A recent viral tweet (it has 8.6 million views) inspired by controversy over anti-Israel activism on college campuses asserts that [a] good law of history is that if you ever find yourself opposing a student movement while siding with the ruling class, you are wrong. Every single time. In every era. No matter the issue.” Most admirers of student political activism don’t go so far as to say student movements are always in the right. Still, the belief that student activists have some special claim to moral authority is nonetheless a common one. Aren’t smart, idealistic students at least likely to be right most of the time?
Sadly, the answer is “no.” As Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute points out, there is a long history of student movements embracing awful causes and tactics:
[L]et’s tally some of the “student movements” that have been a source of (mostly authoritarian) misery, mayhem, and murder over time. In every era. And no matter the issue.
There was the student movement that helped establish Fidel Castro’s oppressive regime in Cuba. In 1957, the Revolutionary Directorate, an insurrectionist organization that drew heavily upon students, mounted a bloody attack on the presidential residence during which dozens were killed. Students…
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