Opinion: Fighting season

I’ve read that in the Afghan War, the winter months tend to be relatively quiet as Taliban fighters lay down arms and take refuge from the harsh mountain snow. When the snow starts to melt, however, American and NATO forces ready themselves for the violent spring and summer months, a time which has become known as “Fighting Season.”Ohio University, known as a bastion of liberalism in Appalachia, has been experiencing a prolonged winter of liberal political activism. Increasingly, the fight that OU liberals find themselves engaged in is not against conservatives or the powers that be, but against their own apathy and complacency.Matthew Farmer, president of The Residents’ Action Council (tRAC), wrote a letter to The New Political on Feb. 7 advising OU students not to comply with the guaranteed tuition scheme recently proposed by administrators. Under guaranteed tuition, a student’s tuition rate would remain the same for all four years of college, but tuition rates would go up for each incoming class.“It’s creative accounting,” says Farmer. “But it doesn’t solve a systemic issue.” The scheme, if implemented, would be poised to separate each class of students into, well, classes, with each younger class jealous of the older classes for their lower tuition and each older class left without incentive to protest rising tuition for those who will come after. Such a scheme would likely render the majority of students complacent on the issue of tuition increases.Potential complacency aside, liberal organizations on campus have had significant successes the past year. The OU College Democrats were able to rally support for the overthrow of Senate Bill 5 on Election Day 2011, as well as a massive voter registration campaign during the 2012 Presidential Election. OU STAND Against Genocide, which is dedicated to the preservation of human rights around the world, was able to get a statement from OU President Roderick McDavis in August that the university, “will reassess our procurement and investment practices” to ensure the purchase of conflict-free technology.However, when it comes to the very serious, systemic and immediate issue of tuition and fee increases, liberal groups on campus have been noticeably impotent. In the last year we have seen tuition go up, followed by massive pay raises for administrators, all with only negligible action by students.“There was no success last year,” says Farmer in reference to the tuition protests last spring. “There were sit-ins, protests at the Board of Trustees meetings. But tuition still went up.”One of the major hindrances to student protest over tuition is a disorganized dissemination of information. For the past year, the groups dedicated to combating these excesses have been loose coalitions of liberal students and campus organizations. The Ohio University Student Union has been collecting signatures for a tuition freeze, but for the most part the rumbling of the Fall’s administration raises has been followed by a silent Winter.Farmer suggests that this silence may not last long. As Winter fades into Spring, with Board of Trustee meetings and Student Senate elections approaching, there may be more opportunity for liberal action on campus, if liberal groups are able to capitalize on that opportunity.“There’s a lot more organization this year,” says Farmer. “So the protests may be more successful.”Soon, when the snow melts off of the mountains that surround Ohio University, perhaps there will be a new and powerful call to action against tuition increases and other excesses and inefficiencies that plague OU. Perhaps when the spring comes, OU liberals will be prepared for a new fighting season.