While controversy spilled over the airwaves Tuesday, a storm erupted at my own school, raising questions about the power of protest. Tuesday morning, members of the Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation (SCALE) at the University of Southern California decided to take a drastic step in their seven-year campaign to get the university to stop doing business with companies alleged to use sweatshop workers.

The students launched a daylong sit-in at the administrative offices in hopes of meeting with USC President Steven B. Sample and asking him directly about reforming the university’s labor practices. By 5 p.m. the university responded with lawyers, police, a pastor, and administrators, delivering suspension letters to the 13 SCALE members conducting the sit-in, telling them that if they did not vacate the office within 10 minutes, they would be expelled from USC, evicted from student housing, and have any and all scholarships revoked. The protesters complied.

I was shocked by this protest, this bold move against the university I so admire. And that feeling bugged me. Thirty or forty years ago students overtaking a university president’s office wouldn’t have surprised anyone. In fact it was a relatively common endeavor. Students piled on at campuses across the nation and throughout Europe. Where have all the Ginsbergs and Kerouacs disappeared to? Have thousands of dollars of university education tamed me into chary and civilized adulthood? Back in my high school days, I would parade down Mission and Market streets in San Fran with rest of the hippies, decked-out in my “Free Mumia” t-shirt, not thinking twice about it.

See this Daily Trojan Article to read more about the protest.

Tags: protests, students, usc