Campus protests have spread worldwide as of late, and according to a new article about the epidemic, a large majority of Brown University students are failing their classes because of it.
An article from the Brown Daily Herald suggests that many students are dropping out or failing because they are participating in too many on-campus protests. One interviewee, an undergrad whom they named David, discussed how he was affected by his particular extracurriculars.
“There are people breaking down, dropping out of classes and failing classes because of the activism work they are taking on,” David explained. “My grades dropped dramatically. My health completely changed. I lost weight. I’m on antidepressants and anti-anxiety pills right now. (Counseling and Psychological Services) counselors called me. I had deans calling me to make sure I was okay.”
And he isn’t the only one.
Justice Gaines, another Brown University student activist, described feeling overwhelmed after two racist columns were published by The Herald, so much so that she “had a panic attack and couldn’t go to class for several days.”
Of course fighting for a cause you believe in can affect your psyche, and racism in particular is a strenuous issue. Its prevalence on college campuses has made its way into the media within the past year, and for the first time in a long time, students are speaking out about it. Unfortunately other issues have also been thrown into the mix, taking away from more important matters at hand (such as the core of the Black Lives Matter movement) and creating a cesspool of “political correctness.”
But their overall thinking is valid – how could you not stress about all of the bad things when you throw yourself into the middle of them? Is Brown doing the right thing by being lenient and concerning, or going about it the wrong way by placating them instead of discouraging the behavior? What can be done from here?
Whatever the answer, it better not be to throw away that $200k degree – that’s just wasteful.
Brown University Students Failing Classes From Too Much Protesting
