Far from urban center, protests appear on campus
Wesleyan University (Middletown, Conn.)—
Before the media coverage, before the videos of police brutality and before six Wesleyan University students were arrested for their roles in Occupy Wall Street, Wesleyan students awoke on the morning of Sept. 25 to an unexpected sight on a familiar grassy knoll—someone had erected a tent city on Foss Hill.
The hodgepodge of hurriedly assembled canvas aimed to raise awareness about the burgeoning protest movement that started in downtown Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, as well as create a community that would sit in solidarity with the protesters during the school week. The protestors gathered support from Out House, a campus outing club, which donated the tents and other materials used by the tent protesters. Foss Hill, the Wesleyan version of a quad, was chosen for its central location and availability.
While organizer and Wesleyan freshman Daniel Plafker pegged the group that initially congregated in the tents to the 20 or so students who had traveled to New York for the beginning of Occupy Wall Street on Sept. 17, it soon became a familiar beacon on the way to class in the mornings, attracting visitors from all over campus. Some visitors were curious passersby who simply wanted to inquire: Who in their right mind would sleep out on the hill in the middle of a rainy week? Others actively sought to learn more about the cause. Regardless of intent, everyone who stopped by was greeted with a smile and stories of experiences in New York’s financial district.
The tents were disassembled on Oct. 4 about a week and a half after their inception, Amidst heavy rain and a jibe from Michael Roth, the university president, who in a lecture referenced the futility of “sleeping out on Foss Hill and thinking you’re changing Goldman Sachs.” However, the organizers maintain that it served its purpose and did what they’d hoped it would accomplish, even after a relatively short period of time.
The tent city was the brainchild of Plafker and Ross Levin, two freshmen who were actively involved in the movement from the beginning. Plafker, a Jewish international student from Beijing, has family ties to the Amalgamated Housing Cooperative – a housing co-op founded on the same principles of self-help and democratic rule as the Occupy Wall Street movement – in the Bronx, and cites his family’s long history with activism as a reason he was attracted to both Wesleyan and Occupy Wall Street.
“As a campus, Wesleyan is known for being politically conscious and interested in making positive social change,” Plafker said. “The tent city was a way of reaching out to the community’s untapped energy and support for this movement.”
The number of Wesleyan students participating in the movement grew rapidly, from 20 the first weekend to more than 70 on the weekend of Oct. 8. The movement has drawn members of nearly every community on campus, including Jews, socialists and the environmentally conscious.
“The main goal was to make people aware of what was going on on Wall Street before the media got attention about it,” Levin said in an interview. And in that regard, the impromptu village was certainly successful.
Participants in the movement have encountered a variety of obstacles. One international student recalls staying back when police began herding people into the streets. If she were arrested, her student visa would be revoked and she could face deportation.
Regardless of the dangers, however, the fervor is widespread on campus. Emails circulate regarding the Oct. 21– 25 fall break, beseeching students who are not returning home to sign up for a chartered bus to the Financial District. During Occupy Usdan on Oct. 13—Usdan is the main dining hall on campus—students organized a discussion of the events unfolding on Wall Street. Those who cannot venture all the way to New York have taken to “occupying” the nearby cities of Hartford and New Haven.
Though not all of Wesleyan is behind the movement, and Roth, the university president, has actively cautioned against youthful displays of liberalism, the protesters insist that the aims of the movement are anything but naïve.
“This is not just a bunch of hippie radical kids. It’s a movement for everyone,” said Hailey Sowden, another Wesleyan freshman who was arrested at Occupy Wall Street in New York. Plafker echoed her sentiments: “The future of Occupy Wall Street will be set in larger terms than the movement itself.”
The true revolution, he said, would come in the form of action on the part of young people to take an active role in shaping the country’s future.
“We don’t have the luxury of deferred responsibility,” he said. “We need to build a groundwork on a generational level for a movement for social change.”
Levin, who was the first Wesleyan student arrested for his participation in the movement, regrets nothing, declaring himself to be “proud and happy with the reason I got arrested for.” Levin recalls his experience in prison with a perverse sort of fondness. “A lot of the officers told us, ‘we really respect you for protesting,’” he said.
“It helped me realize that though the NYPD have been widely condemned for the brutality they have utilized to subdue protestors, they’re not entirely unsympathetic to the cause—many are simply doing their jobs.” Levin spent a total of 12 hours in jail before his release, much of which he says was impeded by officers who spent time texting and checking facebook rather than completing his paperwork. However, his experiences only helped solidify his commitment to the movement.
“In some ways, Occupy Wall Street has changed a lot since the first weekend we were there,” surmised Plafker. “Originally the crowds [were] comprised of primarily radicals and college students. However, it has since grown to encapsulate a wide range of interests and demographics. The commitment to horizontal organization and direct democracy, as well as the aura of energy and optimism have held steady, and therein lies the movement’s strength—that it can mean so much to so many and still stay true to its guiding principles.”
Penina Yaffa Kessler is a freshman at Wesleyan University. She has an overactive imagination and enjoys walking barefoot. She is a New Voices Magazine national correspondent. Last month, she wrote about how a freshman camping trip gone wrong went right.
Correction: This story initially said that Daniel Plafker “traces his roots back to the Amalgamated Housing Cooperative.” This was inaccurate. As the story now reads, Plafker merely “has family ties to Amalgamated Housing Cooperative.”
