If you’ve read anything about activism at Princeton, you’ve probably heard the prevailing narrative that Princeton students are apathetic towards politics, with only a few committed students caring enough to speak up. This notion has become so accepted that it’s been expressed in this publication not only as opinion but even as news.
Until recently, I also believed this narrative.
But to current Princetonians and the incoming Class of 2029, I say: It’s not that we don’t care; rather, we feel we have no power to effect change. In short, our problem is defeatism, not apathy. And to fix it, we need your help.
Princeton students aren’t apathetic about politics. Nearly 95 percent of the Class of 2024 said they would vote in last year’s presidential election. Even when it comes to campus politics, the majority of Princeton students care: Last year’s campus elections saw a 53 percent student turnout.
So why do only tiny percentages of Princeton students show up to most protests? My colleague Frances Brogan offered some compelling explanations, but her argument that campus activism has become an identity and demands ideological purity doesn’t completely elucidate the way Princeton students approach activism.
A different reason for our absence is that Princeton students feel a collective sense of defeatism. Nearly every student I talk to is concerned about the Trump administration cutting funding and threatening international students. But almost everyone I asked about attending the April 5 protest against these threats expressed the same sentiment: It’s pointless to protest because protesting will never accomplish anything.
But this sentiment is flat-out wrong.
My appeals have thus far fallen on deaf ears among current Princeton students, and so I appeal to the Class of 2029 as well: When you arrive on campus, if you care about politics as so many Princeton students do, get involved in activism — because activism can work. And here’s how.
As students, we have access to three types of activism: moral action, mass action, and disruptive action. Past student movements have used these strategies to accomplish big things, on a national scale.
The first type of protest, moral action, is the kind intended to generate moral outrage amongst the public. Small groups of students have been able to accomplish this throughout history: The Black students who sat at a Greensboro lunch counter to protest racial segregation and refused to leave are an excellent example, as is Greta Thunberg’s school strike for climate. The goal of this kind of protest is to cause the public to wake up to a problem — and only works if you can publicize it.
The second type is mass nonviolent action, which intends to frighten leaders with the sheer number of people involved. That happened in 1976 in Soweto, South Africa, when 20,000 students protested against being taught in Afrikaans and rejuvenated the anti-apartheid movement in the country. It had already happened in the U.S. six years earlier, when four million students protested the Vietnam War.
And mass protest works. Harvard University professors Erica Chenoweth and Kenneth Wallach have shown that any movement that includes 3.5 percent of a population actively engaging in civil disobedience and protest is almost always successful in achieving its aims. To win, that can’t be in the form of one-off mobilization like a “national day of action,” but by persistent disobedience where large swaths of the population get involved and stay involved.
This is where college students have an advantage. We number 19 million across America, comprising well over five percent of the population. That’s why students have always been the catalysts for change. The structure for organizing mass nonviolent resistance — our campuses — is gifted to us, and the numbers are there. We should make use of our advantages to inspire national action.
But it’s at this point that modern student activists, myself included, have often gone wrong. The first thing we’ve gotten wrong is that we spend too much time mobilizing and not enough time organizing. The difference is simple: Mobilizing people is getting them to attend a protest. Organizing is bringing those people into the room to plan it. With more committed members in our activist organizations, we could accomplish bigger things and sustain a movement that encompasses the vast majority of students, rather than sparking their mobilization only in exceptional moments.
The other thing we’ve done wrong is that we don’t engage enough in the third type of protest, disruptive action. While disruptive action should be rare, disrupting normal proceedings is often the only way to force power holders to listen to your demands. It also often inspires others to join you.
But we hesitate to escalate to such significant disruption because of the elevated risk associated with it, even though effective disruption doesn’t always have to be outside the rules or the law. The efforts to disrupt the Naftali Bennett event on Monday are a recent example, and the large protest they inspired is an overdue reminder of the mobilizing power of good disruption.
Sunrise Princeton, the group I organize with, is building a coalition to demand that Princeton protects its people and research from the Trump administration. Others are working for justice in Palestine, workers’ rights, and more. To accomplish anything at all, though, we must have the people power to do it.
The defeatist mindset that saturates this campus is drowning our activism before it gets a chance to swim. But the Class of 2029 can help change that. If you were admitted to Princeton this year and believe, as many of us do, in the power of activism to effect social change, then you should choose Princeton so we can advance these goals together.
The only way we can defeat defeatism is with a strong conviction in our ability to win and a credible plan to do so. Class of 2029, I ask you to come to campus with the conviction that activism can work, and with a willingness to participate. Those of us who are already here will have the plan.
Isaac Barsoum ’28 is a first-year intended Politics major from Charlotte, N.C., and a co-coordinator of Sunrise Princeton. He believes in the power of activism to effect positive change. His column, “A Princeton for All,” runs every other Thursday. You can read his column here. You can reach him at itbarsoum[at]princeton.edu.
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