Protest Coverage

On April 12, I attended an event put on by American University called “I Remember AU When… The Age of Protest”. This event focused on the dissident activities that had taken place on our very own campus in response to a number of issues, particularly the Vietnam War. A presentation was given showing pictures from the university’s archives that documented the students protests, and firsthand accounts were given by faculty and staff who had been students at AU during this time. The most interesting thing to me was the reprinting of an Eagle article from April of 1972 calling the students of American University as well as other universities in the area to mach on the capitol and demonstrate against President Nixon’s actions concerning the war. The article described the opinions of the students and called them to do all that they could to express their dissatisfaction with the President’s actions.
This was of particular interest of me considering that at American University we recently had our own brush with protest and dissident activities. There was a protest on our campus concerning Karl Rove and his actions as a member of President Bush’s administration. This event was given a great deal of coverage in the press as well as in our student newspaper. The Eagle published accounts of the protest from all sides, printing numerous articles, editorials, opinions and first hand accounts. While the events of the protest were rather unpleasant in the eyes of Public Safety and other members of the AU community, all sides were still represented in our paper.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the article from The Eagle in 1972 as well as the coverage of the Karl Rove protest. It indicated to me that The Eagle had always been a publication that was willing to publish controversial material, and that it was not subject to the kind of censorship that you may expect to find in these kinds of publications. While people have come down on both sides of each of these issues, I think the most important factor has been that there has been full, uncensored coverage of the events. I am proud to be at a university that does not censor its students, and allows them to express their views without repercussions. While the times and issues have changed, the fact that we have a forum to express our thoughts and opinions without censorship is something that I think is of great value to college students.