and they can use their new positions to help shep-
herd undergraduates through the process of mobi-
lizing for various causes—much like how eld
representatives in the conservative channel guide
political activities on the right. Yet these center
employees must tread carefully. On the one hand,
their ocial capacity gives them real power in
campus politics compared to outside organizational
voices. On the other hand, they oen feel the need
to pump the brakes on more radical demands for
institutional change, as they know it will upset
administrators. An interview with two sta mem-
bers at Colorado’s Environmental Center illustrates
this tension. “I don’t want to say [‘student activism’
is] a dirty word,” explained one of them, but, “We
can’t do that anymore,” interjected the other. “We
are student aairs people.” Such ambivalent support
for their eorts can lead students to feel jaded and
distrustful of the ocials pulling the purse strings
in the progressive channel. By contrast, the leaders
within the conservative channel—funded from the
outside—are free from such conicting priorities.
e MSUA case provides a useful illustration of
the progressive channel’s successes but also its
shortcomings. MSUA members met many times
with administrators and were able to win several
concessions over two academic years. In response
to the groups demands, new stang lines for the
multicultural centers were granted. But the years-
long experience le many of the activists feeling
deated. Reecting on the consortium, Alexa said
that MSUA had “made some progress. But all the
progress that’s made is the non-controversial stu,
like adding more mental health counselors, adding
more nancial aid counselors, creating more sta
positions, and making some trainings more cre-
ative. ose are pretty easy to do.” e “hard” stu
that activists wanted—forcing the university to
move away from a corporatist model of education;
requiring cultural sensitivity courses for all faculty,
students, and sta on campus; eradicating inequi-
ties in the college experience—were never realized.
Administrators fell far short of MSUA’s expecta-
tions, and many student members became bitter
over the whole ordeal. Most conservative students
at UA, on the other hand, felt MSUAs demands
were misguided in the rst place.
In sum, progressive activists are in the thick of
things on campus. ey consider most of their
professors and classmates to be at least similar-
minded allies. Multicultural centers are built in the
name of groups and causes in which both students
and school ocials believe, and they help foster
young people’s advocacy skills. Activists frequently
work with sta in student aairs oces too. And
these students have the ears of administrators,
particularly le-leaning groups advocating for
underrepresented populations. Yet this concerted
activity in the progressive channel—hamstrung by
bureaucratic inertia and a disconnect between
radical le ambition and liberal compromise—can
lead to skepticism about school ocials’ real
motives and cynicism that any substantive changes
will ever be enacted. Further, progressive activists
describe their possible routes into le-leaning
.. 39
political jobs as much clunkier, opaque, and far
more do-it-yourself than what is found in the
conservative channel.
From Massification to Polarization
During the 75 years since the publication of
Higher Education for American Democracy, the
massive growth of the postsecondary sector created
a vast new lifeworld for young people in the United
States. Colleges and universities have become a key
arena for political discourse and activism in Ameri-
can life. e modes of student activism we describe
here reveal the maturity of distinctive channels for
political mobilization. e progressive channel
represents the institutionalization of the radical
student movements of the 1960s and 1970s. It
embodies one of the signal consequences of the era
of le-wing activism: a presumption that the
academy itself is now progressive turf. e conser-
vative channel represents the institutionalization of
a rightward countermovement that sees the acad-
emy as abnegating its duties in promoting the ideals
of objective discourse and individual liberty. While
some activists in the conservative channel seek to
balance the ideological lop-sidedness of academia,
many more of them envision campus mobilization
as a stepping stone to political activism in the larger
polity—a perspective that encourages provocative,
headline-grabbing tactics.
Our research on the contours of contemporary
political activism on public university campuses
reminds us of the fundamental contingency of
major institutional change. In the middle of the
20th century, American political elites called for
massication in the name of preserving democracy.
e success of their call recongured the entire
landscape of political discourse in this country, as
young people used the newly expanded public
square of college campuses to fashion new claims
for their own empowerment. In many respects, the
political engagement enabled through these chan-
nels exemplies George F. Zooks vision for how the
college experience could enrich students’ lives and
promote an informed and thoughtful citizenry.
However, even though these channels result from
expanding and diversifying access to academia, the
contentious nature of many of the issues animating
collegiate activism threaten to undermine the
continued massication of postsecondary learning.
America has entered a political period in which
support for higher education has become a partisan
matter. Belief that colleges and universities have a
positive eect on society, or that professors act in the
public interest, is much lower among Republicans
than Democrats. Echoing and amplifying such
views, television networks like Fox News and web-
sites like Breitbart and e Daily Caller routinely use
campus events, student protests, and faculty com-
mentary to depict academia as utterly out of touch
with traditional values. In turn, conservative politi-
cians grandstand on slashing school budgets to stem
the tide of what they feel is le-wing indoctrination.
While progressives are usually reluctant to admit
it, there are kernels of truth in the conservative
critique of higher education. e le and liberals
have been successful at dominating campus poli-
tics, and progressive activists enjoy a position of
power and comfort at their schools foreign to their
conservative peers. Numerous academic disciplines
emphasize le-leaning worldviews. Progressive
faculty far outnumber right-leaning professors, and
administrators and sta promote a liberal-friendly
agenda of multiculturalism, equity, and inclusion—
in word, at least, if not always in deed.
But, for all the ideological he the le enjoys on
college campuses, the conservative channel has the
nancial backing and the tactical acumen to cir-
cumvent much of this institutional disadvantage.
AEI’s internships and educational programs are an
example of a right-leaning organization showing
strategic foresight absent on the le. And some of
the students AEI helps train are likely to be craing
policies designed to limit public spending on the
postsecondary sector in the years to come. More
troubling, barring a seismic shi in the political
landscape, right-leaning students will continue
hosting controversial and illiberal speakers because
groups like Turning Point benet from disrupting
campus life, especially when the ensuing outrage
can be harnessed into narratives about politically
correct culture running amok. Likewise, PragerU
will keep churning out videos undermining aca-
demic consensus on climate change, structural
racism, gender inequality, and more.
If the right continues to pummel the le—that is,
if state and federal governments further retreat
from past commitments to fund colleges and
universities, if the Republican Party mistrusts
expertise and scientic data, if scholars are denied
40 C • J/F 
their academic freedom, if underrepresented
populations are limited in their ability to obtain the
same credentials as those from privileged classes—
we, as a society, lose. ere are reasons to be critical
of some aspects of progressive activism found on
college campuses, but the value of postsecondary
learning to civic participation is, we believe, im-
measurable.
While our expertise is not in the area of policy,
our time studying this topic has brought us to a few
conclusions. First, conservative donors need to be
pushing the organizations dependent on their
largesse to encourage civic responsibility over
sensational encounters. Progressive organizations,
on the other hand, could benet from building up a
national infrastructure that looks more like what
we nd on the right. If nothing else, this would help
provide opportunities for liberal and leist under-
graduates to move into political careers more
seamlessly aer college. ese students would also
benet from greater guidance in connecting with
community partners in their areas of interest.
Further, professors (along with support from
administrators and sta) should help expose
students to the depth of intellectual thought found
on the right side of the political spectrum too.
One-sided teaching only makes some curious
students more open to the illiberalism of right-
wing populism.
Today we confront the irony that the success of
massication is helping to fuel eorts at retrench-
ment. Continuing the promise of expanding and
diversifying postsecondary learning, therefore, will
require reshaping the political landscape in ways
that minimize the partisanship of knowledge. at,
of course, is easier said than done, but conceptual-
izing the dynamics at play on campuses and consid-
ering how the progressive and conservative chan-
nels for student activism interact is an important
rst step. C
is article was adapted from Binder and
Kidder’s forthcoming book, e Channels of
Student Activism: How the Le and Right Are
Winning (and Losing) in Campus Politics Today
(University of Chicago Press, 2022).
Further Reading
Daniel, R. (2021). What universities owe democracy. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Klatch, R. (1999). A generation divided: e New Le, the New Right, and the 1960s. University of California
Press.
Rojas, F. (2007). From Black power to Black studies: How a radical social movement became an academic discipline.
Johns Hopkins University Press.
omas, N., & Brower, M. (2018). Promising practices to facilitate politically robust campus climates. Change:
e Magazine of Higher Learning, 50(6), 24–29.
Van Dyke, N. (1998). Hotbeds of activism: Locations of student protest. Social Problems, 45(2), 205–220.
Book
The 1960s was not just an era of civil rights, anti-war protest, women's liberation, hippies, marijuana, and rock festivals. The untold story of the 1960s is in fact about the New Right. For young conservatives the decade was about Barry Goldwater, Ayn Rand, an important war in the fight against communism, and Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). This book examines the generation that came into political consciousness during the 1960s, telling the story of both the New Right and the New Left, and including the voices of women as well as men. The result is a narrative that explains how politics became central to the identities of a generation of people, and how changes in the political landscape of the 1980s and 1990s affected this identity.
Article
The black power movement helped redefine African Americans' identity and establish a new racial consciousness in the 1960s. As an influential political force, this movement in turn spawned the academic discipline known as Black Studies. Today there are more than a hundred Black Studies degree programs in the United States, many of them located in America's elite research institutions. In From Black Power to Black Studies, Fabio Rojas explores how this radical social movement evolved into a recognized academic discipline. Rojas traces the evolution of Black Studies over more than three decades, beginning with its origins in black nationalist politics. His account includes the 1968 Third World Strike at San Francisco State College, the Ford Foundation's attempts to shape the field, and a description of Black Studies programs at various American universities. His statistical analyses of protest data illuminate how violent and nonviolent protests influenced the establishment of Black Studies programs. Integrating personal interviews and newly discovered archival material, Rojas documents how social activism can bring about organizational change. Shedding light on the black power movement, Black Studies programs, and American higher education, this historical analysis reveals how radical politics are assimilated into the university system. © 2010 by The Johns Hopkins University Press. All rights reserved.
Hotbeds of activism: Locations of student protest
  • N Van Dyke