The new activism

As college students across America head back to school, most will be eager to register for courses, and reconnect with old friends.

Some, however, will also be looking forward to launching into a new season of political activism. With the Democratic convention recently completed, the Republicans meeting next week, and November looming, politics will fascinate many on college campuses this fall.

While rallies may abound, don't be deceived, say some campus denizens. "Activism" today doesn't even remotely resemble the white-hot political passion that gripped college campuses in the 1960s and '70s.

Today's student activists, for one thing, are not as overwhelmingly liberal. They are also, for the most part, more polite and more staged in their efforts. Instead of the massive sit-ins of the Vietnam-War era, this decade's student activists are more apt to rely on attention-getting actions complete with props and sometimes even costumes - events calculated to draw attention without requiring a huge number of participants.

That may be because fewer students care enough to get involved.

On many campuses, protesters dwell on the margins rather than in the mainstream of campus life. Some of their fellow students may admire their convictions - but others confess that they find activism more annoying than persuasive.

At Harvard University - where protests range from noisy antiwar rallies to smaller but equally zealous antiabortion demonstrations - many students say such actions are missing the mark.

"A lot of [the activists], liberals and conservatives alike, are fanatics or hopelessly idealistic," says Michael Soto, a Harvard senior studying Latin American development. "I'm not sure how much they actually accomplish, since it's just a small group. They are mainly annoying to the rest of the campus, and ineffectual."

Mr. Soto also questions the depth and the passion of those who protest.

"I'd put my money on most kids, at least at Harvard, being mildly informed but not really passionate and invested," he says.

Of course, not all agree. David Sapienza, a sophomore majoring in political science at Boston University, worked this summer as a coordinator at the Boston Social Forum, an international activist gathering held on the University of Massachusetts' Boston campus.

Of the Forum's more than 5,000 attendees, an estimated 40 percent were college or high school students. Over half of the forum participants were under 35.

Student activism is an integral part of democracy in the United States, insists Mr. Sapienza.

"I don't think being young has anything to do with being uninformed," he says during a trip to New York to protest the upcoming Republican National Convention. "I know some people think protesting is useless, but most of us feel an obligation to help their fellow citizen - that's just part of being human."

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