062 student strike
"Students and pupils of all types of schools, from elementary schools to universities, may as a means of protest or resistance temporarily refuse to attend classes. Or they may refuse to cooperate in a related way—by boycotting only some, not all, lectures, for example49; or students may attend classes but refuse to pay attention, as was done at the University of Madrid in 1965 as part of the campaign for an independent student union.50 Possible variations are legion. It is more usual, however, for all classes to be boycotted. (Student strikes are also called school boycotts or class boycotts.)"...
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High scoring campaigns using this method
Historical cases from the Nonviolent Action Database that used this method
Malians defeat dictator, gain free election (March Revolution), 1991
General Moussa Traoré obtained power in Mali in 1968 when he led a military coup d’etat that overthrew the left-leaning nationalist government that had ruled since 1960. Opposition towards Traoré grew during the 1980s, but didn’t fully emerge until t...
African Americans campaign for voting rights in Selma, Alabama, USA, 1965
Even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, most African Americans in the southern United States were still unable to vote because of registration requirements such as literacy tests and slow registration processes. In Selma, Alabama the ...
Czechoslovakians campaign for democracy (Velvet Revolution), 1989
By the end of World War II, the Soviet Union had invaded and taken over much of Czechoslovakia. The Communist Party officially came to power in February 1948, and under its rule dissidents faced persecution by secret police, censorship was enforced, ...
El Salvadorans bring down a dictator, 1944
In 1938, El Salvadoran president General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez proposed changing the country’s constitution so that he could continue holding his position beyond the end of his second term. When Martínez came to power in the early 1930s as a...
Peace activists pledge resistance against U.S. military intervention in Central America, 1984-1990
In the early 1980s, it was no secret that United States president Ronald Reagan would use any means necessary to end or prevent the influence of Communism and the Soviet Union around the globe. The two countries had been engaged in a bitter ideologic...
Columbia University students win divestment from apartheid South Africa, United States, 1985
On April 4, 1985, seven students at Columbia University, members of the Coalition for a Free South Africa (CFSA), chained closed the doors to Columbia’s administrative building, Hamilton Hall, and sat on the steps, blockading the entrance. They were ...
Quebec students defeat tuition hikes and fight for free education, 2010-2012
In February of 2010, Quebec Finance Minister Raymond Bachand called for what he deemed a "cultural revolution" to change the way the Quebecois populace used public services, including a tuition fee hike for post-secondary education.\n\nThe first majo...
Colombians overthrow dictator, 1957
The strikes and demonstrations that deposed President Gustavo Rojas Pinilla of Colombia were planned somewhat day to day and began as reactionary actions in response to Rojas’s attempts to hold power indefinitely. The opposition to Rojas had a wide b...
Serbians overthrow Milosevic (Bulldozer Revolution), 2000
During his first seven years as president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic led the country into several wars with Croatia and Bosnia and isolated it internationally. While he spent money on the country’s secret police and military, unemployment reached ...
Low scoring campaigns using this method
Historical cases from the Nonviolent Action Database that used this method
Montgomery, Alabama students sit-in for U.S. Civil Rights, 1960
The Montgomery, Alabama sit-ins took place during the era of Jim Crow laws in the southern United States. The first of the Supreme Court rulings against these laws – which are symbolized by the phrase “Separate but Equal” – took place in 1954, in the...
Hong Kong citizens demand democratic safeguards for upcoming election (Umbrella Movement), 2014
Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, has spent the last several centuries under the control of alternating powers. In 1942, Britain began its occupation of Hong Kong, following the First Opium War and the Treaty of Nanking. Japan occu...
Baton Rouge students sit-in for U.S. civil rights (Southern University 16), 1960
Throughout most of the U.S. civil rights campaigns of the 1950s, Baton Rouge, Louisiana remained quiet. The city of “broad avenues and tree-lined streets” (Sinclair 1998) remained fully segregated despite movements towards desegregation in neighborin...
Chicago students, teachers protest school closings, 2013
21 March 2013 Chicago Public School officials announced a plan to close 54 schools with the goals of reconciling a $1 billion dollar deficit, making better use of resources, and improving education. District CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and Chicago Mayor...
Mexican students protest for greater democracy, 1968
In July of 1968, as the student-led uprising of May and June in France was fading away, a new one was just beginning in Mexico City. Students inspired by the success of the movement in France saw their own opportunity to bring more open democracy to ...
Orangeburg County, South Carolina, citizens and students boycott for U.S. Civil Rights, 1955-1956
After the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, groups of whites advocating for continued segregation formed across the southern United States. The strongest and most notable were white citizens councils (WCCs), which began in Miss...
Swarthmore Afro-American Student Society fights for greater representation and support services, 1968-1969
The first attempt by an African American to enroll in Swarthmore College was 1905 when the admissions committee mistakenly admitted a light-skinned black student thinking he was white. Upon discovering his race the college withdrew its acceptance. Th...
University of Washington Student Worker Coalition strikes against cutting higher education budgets, 2010
The University of Washington Student Worker Coalition (SWC) is a group created to advocate for the rights of students who work on campus and employees of the campus. The SWC has protested against worker abuses, unfair labor practices, and most recent...
Yugoslav students occupy University of Belgrade for democracy and human rights, 1968
The League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) wanted to situate Yugoslavia in a balance between the Soviet dominated Eastern Europe and US dominated West. In order to ensure this global placement, Yugoslavians exercised an economic reform program duri...
University of California Students Oppose Tuition Hike, 2009
In the fall of 2009, the University of California Board of Regents met at UCLA to discuss and vote for a tuition hike necessary for them to deal with shrinking budget and spending cuts across the board. The Universities’ budget deficits were associat...