Policy and Strategy Briefs

Strategy Brief: Campus Activism 1: Advantages and Challenges

Student activism on college and university campuses can have a big impact on campus and off. In some ways, college campuses are good places to organize—it’s relatively easy to build and mobilize social networks, there are strong norms around freedom of speech, and campus officials feel obliged to listen to student concerns. However, student activists face the challenges of conducting their campaigns on a tight timeline within the span of a school year and dealing with college administrators who are not democratically accountable to students.