On Sept. 13, a large crowd gathered at Downtown Framingham Common, wearing pink T-shirts tagged #FreeHer and printed with a QR code linking to the campaign. People carry large banners with slogans such as “No New Women’s Prison.” This was the #FreeHer anticarceral march, part of a national campaign working to raise awareness and shift public opinion toward ending the incarceration of women and girls and closing women’s jails and prisons.
That day, the march moved from Framingham Common to the women’s prison: MCI-Framingham. Marchers filled one side of the lane, chanting in unison. At the prison gates, people’s voices grew louder, carrying passion, longing, pain and anger. The prison police showed up, standing silently on the slope in front, while the facility itself was quiet and the women inside were invisible in the backlit rooms. However, in one of the cells, a single purple light flickered — an unspoken but firm echo. After the march, the organizers wrote in emails that they received messages of appreciation and hope from women inside who felt love and solidarity.
Among the marchers were a number of Wellesley students and one professor. Students had learned about the event through emails from two faculty members teaching courses on political action and abolition. Some students joined this march for the first time, while others were returning participants. Either way, these students brought energy and played an active role in carrying the march forward.
As college students, we move between the classroom, the campus, and wider society, searching for ways to make meaningful political impacts. Learning theories, debating ideas and drawing insights from past civil rights movements keeps students in the classroom, confined to discussion, an important yet limited way to express dissent. It’s a phenomenon that leads many students to seek opportunities to transform learning into practice.
As for on-campus political engagement, Wellesley has a history of active protest; however, administrative pressure and stricter policies across U.S. universities reduced the space for action. From the 2023 protests for transgender and nonbinary students, the 2024 demonstrations during the Hillary Rodham Clinton Center (HRCC) summit, to the April 2025 faculty strike which many students joined to put pressure on administration, Wellesley students consistently engage in building a community they identify with through protest.
However, administrative pressure is tangible, too. During the 2024 HRCC protest, four students who disrupted the panels inside the event were removed and charged with “disorderly conduct and/or failure to comply with administration.” Campus policies on Demonstrations and Free Expression clearly recognize students’ rights to demonstrate while also requiring prior notification and reserving the college’s right to intervene if safety, others’ right to speech or student learning is at risk — for example, blocking access to campus facilities or activities or impeding traffic. In addition, threats from the Trump administration that target “far-left colleges and students” also caused students’ increasing sense of insecurity regarding on-campus protests, especially ones related to the Palestine-Israel conflict. Once a relatively “bubble-like” zone for political expression, the campus now faces constraints as state enforcement, like police and ICE, can intrude, galvanized by newly expanded powers.
Looking to the broader realities off campus, students encounter both more opportunities for civic engagement and larger risks and organizational challenges. As college students, there are numerous issues we might not even know about because our personal experience and classroom knowledge are still far more limited than the realities of the larger world. “Going on the street” offers a chance to hear the pain, needs and goals of organizers and reveals the limits of our understanding by allowing us to confront the fact that others’ lived realities can be very different from our own. Such moments call for humility and deeper attention to structural forms of violence that we might not yet fully grasp.
After acknowledging issues, college students also have the opportunity to learn hands-on organizing skills. As active participants, students begin to cultivate awareness of the forms of social publicizing that are most effective for engaging a larger audience. During gatherings and marches, they learn practical skills: when to chant, when to take breaks to prevent fatigue and how to convey ideas quickly to passing strangers. All of these lessons are best learned through direct engagement on the scene.
Still, the risks of off-campus political engagement must be acknowledged. Since the gatherings are out of school, they are free from campus restrictions but also lack its protections. With on-campus protests facing growing limitations, students participating in off-campus demonstrations encounter even more risk and uncertainty. There is a tacit consensus that it is not safe for international or undocumented students to join an off-campus protest about sensitive issues such as pro-Palestine actions and fighting back against ICE. Even peaceful marches now can feel unsafe for participants without U.S. citizenship. This creates a chilling effect, leading students to self-confine and feel less motivated to join. In the process of seeking political engagement, we also come to realize the invisible yet rigid boundaries that dictate who can speak and what can be said.
Whether on- or off-campus, students have always been a crucial force in political engagement. As college students, we should be aware of the issues both in our close surroundings and in the broader community.
For professors, sharing political engagement opportunities with the broader student body, not just those enrolled in related courses, might amplify impact. After all, sometimes students simply need a channel to become aware of such opportunities.
Learning actively in classes, recognizing problems outside the classroom, acknowledging the risks that might follow and then stepping out to participate in a way that each student can afford reflects a mature approach to civic participation. Ultimately, in doing so, we can all be the actors who fight for the world we want to live in.
Contact the editors responsible for this article: Caitlin Donovan, Avery Finley
