Ohio State University's leaders have a lesson to learn. Where would we be without protests?

You mean to tell me the only way highly educated people, some of whom are old enough to be the grandparents of many of our students, know how to deal with protesters is to arrest them?

Of the video footage of protests on campus I have seen over the past several days, I have yet to spot any activity on the part of the protesters that resembles anything close to what members of the Weather Underground, Symbionese Liberation Army, and the Black Liberation Army were engaging in during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The right to peaceful protest paramount at OSU

No bombing of buildings, no sniping from rooftops, no vandalism, no looting, no abductions, and no bank heists. Students are merely exercising their right to protest.

Where would this country be without protest?

Much of the progress this country has witnessed since its birth has resulted from protest. Without the protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ohio State University would be a much different place.

Police confirm 36 arrestedat Ohio State anti-Israel protest Thursday night

Those protests changed the landscape here at OSU for the better, and in ways that have been both enriching and long-lasting.

Sadly, students who protested back then were met with an even heavier hand, but then of course, that was the era of J. Edgar Hoover and President Richard M. Nixon and the short-lived vice presidency of Spiro Agnew. I would like to think that the nation has evolved since then. This is 2024; it is no longer J. Edgar Hoover’s and Richard Nixon’s America.

Or is it?

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Do student protesters warrant being placed in handcuffs and herded onto busses?

Ohio State students should not be penalized for making noise

I would much rather have a student body that is in tune and engaged with world developments than one that is detached from the international body politic.

As a supposed world-class university, we want our students to become citizens of the world. We want them to become thinkers. We want them to have a voice on matters of significance, especially those that have life and death consequences, but then we penalize them when the manner in which they choose to express their views make us feel uncomfortable, for whatever reason.

When they begin to make us feel uncomfortable then we are apt to put in place measures or what amounts to an ordinance that undermines dissent.

So, if students make too much noise during exam week, they may be subject to arrest, as being boisterous may interfere with students’ ability to study. Such things as microphones and loudspeakers are prohibited. Now, when have we ever been preoccupied with such things?

Do we tell the Marching Band to quiet down when it’s practicing? Do we monitor the loud music blaring from fraternity and sorority houses during the spring and summer months? Do we stop drivers and order them to lower the volume when they drive through campus with windows rolled down?

All of a sudden we’re concerned about noise and how it may adversely impact students’ ability to perform on exam day.

The late Kingman Brewster, served as president of Yale University during arguably the largest campus protest of the Vietnam War era called May Day and handled it beautifully. His is a case study in leadership that administrators of this generation might find instructive.

Judson L. Jeffries, PhD, is Professor of African American and African Studies at The Ohio State University and a regular contributor to the Columbus Dispatch.