TO THE EDITOR:
I want to preface by saying I applaud the passion of student activists regarding tuition this year.
Having said that, some students’ conduct during the Board of Governors vote was regrettable.
There are two types of protest at play here. One repudiates a policy — tuition. The other repudiates the process itself.
To that end, it’s strange that board member Franklin McCain called the protests practicing democracy. Yelling, drum beating and throwing name tags is no such practice.
Civil disobedience has been an important way in which the oppressed have challenged unjust institutions. But I believe neither that the BOG is unjust, nor that these protests were truly civil.
The legislature placed our leaders in a bind. The tradeoff is between eroding the quality of our schools, or the size of our wallets.
Students who side with the “proudly public” model made their voices heard. But they hardly represent anyone but themselves. And their obstinate, dogmatic defense of low tuition likely did little to further substantive solutions. Some students proposed tapping an endowment with almost no discretionary funds. That dog won’t hunt.
To me, the lack of other options indicates that, at the bitter end, there probably were none.
And I think UNC-system president Thomas Ross reached an acceptable compromise. Maybe some students don’t agree. But they would do better to stay home than to act unruly.
We should challenge leaders to do better. But yelling seems like an awfully shallow form of participation.
Cameron Parker ’12
Public policy and economics
