When Students Speak Out: Understanding the Motivations for I, Too, Am Mobilization

• In Event: 66.044 - Student Voice and Action: Cultivating (Re)Constructive Powers of Student Agency

Abstract

College and university students across the United States (and around the world) have used visual and social media to express discontent with inhospitable climates on their college campuses. One particular movement, inspired by the 2014 I, Too Am Harvard campaign, spread quickly across the United States and was an important part of a national conversation about the inclusivity of institutions of higher education. We analyze qualitative evidence on student activism from both student newspapers at participating campuses and interviews with student organizers to elucidate the motivations for students’ mobilization. Overall, we find that these campaigns emerged from and were motivated by students’ determinations that their environments were racist or otherwise oppressive.

Authors

• Richard Blissett, Seton Hall University

• Dominique Baker, Southern Methodist University

• Benjamin C Fields, Vanderbilt University