A protest against “community lunches” planned by 5th Form student leaders since late March enjoyed mixed success on Tuesday during conference period.
As protest leaders Ben Pasquale ’08 and Alex Hillbrand ’08 began to gather their forces in front of Hillhouse it appeared as though the march would experience a fairly weak turnout of around 60 students. Rather than joining in the protest, most students chose to either take pictures or stand from a distance and act as observers. The small group would not be quieted, however, rallying to cries of “freedom” and “down with sit-down.”
Walking down to Archbold lawn in front of the office of Headmaster Edward J. Shanahan, the movement began to pick up steam. Eventually the group swelled to a number that has been estimated by observers to be somewhere between 100 to 125 students, although it seemed to be closer to of the lower of the two numbers.
Once they had arrived, both Hillbrand and Pasquale addressed the excited audience. Alex proclaimed, “We are gathered to free ourselves from the manacles of forced feeding and to loosen the arduous chains of oppression that bind us to sit-down lunch.” Such fiery rhetoric got the point across and ignited the crowd.
Taking the megaphone from Hillbrand, Pascale spoke out against the lunches. He stated that “Forcing our student body…into ackward interactions over decidedly questionable food is NOT fostering community.” At one point the crowd even broke out into song, singing the civil rights anthem “We shall overcome.”
While the 5th form student council representatives were still making their speeches, the Headmaster stepped out from the audience to join the crowd. As they engaged in shrill cries in opposition of the lunches he himself instated, Mr. Shanahan appeared pleased with the protest. Before he could speak, however, the protestors serenaded him with one more cry of “What do we want? No sit down lunches! When do we want it? Now!”
5th former Dan Cannata even alluded to certain foods that are missing during community lunches, exclaiming “I love pizza!”
Headmaster Shanahan began not by addressing sit-down lunches, but rather by speaking about Choate students’ recent effort to the petition the school to divest from Darfur. He did so in an apparent attempt to appease the crowd before delivering some unwanted news. He was pleased with the fact that the students are taking initiative, stating, “I think doing something…about what you care about at this school and around the world is a very very important thing.” He continued to explain that “I will not agree with everything about which you demonstrate.” In a swipe at the cause of the protestors, he offered to eliminate chairs so that students no longer have to sit down.
While he informed the crowd that a group of faculty members has been put together to evaluate the lunches, they will not go away altogether. “Sit-down lunches represent an opportunity a couple times a week to take no more than 30-35 minutes…to have the chance to meet somebody whom we otherwise would not meet, and perhaps get to know them a little better.” He continued to reaffirm his support of the lunches, “I am interested in preserving that opportunity to connect us more as a community.”
Students did not seem to think that the protest had much of an affect. Nathaniel More ’08 explained that “I think they are just going to continue exactly how they were.”
Matt Millman ’09 proclaimed the event “a completely failed experiment.”
Others had more insight into the results of the protest. Senior Darryl Wells thought that “the protest was kind of weak, actually. If they really wanted to make an everlasting impression they would have done something a little more drastic.” He explained that “any protest takes unified radical action.” He lamented that “we’re kind of in a passive age anyway.”
Alex Hillbrand, one of the organizers of the event, was disappointed only with how the administration treated the student protest. “I think that the student support was phenomenal and everything else was phenomenal, however, Mr. Shanahan really took the attention from what we were trying to talk about,” he explained. “He totally diverted interest. Darfur is not the issue we’re protesting. I think that he disregarded our protest honestly.”
When asked whether more resistance should be expected, Hillbrand stated that “the organizers of this didn’t want to [break the rules at Choate] per say, but now that Shanahan has disregarded us we’re going start taking initiatives during the lunches, involving perhaps if we eat, if we talk, or if we go at all.”
