The Free Speech Movement and education reform

The Free Speech Movement and education reform

by RICKY ZIPP

“Education is the most powerful weapon in which to change the world.” Nelson Mandela

“If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything.” Malcolm X

On December 7, 1964 16,000 students and faculty filled Berkeley’s Greek Theatre as Mario Savio (leader of the Free Speech Movement) was pulled from the stage and drug away by police in an attempt to address the Berkeley student body. Students took the stage screaming “this is an example of what has been happening on campus” and what was supposed to be an administrative address to inspire an opposition to student groups on campus who were “interested in fomenting a crisis merely for the sake of crisis” became the last straw to an already fragile situation. John Searle, a student who participated in the movement, said “there was a power vacuum, who the hell was in charge? No one knew.”

The motivation of the movement came out of the activism of the Bay Area Civil Rights organizations and the movements of the South now spreading across the country. The youth who could see a little deeper than the older citizens of society understood that America was operating within bigoted and racist customs. And while being involved in many different campaigns and struggles the baptism of the FSM came from the Mississippi Freedom Summer.

This was a campaign that aimed at getting African Americans within the state of Mississippi registered to vote. However after years of trying and trying and violence being thrown down upon every effort Robert Moses (member of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee and the leader of the Mississippi Campaign) came up with a new strategy. By following the footsteps of the sit-ins Moses utilized the youth but by bringing down white youth, the ones society cared about. By bringing down these students you would also bring down the attention of society. 1,000 students entered into the state of Mississippi as the police armed themselves as if they were being invaded by a militant revolution group and the media followed.

However on August 11 the idea of romanticized power fighting came to a close. Three civil rights workers had been killed and now the murders were not just left for those of color. White workers had been murdered by local police and there was no more interest in dividing the lines upon race but now by affiliation and support. This was a turning point because by going you were not just sacrificing for the cause you now had the chance of being killed.

And many Berkeley students found their strength in this summer. Mario Savio included, “This [Mississippi Freedom Summer]…is the seminal event of the twentieth century. When you get past the Second World War, this is it. This is what determines the rest of the history of the country in this century…this particular event…created the cadre of student activists for the whole country.”

After early attempts of protest and sit-ins the students hadn’t even gotten back to campus before the university set out to hold them off. However their attempts at ending the power of the students only gave them more.

Their idea was to squash organizations that practiced the ideas of civil disobedience which, as students who were interviewed stated, were the left and the civil rights movements. The university banned everybody, now creating an alliance that they wouldn’t be able to hold back.

Rewind to the spring term of 1964. Berkeley students had protested the bigoted practices of hotel hiring in California and after a demonstration at the Sheraton Hotel in San Francisco they began to see that their efforts can actually create some type of effect. California law changed and required equal opportunity hiring at all levels and positions within the hotel industry. Causing this change lead to a confidence that wasn’t able to be kept down, Jackie Goldberg, in the film Berkeley in the Sixties, said that “It was the first major victory of anything I have ever been involved in…we could have an effect on lives of people we would never know and we would never meet.”

However the University of California at Berkeley made sure to put the fire out before it had a chance to spread and decided to implement their ideas of control during the following fall term. Their idea of shutting these students down was the very idea the students were fighting against. After a few weeks of ban’s on political tables and then ignoring this ban one student was arrested and gave the movement its strength.

Jack Weinberg sat in the back of a cop car, arrested for refusing to identify himself at a peaceful rally, as hundreds of students circled around not allowing the car to move an inch. A microphone was placed at the top and a slam of ideas was given out to the audience that grew to 6,000 and the spirit, which was born early, now became legitimate. Suspensions, arrests and expulsions wouldn’t fear these students into giving up. And that determination, hard work and serious attitude were going to be needed for the administration of the University was not going to give up either.

This is what made the movement so inspiring. Jackie Goldberg, one of many leaders inside the FSM, talked of how the students would have 12-15 hour meetings discussing and hammering out school policy. Students were sleeping at the table, waking up and then coming back. The work is the fight while the protests are the output. And they understood the importance of what they were doing. The strength they were able to obtain by the unity of the student body needed to stay together and since they came from all walks of life with many different ideologies attempting to reach the same goal any decision “…had to be by consensus”.

And as I was watching the clips in black and white of the microphone being pulled onto the cop car, students eagerly surrounding the vehicle ready to sacrifice for their right to intervene in the unlawful arrest of Weinberg and sitting there for 36 hours before being released I couldn’t help but think that this is why you went to college.

What was being fought for were civil rights. First those pertaining to treatment of human beings based upon race but now this was starting an idea that indecencies could be challenged everywhere and at every position within society. Berkeley was not the usual face of oppression. They were not the usual poor and mistreated but the educated middle class who still saw their freedoms being limited and still saw the need to fight.

This was a powerful uprising and lead to the Anti-Vietnam Movement and the counter culture of the sixties and radical movements of the seventies. I am not here saying you go to college to get into radical politics. I am saying you go to college to grow as a human being, participate actively in society even if that action is against society.

These students and this movement were the product of an environment that saw educational institutions as a factory for intellectual production. You would produce knowledge and then send that off to the highest bidder. No longer was the community facilitating the idea of an educated citizen, community was demanding an educated worker and Universities stepped up to the plate. The need for knowledge as we entered the cold war restructured what we held as importance within the education system. Math and Science would get us to space so this is what was pushed. Arms and defense would keep us strong against the communists and newly developed power of atomic explosions so we would create this hole and then fill it accordingly.

And this was actually the main fight on part of the students of the FSM. Mario Savio is known for his speech about throwing yourself onto the gears of the machine and the cries against “odious operations” but before this much quoted piece he discusses the idea of each student being spit out as a product for industry, government or whoever may be purchasing. And here is where I see a connection to our current actions with the education system today.

As Oregon continues to struggle with unemployment calls of “put Oregon back to work” and “we need an educated workforce” has graced the minds of any politician at any simple level be that local or national. And we have looked to college (whether technical schools, community colleges or universities) to fill the unemployment gap.

Education has always been a matter of foundation within our country. And as time has gone on the hope for participation has now been deemed requirement for any attempts at suitable survival within our society. Where college has been the goal and place for expansion of the individual today we demand the attendance of the youth for the real goal, work. Which is important, but as I have participated in discussions of needed budgets and funding, for specifically community colleges, I have even received support from those in positions to give it but maybe support that is a little skewed.

Along with four other students I traveled to Newport to testify on the last stop of Oregon Legislatures Academic Ways and Means committee tour around the state. They were listening to community members on needs for budget and taking public account into the decision making process. I felt that while we are taking a larger interest in Oregon education we may have missed the step of learning for the sake of learning. College needs to be a temporary end point in which students have the chance to discover who they are as an individual before what job position they need to fill. And this I believe in whole heartedly.

Our culture has used this push for an educated people as means for production of a product. That product? Educated workers. As we slowly push this idea the need for an educated people slowly drifts off. Now I do not mean that we have no motivation for an educated population but the truth is that while we appreciate one, we would rather have the other. The cuts, the tuition raises, faculty and teacher fires, schools shutting down and programs that help in the development of sound human beings are faded out for the production of good test scores. And all this with the population of students rising each year, obviously there’s a problem.

As Mario Savio screamed atop the police car, “The only reason I participated in this is because I like Cal very much, I would like to see it better.” The system is lacking, good but lacking, and the activism comes in the motivation of improvement not destruction and revolution. This quote comes from passion for a cause but dedication and sacrifice as well.

As I have begun to participate with a small group of students and attempted to recruit more I have seen this same dedication but also the lack. The reason why the FSM worked was because of the truth and motivation that went behind it. The work put in was the fight, not just the marches and rallies, there was an idea of need and the unity inspired at first by the administration of Berkeley but held together by the dedication of the student body.

In Oregon we have hundreds of thousands of college students and the need for a properly funded education is a universal affect that all can become united around. When I participated in a march on the state capital there were around 500 students from many different universities and community colleges. And while this is much appreciated and powerful, being in the middle of this march was amazing but more is needed. Actively participating in education is the only way to become properly educated and I believe this both as a student and a future teacher. You must practice the knowledge that is being taught and question that knowledge at the same time. Experience is key and new experience at that. We have been going to class for 12 years as we move into college and seeking out those aspects that are available, and a little beyond just drinking, is something that is breaking from the routine that the educational system establishes in an individual.

The very functions of school are attempts at creating an individual trained for a culture of work not a culture of intellect. Bells in schools were established for a smooth transfer to a factory, assignments on time and no later, competition and grading systems also keep the fire of a cutthroat business world right behind us as we move down the timeline of life. And to some extent this is necessary. But at some point schools needed to be used for the growth of human beings not just students who are soon to be workers.

And there are two sides. Go to school to search and wander in who you may want to become. Find a path that is going to benefit you while also serving others and do not just enroll based off the common motivating tool of increased pay when entered into the workforce. A responsibility lies with the students attending just as much as the schools. But you must cultivate an environment that wishes this to be the goal.

I know of the necessities that other programs advocate. Along with speakers from various schools around the state, and at every level from K-12 to college, the Committee in Newport saw many different people advocating for their particular cause and their own reasons why they should be given attention. I know of the need for sacrifice when times switch to become harder but I also feel education is very good at sacrificing and have already been doing this for many years and at some point it needs to be stopped and allowed to find a foundation as it continues to grow.