Somewhere around 100 people participated yesterday in the Walk Out on War protest, which was sponsored by the Tufts Action for Peace (TAP). But it is still unclear what the effects of their activism - much of which occurred behind closed doors - will be.
Throughout the day, organizers sponsored a variety of lectures and teach-ins which students and faculty members, many of whom had either skipped or walked out of their classes, attended. Topics included "[The] G.I. Bill of Rights," "Elite Complicity in Aggressive Militarism," "Minorities in the Military," "Human Rights Impacts Abroad" and "Mobilizations for Peace: Next Steps."
Most of the events were well attended, according to TAP member and freshman Gabe Frumkin. During one three-hour stretch in Barnum Hall, attendance was always around 50 people, with some leaving and others replacing them, he said.
Other events were more visible than the lectures and teach-ins. Some protesters marched to U.S. Congressman Edward Markey's (D-MA) Medford office in the morning, while others stationed themselves on the library patio throughout the day to read the names of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians who have died in the war. "For those who were interested ... it was easy to see all the anti-war stuff around."
But for much of the time that the group was protesting, life on campus appeared virtually unaffected, with several professors not feeling strongly one way or the other about the walkout. In Professor of Political Science Kent Portney's Judicial Politics class, attendance was about average. "I can't say I was happy one way or another," he said of the decision of the majority of his class to not protest.
Portney said that at the beginning of the class, he had asked if students were interested in turning the lecture into a teach-in, but one student responded by saying "that she thought it [would be] a waste of time," he said.
Of his own decision to attend class, Portney said that protesting "didn't seem like a constructive way to express my views or to have students express their views."
Still, he said that teach-ins might be useful either in classes that focus directly on the war or in classes that are so far removed from it that students are unlikely to think about Iraq regularly. His class, he said, fell between the two so he was not attached to the idea of a teach-in.
Class also went on as usual in Spanish Lecturer Kathleen Pollakowski's class on "The 20th Century Spanish Novel," although with somewhat lower attendance than usual - nine out of the 23 students were absent.
Pollakowski said that she was amenable to the ideals of the protest, but wished she had been better informed about it. She said that she did not know about the protest until yesterday and was "pleasantly surprised" when she found out about it. "It reminds me of graduate school," she said, referring to her time as a teaching assistant during the Vietnam era.
English Lecturer Julia Genster also felt that the protest was underpublicized to faculty members. "I would have been happy to have people walk out had I known [about it,]" she said.
Still, not all classes stuck to their usual routine. After freshman David Gainsboro walked out of his philosophy class, for example, he heard that it devolved into a discussion about whether or not it is permissible, from the standpoint of various philosophers, to participate in the protest.
In lecturer Valerie Anishchenkova's Arabic 2 class, she showed the documentary "My country, my country," which was filmed in the months leading up to the 2005 Iraqi elections.
"Personally, I am very much against the war in Iraq, and I think I have the right to choose whether I'm going to do my professional services or not today," she said. She chose to show the movie because it offers a "brave" and provocative look into the situation in the country.
Although concern had emerged prior to the protest because it coincided with April Open House, prospective students on campus appeared to be either unaffected by or happy with the activism.
"I thought it was interesting that there were students as well as faculty involved," Gabrielle Burns, a high school senior from Vermont, said. "In high school you don't really see that kind of thing."
"I just think it's really cool that students would be active in political causes," Erin Zakis, a high school senior from Marblehead, Mass. said.
Even so, it is still unclear what, if any, long-term ramifications the day of protests will have. At yesterday's closing remarks, many involved turned to this theme. Senior and Tufts Democrats President Kayt Norris said that it is necessary for the antiwar movement to answer the question, "What are we advocating for?"
Assistant Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program Dale Bryan said that part of the solution is to not otherize opposing viewpoints; those who support, as well as those who oppose the war, he said, are "ordinary" people. "Ordinary people are the problem and they are the solution," he said.
Bryan encouraged the participants in the protests to constantly challenge opposing viewpoints. "If you don't challenge them on it for a lifetime, [the opinion is] going to be reconstructed," he said.
Also important to securing a successful future is to demonstrate passion, according to Sociology Lecturer Matthew Gregory. "I hate hearing apathy in politics. I hate people saying it doesn't matter," he said. "You make the system work for you."
-Bennett Kuhn, Lilly Riber and Ashley Pandya contributed reporting to this article.
