Mother Jones 13th annual student activism review

Mother Jones did their

13th annual review of student activism

It's really hard to get a good sense of student activism as you really are looking at over 2000 universities (to say nothing of the 20,000+ other schools). So it's a tip of the iceberg situation. This time instead of trying to list the top ten activist schools, they went with a humour sample that is funny - but doesn't say so much about the harder movement building work that is going on.

They missed out on SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), partially because the SDS founding conference was after their deadline.

SDS could still could fail (it's hard to tell what will happen
with new groups), but so far they're doing pretty well: 100 people at
the founding conference, a growing number of active chapters, a
sizable mailing list, and a support network of former SDS activists
from the Sixties.

I think they should have highlighted the contrast between SDS and the moderates.

On the moderate end, there is an entire adult non-profit sponsored
(partially George Soros funded if I'm not mistaken) rebirth of
liberal/moderate student activism - groups like Campus Progress and
Progressive U -- being funded by people who want to see the Democrats
win elections by imitating the conservatives rise to power (creating
think tanks, funding student activism to build future leaders).
They've been gaining strength for the past two years I believe.

The top-down moderates provide a striking contrast to the grassroots
SDS which has neither office, nor paid staff, nor any significant
money but benefits from experienced organizers and may actually
acomplish a lot more. Or so we shall see...