As college administrators call the police on pro-Palestinian protestors around the country, I asked Dr. Lauren Lassabe Shepherd if she’d explore some of the history behind crackdowns on students. Dr. Shepherd, a historian and teacher at the University of New Orleans, kindly agreed.
In her book, Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America, and in conversation, Dr. Shepherd examines waves of student protests in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Echoing what we’re seeing today, some of the biggest standoffs occurred at Columbia. Then, and now, administrators took an increasingly punitive stance toward students, not wanting the “power structure uprooted or shaken up in any way.”
We recorded our conversation this morning (twice actually, when the first take didn’t save!), so today I’m just sharing the audio. If you’d like to learn more from Dr. Shepherd, paying subscribers can listen to / re-read our interview from last summer, and free subscribers can read a preview, too:
Why Universities Crack Down on Protestors