Last week, feeling that the UMass administration failed to make adequate progress on the original ALANA agreements, the group protested again. In a stunning display of student activism, nearly 200 protesters occupied and shut down a UMass administration building for six days, while thousands more cheered the protesters from outside.
Once again, the outcome is a series of promises from the UMass administration. Whether their promises will lead to significant change remains undetermined. Nevertheless, the protest offers lessons to all college and university communities.
For students, ALANA's actions signal the power and potential of student activism, a quality that has declined since the era of "no nukes" campaigns and demonstrations against the war in Vietnam. Only 30 years ago, students were prominent in activist movements. In many ways, those students' actions changed the lives of all who followed. More important, their work helped change the world. Today's students seem to ignore that heritage and deny their potential to incur change. Rather than acting on their beliefs, a majority of students are content to wallow in apathy. As a result, they forfeit their best opportunity to alter the world to their liking.
The administration at UMass - and others across the country - should also take lessons from the ALANA protest. Far too often, general student apathy allows administrations to impose rules upon students - like the University's Code of Student Conduct - contrary to their best interests. ALANA's actions serve as a reminder that activism is not dead - and administrators should remember the results of their protest when considering regulation or creation of policies burdensome to students.
But there is a greater lesson for UMass and other schools. Although race was not the only issue at stake, it was the most prominent factor in the protest. Five years after the original ALANA protests, minority enrollment at UMass hovers around 15 percent. The current protesters called for an increase in minority representation to about 20 percent.
Critics may call their demand a "quota" that counters the positive principles of affirmative action. However, the benefits of diversity far outweigh the critics' claims. Affirmative action was designed as a way of ensuring that qualified minorities receive positions they deserve - positions for which they may have otherwise been overlooked due to race. Along the way, affirmative action diversified American workplaces and campuses, allowing different races to learn about each other.
As a state-supported university, UMass should already have a strong commitment to diversity. Apparently, a disruptive six-day occupation is necessary to remind the administration of their commitment and to keep the UMass administration honest. Under similar circumstances, other students must take action and rise to the occasion.