Berkley Center

On my way to class this week, I noticed an addition to the walls of the Students’ Union building, a center of student activities here at the University of Sussex: student government campaign banners. I was instantly struck by how familiar the sight was, as any Georgetown student who has walked through Red Square during the annual GUSA madness has seen the patchwork quilt of multi-colored banners adorned with campaign slogans. The atmosphere on campus, including the frequent tabling and flyering by campaign teams in main campus crossroads, almost makes me feel like I’m back on the Hilltop.

One of these campaign banners caught my eye, as it reads “Vote Radek for Radekal Education”: a slogan that plays on the candidate’s last name, but also references what seems to be a fundamental tenant of this university—radical education, and a history of strong student activism.

Prior to arriving in Brighton, a city on the southeastern coast of England, I did a quick Google search of my new city and school, realizing how little I knew about my destination. Two themes became clear: Brighton is known for being extremely liberal, and the University of Sussex itself is particularly known for its “radical leftist theory” and approach to education.

Because I have no other British university experiences to compare with, it’s hard for me to define what aspects of Sussex, a large public university, are due to this “radical theory,” and what aspects are simply different from my American, private, Jesuit school, but it’s definitely clear to me that the differences are very present.

Proponents of radical education cite the role of schooling as addressing “social political and economic norms of the dominant ideology,” as well as emphasizing a strong focus on social justice, according to professor David Hicks in the textbook Education Studies: A Student’s Guide. “What is education worth,” he asks, “if it does not include discussion of moral and ethical dilemmas as one of its central concerns?” He goes on to explain that radical education theory calls for issues of inequality and injustice to be foci for students, in order to challenge dominant power structures.

In some ways, then, this doesn’t seem to be extraordinarily revolutionary to me. While the particular phrasing about dominant power structures and challenging hegemony are certainly indicators of what makes this theory radical, it’s not necessarily that far away from the idea of learning to be, morally and ethically, “men and women for others” that permeates the Jesuit mission of Georgetown, which definitely does not have a history of radical education.

My professors here have, on more than one occasion, raised issues of injustice and inequality in class discussions—just last week, from a quick skim of my notes, they facilitated conversations on media underrepresentation, art, and the subversion of power structures, and the ethics of immigration policies in the United Kingdom. However, I’m not sure this is all that unique to Sussex—similar conversations have happened in my courses at Georgetown, though perhaps with less frequency and more often concentrated in specific departments.

That being said, I’ve noticed in the last two months that the relationship between students and the university as an institution are particularly different from what I’ve experienced at Georgetown, which is where this understanding of a radical tradition seems to be most prevalent.

In 2013, Sussex students occupied university buildings for almost two months in protest of privatization of several university services, which would have threatened 235 workers’ jobs. The movement, referred to as Occupy Sussex, continues to have wave effects, as the legal battles of five students who were suspended during the protests have appeared in more than one campus newspaper headline since I’ve been here. This was perhaps one of the largest activist movements at Sussex in recent years, but in no way the only one: a quick search of the student paper’s archives brings up dozens of student protests on campus in the last few years. Historically, one of the most well-known moments in Sussex’s history was when, in 1973, 500 students physically prevented a speech by a US government advisor from taking place on campus due to his involvement in the Vietnam War. These protests, and many more, have contributed to the development of Sussex’s reputation for student radicalism and activism.

Though distinct from the education-specific theory outlined by Hicks and other supporters of reform, this apparent expectation and high visibility of intense and involved student activism is where this radicalism is most evident. It seems like every hallway is adorned with notices of protests and political performances, Coca-Cola and Nestle products are no longer sold in campus stores as a response to student activism against “unethical practices,” and all buildings offer gender-neutral bathrooms due to a student campaign in 2013.

In the last few years at Georgetown, I’ve certainly seen student activism in many forms—the satellite campus referendum and the ongoing Last Campaign for Academic reform come to mind quickly. Here at Sussex, however, student activism is bolstered by a history of success—one in which the administration, in its role carrying out this radical education, has been responsive in many cases, strengthening not only this tradition of radicalism but ensuring that it will continue going forward.