The 21st-Century Protester

University of California, Berkeley students march through campus as part of an "open university" strike in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement in Berkeley, Calif, on Nov. 15, 2011. Max Whittaker/Getty Images

Commentary

It was some time around 2010, I think, that the nature of student protest took a new form. Young activists on campus have been with us for a long time, since the Eisenhower Era when groups started to form. They spoke and behaved quite differently from the current cohort of activists, however. Something decisive has happened to them.