Youth vote in the news 5/10
Youth vote in the news 5/10
More on the campus chaos, a letter from Jewish students at Columbia, Trump PAC joins TikTok, and a poll showing conflict in the Middle East is not college students' top concern.
With more college graduations (and the protests surrounding them) on the horizon, I want to re-share my latest piece for Teen Vogue: College Students Reflect on Graduation Amid Massive Campus Protests.
For the piece, I spoke with college seniors across the country (some in the encampments and their classmates) who described feeling tense, frustrated, and "numb" amid campus chaos. This is the same senior class that graduated high school amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and while the students note that these two world events are not the same, both have disrupted their quintessential senior year experiences.
"It's obviously a crazy time to be graduating, but I think that's just kind of what we've come to expect as Gen Z folks," Jonah at UC Berkeley told me. He's joined the encampment there, which has grown to at least 150 tents. "I'm a history major and I turned in my senior thesis on Friday from my tent," he said.Â
"The general vibe of campus has been super tense lately. It's really disheartening to walk to class and see your classmates, peers, friends, getting maced, getting arrested, being thrown on the ground," said Devon at University of Texas at Austin. He hasn't participated in the protests.
"I had an online commencement ceremony when I graduated high school in 2020. Last week, many of my classes were moved online or canceled. I'm not jaded by this after a whole year of online classes, and a semester's worth of social distancing and masking," said Eli at University of Southern California, which canceled its main stage graduation altogether, citing safety concerns.
"In high school, my graduation didn't really matter. I have vivid memories of it, but I just didn't feel like it was that big of a deal and kind of similarly now, my parents are so excited to come up for graduation, but it just feels like my life is absorbed by the news," said Liza at Indiana University. She is Jewish and has participated in counter protests for Israel. "I also feel like it's causing a lot of division... I want to feel united with my senior class and that's just not how I feel at all."
I also want to share this letter from Jewish students at Columbia.
We know that Gen Z lacks trust in traditional US institutions and power structures. This chaos is only further contributing to a sense of skepticism and frustration from young people, who feel the "adults in the room" continue to fumble with each world crisis that affects their generation.Â
Beyond that, here are more of this week’s youth vote headlines.
Youth vote in the news 05/10
Trump Super PAC Joins TikTok in 2024 Push for Younger Voters, Akayla Gardner for Bloomberg, 05/08
Exclusive poll: Most college students shrug at nationwide protests, Sareen Habeshian for Axios, 05/07
Biden brags about his environmental record to win young voters, but most have no idea what he's done to fight climate change, John L. Dorman for Business Insider, 05/07
Abortion bans drive away up to half of young talent, new CNBC/Generation Lab youth survey finds, Jason Gewirtz for CNBC, 05/07
Twitch streamers become go-to news source for campus protest coverage, Taylor Lorenz for The Washington Post, 05/05
Politics Without Trump? His Youngest Fans Barely Remember It., Charles Homans for The New York Times, 05/04