Trinity’s Protest Culture Is Lacking for a World This Divided

Leon Hu ‘29

Staff Writer

On Oct. 7, I had the privilege of attending Trinity Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine’s (SFJP) vigil, remembering the second anniversary of the war in Gaza starting the same day in 2023. Opposite campus at the same time at the Hillel house was a memorial for the same event, only focusing on the opposite end: the loss of life in the attacks in Israel. Events like these, active demonstrations and protests, are essential to our freedom of expression and advocacy about pressing global issues that affect all of us in our daily lives. But at Trinity, why don’t we have more events like these?

Why are we not more involved?  Protest is a crucial element to active participation in a democracy regardless of political affiliation. The examples mentioned above are just examples; you can protest and speak your opinions loudly regardless of whether you agree with these demonstrations or not.  No matter where you lie on the political compass, there is always value in expressing what you think about current events and why other people should care; but most people on campus do not partake in this expression. I doubt that we do not have strong opinions about this tumultuous world we live in.  In that case, why not express them on campus?

Relatively speaking, our campus has a striking absence of a major protest culture. Take Oct. 18’s No Kings Day for example: Trinity had no demonstrations related to No Kings as over seven million Americans in roughly 2,700 different locations organized protests nationwide.  Many of these were at college campuses. Students at universities ranging from Indiana University to UCF to University of Alaska organized protests, and within the NESCAC, Amherst, Tufts, Bowdoin and Wesleyan students all organized protests. Our lack of similar protests feels quite striking given that we are located in Hartford, Connecticut’s capital, just over a mile from the state capitol building. We have the location and the political leverage to organize meaningful events, but even on a day like that, we had nothing. Hartford had a No Kings Day, but Trinity had no organized effort to be a part of it. There are many missed opportunities here.  

Trinity is uniquely poised to be an excellent site of activism and active discourse.  As one of the only top liberal arts colleges in a city, our location is perfect for outreach and influence directly to top state officials. As a small, yet prestigious, college, we have both a tight-knit community that should be open to honest discourse and the influence for our students and faculty’s voices to be heard far beyond our campus alone. Yet our campus culture seems biased against using these resources for activism. 

The issue is worsened by our recent addition of the policy on demonstrations and protests added to the Student Handbook this semester. These changes are nothing unusual. Following the mass pro-Palestinian protests of last year, many universities have revised their protest policies to be far stricter, and Trinity is just another school on that list. The impact of these changes has already been felt: the QRC’s chalking event required special approval as an “expressive” form of protest, despite the fact that the event has been a tradition for several decades without such approval. At their core, the added restrictions of the new protest policies in the Student Handbook feel designed to deliberately restrict freedom of expression by students at our college.  To change our campus culture to encourage more forms of expression, this must change.

Yet the fault is not entirely on our administration.  Much of it lies on us. Overall, Trinity is not a very protest or demonstration-heavy school. Demonstrations like the two on Oct. 7 exist, but in isolation from the rest of the school. There were, at most, three dozen students and faculty at that demonstration. Most of the students who walked by seemed rather indifferent. That is fine — no one should ever be forced to join a demonstration they do not agree with — but this indifference is shared by the larger student body.  Most Trinity students are not willing to protest.

Additionally, most demonstrations are not popularized well enough in advance. Most tend to be shared via social media and flyers across campus a few days in advance — which works well for a core group of activists, but not well to spread a message throughout the larger student body.  This is less of the fault of protest organizers and more of the larger student body. It is difficult to organize large demonstrations when the majority of the student body is unwilling to get involved, leading to small groups of dedicated activists without a larger voice throughout the student body. 

We need to change. In times where political strife permeates every aspect of our daily lives, all of us have a responsibility to express our beliefs about where our democracy should go. The core of democratic society is free expression of personal beliefs from everyone, including us as the future of society. There’s a lot to feel strongly about right now.  Why aren’t we saying more about it?