Protest Pedagogy & Civics in Higher Education By Anthony David Vernon May 2026

  Protest is a key part of the civics process. Yet, higher educational institutions often do not go about teaching protest in any meaningful sense. Instead, protests are taught about passively as something that had a nebulous impact on politics. But as a part of a holistic education in civics, higher education students should be taught about the organization process of and experiences behind protesting. Protest as a part of pedagogy could avoid being ideologically while providing valuable civics insights to students. It is ultimately the recommended responsibility of faculty to incorporate understandings of the right to assemble in a meaningful but apolitical manner so all students may be educated on protest as a key aspect of civics. As a part of coursework faculty can incorporate the observation of a protest or protests. From there, it is up to the discretion of students if they wish to participate in protest.    

        Protest in higher education settings is often thought of as something some students just do while at a given higher educational institution. There are also conversations around if professors should encourage or discourage activist politics as a result. But what is really asked is if professors should teach how protests functionally operate. Instead of just limiting conversations of student protests around if students should or shouldn’t protest and if professors should encourage or discourage protesting, is there no space for professors to teach on protest not just abstractly but in ‘on the ground’ terms. We can argue that having a sense of how protests work is a part of a holistic education, and teaching on protests operationally can be incorporated into coursework. It can be further argued for that having an operational understanding of protests is of civic and social value to students.    

        From the self reporting of academics and students, those who participate in protest learn from their experiences. Gilles Deleuze points to how he and others learned from the May ‘68 protest movement, “The children of May 68, you can run into them all over the place, even if they are not aware who they are, and each country produces them in its own way.” To learn from and be a product of protest is not unique to any national setting. Instead, protest is at least an international experience, yet protests are often treated as trends, flashpoints, sparks, rather than as a common sociological occurrence or more importantly part of  a continuous set of struggles. It is easy to reduce May ‘68 to being a purely French movement, in large part thanks to Gilles Deleuze and his regular coauthor Felix Guattari writings on May ‘68. Yet, May ‘68 was a global movement, which rallied disparate people around common global problems that were furthermore representative of ever ongoing struggles.In 1968, students throughout the world challenged their governments’ policies and practices. Students organized demonstrations in Egypt, Italy, Yugoslavia, the United States, Uruguay, and France. Mexico was no exception. Students organized to protest the lack of true democracy in Mexico… on October 2, 1968, ten days before the Olympic games were to begin in Mexico City. On this date, the police and army fired on thousands of demonstrators. Hundreds were killed, thousands were beaten and jailed, and the government did its best to sweep the incident under the rug. The tragic incident of October 1968 took place in the same location as the Spanish massacre of the Aztecs at Tlatelolco almost 500 years before (Ruiz, Sanders, and Sommers).     

        There is a public and an academic unknowingness as to how protests operate. A 1969 Carnegie study found one percent of faculty helped organize a protest and two percent joined an active protest (Abrams). Whereas in a 2016-2017 survey of 923 faculty members, “83 percent of conservative faculty and 74 percent of liberal faculty being uninvolved…75 percent or more of professors in every discipline were disengaged completely from the protests” (Abrams). This same 2016-2017 survey data also states that five percent of faculty helped organize a protest and three percent joined an active protest (Abrams). Evidence throughout academic eras that faculty members are not practiced in protest. So if faculty members choose to teach on protests, they are likely doing so without experience of protesting, let alone of what a protest is like. This is not to say that no faculty members are phenomenologically knowledgeable on protest matters, but there could be a greater practical knowledge of protests among students and faculty alike.   

          There could be a temptation for faculty members to ideologically participate in protests. “We must always be conscious of power differentials; we should be careful not to encourage a student, or anyone else, to take risks that are not in line with their own conscience” (Smithey). Yet, from a professional standpoint, it may not be best practice to ask students to participate in a protest. However, faculty could encourage students to observe protests and contact organizers as a part of regular assignments or for extra credit work. And before doing so, it would behoove faculty to observe protests, contact protest organizers, and conduct research protest themselves. Protests are an often ignored aspect of the operation of civics. While protests are not foremost an educational opportunity by any means, students ought to learn about protest if higher educational institutions seek to give students a holistic education in civics. “Campus protests should serve as a teaching opportunity. Faculty and students might gather together to discuss not only the history of campus protests but questions about the purpose of a college education, academic freedom, free speech, anti-discrimination and other crucial issues involving a campus’s mission” (Mintz).    

         There does not have to be one set thing that students and faculty alike do from learning about protests. It is important that faculty are open to students being able to attend whichever protest they please. Faculty ought not to be encouraging students to attend particular kinds of protest but instead learn about the process of protest itself. Faculty should not be trying to mold students into protest organizers nor discourage students from organizing, but instead showcase the operational nature of protests alongside their civic functional existence. While it is the case that, “Courses that address international politics, regional conflicts, racism, climate disruption, nonviolent struggle, and much more all help sharpen dialogue, debate and strategic action…Many faculty have expertise and experience in areas of practical relevance, such as surveillance, nonviolent civil resistance, education, public art and organizing” (Smithey). If students wish to draw out notions of strategic action and organizing, that is the prerogative of the student not to be encouraged nor discouraged by a given faculty member.     

        This is not to say that being in a college setting means one should be unable to participate in a protest, anything but. If students and faculty feel inclined to participate in a protest movement they should be more than free to do so. From an educational standpoint, in regards to civics, encouraging students to protest and protest on certain causes may compromise the student body’s learning as a whole on the topic of protest. Advocating for certain matters to protest on may disengage students from a valuable lesson or lessons relating protest to civics. This does not mean that the very practice of advocacy education should be banned, instead what I am stating is a pedagogical recommendation rather than a pedagogical requirement. I myself am a professor who participates in protests, I teach on civil disobedience every semester in my philosophy and ethics courses. Yet, I attempt to not have my advocacy slip into my lesson plans to ensure to the best possible degree that all students can draw from a given lesson be it on civil disobedience or otherwise. But here I point to the fact that many of the lessons surrounding protest pedagogy are deeply personal.    

         Protests often appear as one big organized unit. Yet, when observing a protest you come to learn that protest movements gather a confluence of organizations and individuals. For example on June 17th, 2025 there was a protest against the City of Miami signing onto 287 (g), a voluntary directive where a municipalities’ chooses to have their police department directly partner with ICE. At this protest the attending groups included, “Power U, ACLU Florida, Florida Rising, Engage, the Miami Workers Center, the Democratic Socialists of America, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Catalyst Miami, [and] the People’s Progressive Caucus” (Vernon). Through sheer observation the subtlety of protest is learnt and this could be extended to subtlety in civics as a whole. Further lessons can of course be extrapolated from protest observation, such as the phenomenal experience of protestors themselves.

Protests in the streets are also built around a practice of care. With our collective bodies, we protect each other and offer comfort. We also support the group through nourishment and assistance, by way of passing water around or having medical support on hand. Moreover, when we move together, we travel at the speed of the group and take the safest routes even if they might take a longer time (Dias).       

       Not every protest has brought about social progress or justice but we can often see an attempt “to draw on protest as a collective framework for pursuing justice-centered work in institutionally isolating environments” (Dias). Protests attempt to draw attention to a perceived or actual social issue and can have an influence on both public opinion along with politicians activities. This is not to say all protests ‘move the needle’ but protests are a means of needle moving that affects the realm of civics. It is the case that protest has been a part of non-immediate change, look how Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt March did not lead to immediate abolition of Britain's salt laws. But we can see protest movements lead to near-immediate change such as how Black Lives Matter [BLM] lead to policy changes in municipalities banning chokeholds and implementing body-worn cameras. But most protests are left ignored or unsuccessful, the raid of Area 51, the Hīkoi mō te Tiriti, the Hong Kong protests in 2019 t0 2020 and are popular examples of this. Yet, in educational settings including higher education settings it is mostly those protests which were successful that are covered.   

         Outside of studying protests in and of themselves for the sake of civics, protest pedagogy shows how minority and minoritized individuals participate in civics. “Protest pedagogy must be rooted in struggle and study framed by perspectives on the margins of power, so that we might better understand the function of status quo narratives and unsettle them as we continue the freedom struggle” (Dias). Minorities and minoritized individuals use protest as a means to have their political issues heard, we can use the successful Keystone pipeline protests by various American and Canadian indigenous groups as an example. In terms of higher education, this should also be a reminder for higher educational institutions to at least hear out minority and minoritized voices. In this protest pedagogy is not about imposing an outlook from on high onto other instead, “Protest pedagogy must be collective at the outset, building on and transforming who we are through the process of collaboration to take risks and create new relational possibilities for dialogic teaching and learning” (Dias). This all reveals that civics is not just about some voices but the confluence of totality of heard voices and protest allows for a greater number of voices to be heard. By examining protest, we expand the number of voices represented in civics courses.       

     Protest is meant to challenge established norms or matters that are being established. For example, learning about protest might lead to questions of “whether the mission of higher education should prioritize academic instruction, professional training, personal development or civic engagement” (Mintz).

Campus protests can serve not just as a challenge to institutional norms but also as a unique opportunity for collective learning and institutional growth. By using these moments to engage in critical discussions about the role of higher education, academic freedom, free speech and social responsibility, colleges can both address immediate concerns and lay the groundwork for a more thoughtful, inclusive and mission-driven educational environment. Let’s harness campus protests as springboards for dialog and reflection. We need to reassess and reinvigorate higher education’s core mission, and the campus protests can serve as a spark for the crucial conversations that our colleges need (Mintz).      

      Still, the civics lessons about protest taught at a higher educational institution should go beyond higher educational settings themselves. Learning about protest teaches individuals about how groundwork politics operate and how social change is sparked in part. If we remove protest from civics we not only end up with a civics education that is not holistic, but end up with an incomplete civics education. While protest pedagogy does not create a great deal of testable materials, reflective essays or podcasts of protest observation are valid assignment types and yield some potential experiential learning within a civics course. Civics are often thought of as just being the raw structural framework of governance, but protest is a reminder that we experience civics matters. Learning about protests is a reminder that people socially participate in governmental systems, that governments are not soulless machines.

CITATIONS: David Vernon, A. (2025, June 17). Protest Against 287 (g) in the City of Miami. Miami-Dade Social Democrats. https://acidsocialdemocrats.substack.com/p/protest-against-287-g-in-the-city

Deleuze, G. (n.d.). May ’68 Did Not Take Place. In Two Regimes of Madness. https://19688691.me/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Deleuze-May-68-Did-Not-Take-Place-1984.pdf

Dias, B. (2025). Protest pedagogy. The Radical Teacher, 132. https://doi.org/10.5195/rt.2025.1157J Abrams, S. (n.d.). The Facts behind the Myths about Faculty Activism. AAUP. https://www.aaup.org/academe/issues/104-0/facts-behind-myths-about-faculty-activism

Mintz, S. (2024, May 2). Student protests as catalyst for reflection in higher education. Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs. https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/columns/higher-ed-gamma/2024/05/02/student-protests-catalyst-reflection-higher-educationRuiz, O. M., Sanders, A., & Sommers, M. (2012). Oct. 2, 1968: Tlatelolco Massacre - Zinn Education Project. Zinn Education Project; Zinn Education Project. https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/tlatelolco-massacre/

Smithey, L. (2026, February 1). For Educators Grappling with Student Protests, Here’s how to Play a Supporting Role. The Commons. https://commonslibrary.org/for-educators-grappling-with-student-protests-heres-how-to-play-a-supporting-role/