By Callie Watkins Liu

Abstract

This article reflects on experiences with student activism on Brandeis University campus. Fall 2015 became the beginning of an academic year marked by student activism, and was my fifth year as a doctoral student in my Phd program. I use my perspective as a critical race scholar, social movement scholar, black woman, and doctoral student during the time of the #Fordhall2015 to identify particular lessons and patterns with respect to student activism. My reflection suggests that institutional amnesia and narrative reconstruction are structural strategies to resist social change and maintain power in the face of social protest.  I further identify potential approaches to resist these structural strategies.