Once upon a time, we, as a campus, protested. Have you heard of the 1969 occupation of Parkhurst in opposition to the Vietnam War? The 1985 anti-apartheid shanty towns that lasted for months on the Green? Or the anti-Wall Street Occupy Dartmouth encampment in 2011?
These historic protests tell us that our silence right now is not normal.
On May 6, 1969, roughly 60 students and alumni occupied Parkhurst in protest against the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, or ROTC, program and the U.S. presence in Vietnam. In May of the following year, over 2,500 people rallied on the Green to call for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Southeast Asia and an end to the repression of the Black community and political dissenters. Can you imagine over 2,000 people rallying today in Hanover?
Protests of this scale used to erupt on college campuses, and young people, like us, got a foothold in the political landscape to fight for a better world.
So, what has changed? How have we normalized such silence to injustice?
To answer this, it might be easier to break down why people have distanced themselves from protesting. First, there is fear of retaliation. Even if people fully agree with the issues at hand, they do not want to be seen at protests, thinking it might affect their future hireability. Dartmouth has only stoked these fears. Two years ago, on May 1, 2024, College President Sian Leah Beilock called police to respond to peaceful protesters within three hours. Eighty-nine people were arrested by armed SWAT units, including onlookers.
But there are an infinite number of ways to get involved across risk levels. Coming to an organizing meeting will not risk your summer internship, and behind-the-scenes organizing is just as vital as the work on the frontline.
A second factor that detracts from highly attended protests is apathy, driven by the feeling that our actions on campus will have no tangible impact. However, this feeling only perpetuates systems of oppression and exploitation. There are two ways to address this. First, even if we fear we won’t have an impact, we should still take action if we know it’s the right thing to do. If you are sick of waking up every day, seeing the maddening news and feeling hopeless, try coming to a protest and see if you don’t feel a bit more enlivened. A second response is looking to protests’ power of building community, changing individual minds and growing a long-term movement. Protests broaden coalitional networks, strengthen relationships and show the broader community that others care.
Lastly, there is the social media problem. You may feel informed, righteous and secure by seeing your feed so exactly aligned with your takes and knowing others out there agree with you. But we must acknowledge that this isn’t reality, it won’t change reality, and it is not sufficient. Solely being informed by like-minded posts will not stop fascism. It is a sedative. Joining your community, protecting your community and learning your community’s needs is far more gratifying and impactful.
Why should we actually care and show up?
Many years have passed since the anti-Vietnam War protests at Dartmouth, and many victories have come from the students who cared to protest, such as the opening of Black Studies program in 1969 and five successful divestment campaigns over several decades: from South African apartheid in 1989, the Hydro-Quebec dam in 1993, genocide in Sudan 2005, the tobacco industry in 2012, to the fossil fuel industry in 2021. Still, military-funded research is present at Dartmouth; Students have no real voice in how Dartmouth’s endowment is used (it is invested in companies that enable wars, genocide and climate destruction in the name of profit), and speech and protest on campus have been severely chilled. Meanwhile, U.S. imperialist actions are at an unprecedented level for the 21st century, with the invasion of Venezuela, the intensification of the Cuban blockade, the bankrolling of the occupation of Palestine and the war in Iran. The violence committed abroad is mirrored domestically by a drastic escalation in Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids across the country.
We need to bring back the disruptive energy of the past. Our current political climate demands it. Our tuition money and tax dollars are being used for the destruction of civilizations abroad. Dartmouth has aligned itself with the Trump administration in unexpected ways. As examples, the College hired Trump’s lawyer Matthew Raymer as General Counsel to the College, and was the only Ivy League institution that refused to sign a letter against the Trump Administration’s push on higher education. That’s why we must mobilize, as students and alumni, to move the College in a new direction. If we are to be a “vox clamantis in deserto,” we’d better be a voice for peace.
What we cannot do is to stay comfortably seated in our privilege while children are bombed every week with the financial and intellectual support of this institution. Our silence about the horrors of U.S. imperialism makes the bombs noiseless. Our compliance with the horrors of war makes the screams for help go unheard. Though we may have the privilege of distance from the killing machines being used abroad, we hold the power and responsibility to change this murderous system.
If you are also scared and enraged by the current state of the nation, join the protest this May 1 at 4 p.m. on the Green to say no more war, abolish ICE and fight fascism. Together, we can build the future we want to live in.
Harper Richardson ’27 and Felipe Mendonça ’27 are organizers with the Student Workers Collective at Dartmouth. Guest columns represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
