ABSTRACT
The pepper-spraying of students at UC Davis is just one example of the police violence that students have long faced on American college and university campuses, and it reveals how police violence itself has sparked revolts on campuses across the United States. In November 2011, a photo of a police officer pepper-spraying seated student protesters at the University of California, Davis made headlines around the globe. Robert Haas, a Berkeley professor who sustained injuries during the demonstration, explained his shock at the intensity and violence of the police response to a peaceful protest. Students had long been organizing on university campuses, and the student movements of the 1960s drew upon a legacy of those protests while also marking a distinctive phase as the influence of youth protests in national politics and culture grew. The Nixon campaign capitalized on negative public perceptions of the student movements, promising to crack down on unruly protesters if elected.
