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George, It is interesting to see this debate resurface almost exactly a year after seventeen UVA students staged a sit-in to demand a living wage for University employees. That protest also ended in a (rather dramatic) series of arrests, and similar arguments as to the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of civil disobedience, were made then as now. The real issue at hand, I think, is why a group of citizens would feel so frustrated with normal means of civic participation as to engage in this sort of protest. Staging a sit-in was not the first option for the UVA Living Wage Campaign--they began with letter writing, phone calls, petitions, student referenda, you name it--and I would hazard a guess that those constituents in Goode’s office last week have already engaged in less “aggressive and argumentative” (to borrow Ms. Londeree’s phrase) forms of democratic protest such as phone calls and letters, to say nothing of voting against Mr. Goode last November. Mr. Leighty’s point
that sit-ins can chill the prospect of compromise is compelling, but we
must recognize that individuals usually turn to such drastic measures after
they have exhausted other avenues for discourse and after the powers-that-be
have demonstrated an unwillingness to compromise, or even dialogue, about
the issue at hand. Perhaps rather than condemning those obdurate protestors,
we ought to question why those they are protesting against, be it the UVA
administration or Virgil Goode, are so unwilling to engage in democratic
discussion.
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