Using Nonviolence in Our Own Conflicts

In class, we talked about different issues on campus that we can apply nonviolence to. I find myself the kind of person that can get passionate about a wide variety of issues. Here on campus I am concerned about issues of food, non-discrimination, LGBT rights, accessibility, and many others. In all the aspects of life that I am concerned with changing. Through what I have learned about nonviolence, I do believe that nonviolence principles and strategies can be employed to bring this change to real causes in my life. The difficulty that I find through the use of nonviolence is how to employ it as a last resort. Through all of the examples that we have seen, nonviolence has been used as an extra-governmental force, primarily focused on people taking power to either convince or coerce those in power. At first, in a college setting, it seems hard to find a way for the student body to take power over the administration seeing that it is easy for administration to write students off.

In my own struggle for gender neutral housing and an inclusive non-discrimination policy with protections for gender identity and expression, I have found many struggles that I feel make it impossible for the students to take power over policy. One primary reason is that our role here at Juniata as students is only really limited to 4 years. With only about 2 years here at Juniata, I am at a sever disadvantage when it comes to figuring out changes in college policy.

Through the examples we have looked at however, it seems as though people have held the ability to take power despite these setbacks. The difficulty is finding the use of it practically. We have a whole arsenic of tools that we learned in class that can be used nonviolently. There are sit-ins, boycotts, protests, and numerous other campaigns that can be utilized to promote social change. What I find difficult is understand how to use these tactics strategically. There are really no formulas available that show exactly how to apply these tools. Nor do we know much about how to garner enough support to give a cause a lasting impact. Right now, the group working on non-discrimination is quite small, and likely not large enough to get attention from the administration to make the issue a priority.

I feel compelled enough by the issue right now to hold a protest right outside President Kepple's house, but I do not feel as though such a tactic will actually be a good idea at this point. When to escalate the conflict to a level that would call for a rally, sit-in, protest, etc is a bit more difficult. It requires truly knowing the opposition and truly understanding how to effectively use these tools.

Right now, I feel like to movement for non-discrimination is moving forward, but we are not sure how to use all of the tools available to us.