PotatoChucker notes that the 2002 'Top Activist Campuses' list is out. It's not a very impressive group this year. MoJo even writes

But students had barely settled into their dorm rooms when the attacks of September 11 shook the nation, putting a damper on dissent.

BS. Many of the protests on this list are 9.11 related, and the ones that aren't were hardly shot down by 9.11 police state hysteria. But it's a nice fig leaf to cover the general decline of worthwhile dissent on American campuses.

Berkeley is #4 for the SJP protest.

4. UC Berkeley: To denounce Israel's occupation of the West Bank, a group called Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) established a checkpoint on campus and organized an April rally, drawing more than 1,000 protesters. SJP also staged a classroom sit-in to demand that the university divest $6.4 billion from businesses with ties to Israel. The protest disrupted midterm exams, led to the arrest of 41 students, and sparked counter-protests by Jewish groups, who accused SJP of anti-Semitism. When the administration suspended SJP's right to operate on campus as punishment for disrupting classes, the American Civil Liberties Union admonished, "The university's reaction to the sit-in has a chilling effect at a time when freedom of expression is so critical to our democracy." The university reinstated SJP after 200 members flouted their suspension by rallying at Sproul Plaza, the former stomping grounds of the Free Speech Movement.

Does it count that few of the 1000 protestors and 200 countercounterprotestors were students?Email This Post!