Review of Campus uprisings: How student activists and collegiate leaders resist racism and create hope Gogue, D. T. L., & Havey, N. F. (2021, June 16). Review of Campus uprisings: how student activists and collegiate leaders resist racism and create hope by T. R. M. Douglas, K. G. Shockley & I. Toldson (Eds.). Education Review, 28. http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/er.v28.3005 June 16, 2021 ISSN 1094-5296 Douglas, T. R. M., Shockley, K. G., & Toldson, I. (Eds.) (2020). Campus uprisings: How student activists and collegiate leaders resist racism and create hope. Teachers College Press. Pp. 192 ISBN: 9780807763667 Reviewed by Demeturie Toso-Lafaele Gogue & Nicholas F. Havey University of California, Los Angeles United States During the past year, but particularly following the events surrounding the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the persistent American epidemic of police violence has reignited conversations and activism focused on racial justice. Among the millions who have taken to the streets to combat racial injustice, systemic discrimination, and unjust treatment are students. Prior to the public-health induced exodus from their campuses, students were organizing, advocating, and agitating for change at their own institutions. These students understand that racism is not confined to their police department or representative of one isolated event, but is endemic to American institutions, including institutions of higher education. The editors of Campus Uprisings: How Student Activists and Collegiate Leaders Resist Racism and Create Hope recognize the persistence of systemic and institutionalized racism. In the foreword, Dr. Shaun Harper notes that “the most significant racial breakthroughs in the history of American higher education were born of student protests” (p. xiii). While racial injustice and discrimination are not new (Ferguson, 2017; Morgan & Davis, 2018; Rhoads, 1998), the current sociopolitical climate demands a resurgence in scholarly Education Review /Reseñas Educativas/ Resenhas Educativas 2 attention to them. Amidst renewed calls for the removal of confederate monuments, the renaming of buildings, and structural reform of both university institutions (e.g., admissions) and societal institutions (e.g., the police), Campus Uprisings offers a history of student activism, a primer on recent campus movements, and clear and actionable recommendations for students, faculty, community members, and student affairs professionals. The contributors to this volume remind us of the success and failures of the past and offer desperately needed opportunities for those working in the fields of higher education and student affairs to learn and grow. The book begins by presenting a survey of resistance efforts at both predominantly white institutions (PWIs) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). More specifically, the book starts by chronicling the movement at the University of Missouri (Mizzou), which featured a hashtag describing the first-year Black students enrolled at the school (#ConcernedStudent1950) and was accelerated with the help of social media, news coverage, and solidarity from both faculty and Mizzou football players. Furthermore, readers are introduced to student resistance and the ways in which racial justice movements have moved beyond “empathizing and sympathizing from afar” (p. 12). As the authors, in the words of activist Curtis Mayfield, note, “we’ve come a long, long way/But let us not be so satisfied for tomorrow can be an even brighter day.” (p. 12). In addition, readers learn about various student movements throughout history, starting in the 1800s. This important contextualization links student organizing to early Black Studies scholars like DuBois, Woodson, and Fanon, who worked to push white administrators into uncomfortable spaces to catalyze change, leveraging interest convergence and the power of public scrutiny. In taking a historically-based analytical approach, the authors are able to differentiate between student organizing at PWIs versus HBCUs, emphasizing the innovative tactics used by different student groups. In addition to situating readers’ understanding of campus activism through history, the authors delve deeper into the different tactics that students have used via campus organizing, specifically through symbols, images, and social media, to enact social change. The authors reference clear and identifiable symbols, like confederate monuments, to depict how students react to the oppression that continues to be manifested on college campuses. The broad swathe of institutions of higher education presented also offers an opportunity for the authors to discuss the prominence of social media, images, and hashtags as attention-getting tactics that can illuminate the oppression that continues to impact marginalized communities while simultaneously advancing the fight for justice. While students are key actors in creating social change on campus, staff and faculty also have an important role in facilitating student activism. The contributions in Campus Uprisings comment on the strain placed upon administrators navigating contentious racial climates themselves and centers institutional agents’ voices and experiences in previously covered contexts Review of Campus Uprisings 3 like the events at Mizzou. Some authors, many of whom still hold administrative positions on college campuses, reflected on their experiences in higher education. Authors who identify as people of color described their own experiences of isolation, exhaustion, and invisibility as a result of straddling professional politeness and movement investment. Most notably, the authors offered integral critiques of campus leaders’ efforts to address racial crises within their institutions, suggesting that many senior administrators are ill-equipped to respond to student organizing or support the midlevel administrators who do. Administrators should, the authors argue, act proactively to form crisis management teams and take material stances rather than engage in platitude-driven theatre that limits responsibility and fails to staunch the “emotional bleeding” that racist campus crises cause (p. 129). The authors end their book with case studies that incorporate recommendations made throughout each of the chapters. More specifically, two in-depth interviews were conducted with campus leaders, detailing how institutions of higher education can and have responded to racist campus crises. These interviews highlight how administrators navigate competing tensions between students and external groups, like alumni and donors. The interviews mirror each other. The first embodies the platitude-driven response style criticized by the book and other researchers (Davis & Harris, 2015); the second speaks directly to the “façade of inclusiveness on campus” (p. 154) and the necessity that administrators be more than “a coach on the sidelines” (p. 158). Professor Jerlando Jackson’s afterword captures a significant point that resonates throughout the book: the experiences of Black people on American college campuses are rarely, if ever, good but are consistently both bad and ugly. While the book is not solely about Black student activism, many of the case studies therein focus on issues linked to Black student experiences. This focus does not hamstring a more expansive discussion, however, as Campus Uprisings offers broader recommendations for students engaging in activism, administrators assisting students while navigating the murky waters of administration in times of crisis, and university presidents responding to racist incidents and other campus crises. One of the book’s greatest strengths is the way each of the chapters ultimately builds on the others to support the overarching point that Dr. Jackson offers and the evolution of campus activism and its relationship to social change in higher education. Thus, readers are able to gain more information on the history of campus protests, contemporary campus unrest, and ways to learn from the past. While Campus Uprisings can offer readers insight into the history of campus activism and some of the tactics used in student organizing and movements today, the book lacks a much-needed concluding chapter that synthesizes key points or offers high-level recommendations for stakeholders across campus types. The absence of this clear conclusion limits the book’s utility to inform institutional responses, as the broader implications of some Education Review /Reseñas Educativas/ Resenhas Educativas 4 chapters are not interconnected or succinctly identified. Yet, within most chapters, the authors provided book-level takeaways and recommendations. Moreover, the final chapters of Campus Uprisings provide clear examples of administrative responses to campus organizing, which can be beneficial for institutional agents seeking to address unrest on their college campuses. Overall, students, administrators, and allies alike would benefit from the lessons and content within Campus Uprisings. Specifically, student organizers and likeminded administrators might benefit from learning about the history of campus activism and its influence on contemporary student movements. Moreover, the recommendations made available throughout the book can improve students’ and institutional agents’ own organizing and support of campus activism. Overall, it is a timely and needed contribution to scholarship on student activism, social movements, and institutional responses and offers its readers a historical perspective with which to approach racial campus crises, lessons from the field, and a mirror with which to reflect upon the ways their own campuses may be faltering or failing in their responses. The volume reminds us that student activism has always been a facet of American higher education; and, regardless of context, understanding its contours is crucial for supporting the students, staff, and faculty who comprise campuses. References Davis, S., & Harris, J. C. (2015). But we didn't mean it like that: A critical race analysis of campus responses to racial incidents. Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs, 2(1), 6. Ferguson, R. A. (2017). We demand: The university and student protests (Vol. 1). University of California Press. Rhoads, R. A. (1998). Freedom's web: Student activism in an age of cultural diversity. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Thelin, J. R. (2011). A history of American higher education. The Johns Hopkins University Press. About the Reviewers Demeturie Toso-Lafaele Gogue is a second year PhD student in the Higher Education and Organizational Change program at the University of California, Los Angeles. Nicholas F. Havey is a third year PhD student in the Higher Education and Organizational Change program at the University of California, Los Angeles, and 2020-2021 UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement Fellow. Review of Campus Uprisings 5 Education Review/Reseñas Educativas/Resenhas Educativas is supported by the Scholarly Communications Group at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University. Copyright is retained by the first or sole author, who grants right of first publication to the Education Review. Readers are free to copy, display, distribute, and adapt this article, as long as the work is attributed to the author(s) and Education Review, the changes are identified, and the same license applies to the derivative work. More details of this Creative Commons license are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Disclaimer: The views or opinions presented in book reviews are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of Education Review. 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