Fresno locals say fewer students attend protests

By Morgan Steger
The Collegian

About 30 protestors representing MoveOn.org and Peace Fresno held a “Constitution Rights Vigil” Wednesday evening to protest President Bush’s domestic surveillance program.

The vigil, held at Shaw and Blackstone Avenues, did not attract significant participation from Fresno State students.

The protestors, who were gathered to encourage citizens to write to their local congressional representatives to demand a national investigation of government wiretapping and surveillance, included Fresno State student Allan Spencer.

Spencer, who graduated in 2005 and is now finishing his teaching credential at Fresno State, said he regularly attends political demonstrations because he disagrees with the direction the United States is taking under the Bush Administration.

Most college students don’t understand the role they can perform in society as harbingers of change and instead are consumed with finishing their coursework and graduating quickly, Spencer said.

Students see college merely as a gateway to a career, when they should see it as an opportunity to express themselves politically, learn to communicate intelligently, and disagree, he said.

Spencer said protesting has positively impacted his life. “It keeps you in touch with everything that’s going on,” he said. “It trains you to be a member of society.”

Dan Yaseen, Vice President of Peace Fresno, said that fewer college students participate in political demonstrations today than did during the 1960s and 1970s because there is no longer a military draft in place to serve as a rallying point for student protest.

Students today tend to distance themselves from political action, he said.

The issues being addressed at the protest, such as government surveillance, are issues everyone, including college students should be concerned about, said Camille Russell, who helped organize the demonstration with MoveOn.org.

The country that college-age students grew up in is changing and the freedoms students remember will cease to exist if people don’t come together to foment change, she said.

Russell said there are many political issues that should be of interest to college students, such as the cost of higher education.

Russell, a Fresno State graduate, said the cost of her college education in the 1960s was much less than what students today must pay to earn a degree.

Russell said if students don’t get involved in political action they risk inheriting a country with a government that doesn’t protect them, a damaged environment, and an enormous national debt.

Despite the low student turnout, Peace Fresno and MoveOn.org hope to see more college students become involved in political discourse, Russell said. “We welcome young people at our meetings,” she said.

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