Last summer, a few weeks before I first came to Brandeis, a bunch of my high school friends and I were sitting around in a basement thinking about what we wanted to do in college. There were the usual suggestions-party, sleep, wake up and party some more-until one girl chimed in.

"I want to be part of a protest," she said. Everyone nodded and murmured in agreement. An image of myself standing outside a government building, shaking a picket sign and chanting in unison with a massive crowd floated through my brain. 

It was a common enough daydream, one that I'd had before and which I share with many of my friends, regardless of whether they've ever been part of a real protest. A lot of it stems, I think, from the common idolization of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the great historical heroes of the modern age. He stood up against the most powerful and ingrained evils in his society, and was able to open the world's eyes to them through nonviolent protest.

King is an inspirational figure to many, and though he is certainly not the only cause, he is part of the reason why protest is so romanticized in our society nowadays. We want to be angry at something, to vocally express our most deeply held beliefs and shout in the face of authority, "We will not be silenced!" For some, what the protest is actually about doesn't matter as much as the fact that it is happening, and that they can become a part of it.

On Feb. 13, a group of students assembled outside the Bernstein-Marcus Administration Center to protest the University's executive payment practices. This was a protest I could get behind: It was time for the students to show their anger at President Emeritus Jehuda Reinharz's salary. We need to hold the Board of Trustees accountable for putting the ludicrous amount of money we pay toward making the rich richer. When I went to see the protest however, I was more than a little disappointed. 

The group of students stood huddled in a circle outlined by orange cones, the area specifically given by the University for the protest after the students submitted a formal request.
They chanted slogans like "Fair Pay Today" and "Cut Jehuda's Salary," but also "F*ck the bookstore prices" and "Free tuition." As heavy snow began to fall, fewer and fewer students passed by the protest or gave it any attention, and soon, some of the angry chanters began to pack up and head home. The event's Facebook page even stated the incorrect amount of money being paid to Reinharz.

If anything, the Feb. 13 protest made the University look better for allowing student discourse on campus. The protest was sectioned off in a little bubble of safety, where administrators could look down from their offices and admire the cute gang of angry children. 

Advocating executive pay changes is a goal that's both admirable and achievable, but free tuition? Something that absurd devalues the whole protest, and delegitimizes the very real concerns that students have. 

Likewise, getting mad over something as petty as inflated bookstore prices is an exercise in futility. Brandeis is a university that has sanctified the phrase "social justice," yet it has executive practices that create a class divide. That's a very real ethical concern, but if the student body is only worried about having to pay a few extra bucks for their textbooks, who is going to listen?

This is the critical difference between the romantic image of King-esque protest, and the reality of what King did. King was strategic. He waved signs and sang songs, but he did so in ways that would specifically damage the institutions he was trying to change. The Montgomery Bus Boycotts weren't successful because people said they were angry; they were successful because the public transit system was losing money. The protesters made it clear that Montgomery buses wouldn't turn a profit until they changed their racist practices, and eventually the laws of economics prevailed. 

King didn't start his civil rights work by running for president. He started by supporting one woman who refused give up one seat on one bus. He built his way up to big targets, earning a name for himself in the media and showing persistence in the face of challenges. 

But he didn't just march in circles and hurl slogans in the air. All of the most effective protests of the Civil Rights Movement were deeply symbolic, and specified to the targeted goal of each specific protest. It was the way King was able to paint his opposition as so clearly in the wrong that he was able to earn followers and succeed in his goals. Who wouldn't let a tired woman sit on a bus after a long day? Who wouldn't serve a kid who had sat in a restaurant for hours on end? Who would dare to blast pressurized water at a group of peaceful men and women walking down the street and singing about freedom?

The Brandeis student protest lacked any of the strategy, symbolism and realistic aims that lead to successful protests, and which were at the heart of King's victories. One has to start with demanding change on one specific issue and work up to sweeping reforms. Most of all, what the Brandeis protest movement needs is organization and clearly stated goals.
Ten different people shouting 10 different slogans won't earn anyone's attention. Ten different people shouting one simple slogan ("Fair pay to janitors! Fair pay to janitors!") for hours upon hours will turn a few heads. Then if 10 more people join in the next day, and 10 more the day after that, people will start to pay attention. Then when all 30 protesters refuse to spend at the bookstore, dining halls and other retail locations until their demands are met, and more and more students join in, who's to say what could happen. 

Am I advocating anything as dangerous as the Birmingham Ala. boycotts? No, that would be inappropriate for the subject of concern. But if the student body wants to actually change Brandeis' executive practices through peaceful protest, we need to be willing to be unsavory. An effective protest cannot be something that one walks away from at night and ticks off as just another event in a busy day. It cannot be something that you do for the thrill, only because it's something people do in college. An effective protest is done to create change, even if it comes at a cost.
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