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BY YINGJIA WANG

In print | October 4, 2007

After a hiatus of over 30 years, Students for a Democratic Society is reclaiming its place on Swarthmore’s campus. However, the current incarnation of SDS is noticeably different from its former self.

Back in the 1960s, the Swarthmore campus housed an active chapter of the national SDS. The radical group had a strong anti-war focus that was especially keen during the Vietnam War. According to current SDS member Gwen Snyder ’08, the group eventually dissolved due to “a lack of commitment to addressing issues of race and gender.”

“I would like to see the new SDS as taking a cue to learn from that mistake. We’re not restarting the old SDS — we’re not just picking up where the old SDS left off,” Snyder said. While the old SDS focused primarily on anti-war issues, the new SDS plans to combat issues of oppression.

Although SDS did not get chartered until this semester, students began organizing the group toward the end of the last semester. According to SDS member Nat Sufrin ’11, a steering committee formed last year “drafted some points of unity and some points of action.” The steering committee was motivated by what it saw as a void at the college. “This group is forming because there is a real need to have a radical voice in every community, especially in a college community,” Sufrin said. “There should be a group that works to espouse radical views and take direct action as well as work with some other progressive groups.”

Members agree that the radical nature of SDS is a departure from other groups on campus. “SDS is hoping to be able to express more radical viewpoints and at the same time make sure that the word ‘radical’ is not associated with violence or action without thought, or any of the other negative connotations that the word radical may have,” SDS member Val Clark ’11 said.

“We’ve talked a lot about how we want to be well organized, have good strategy and have a good thought process. We’re really willing to take risks and to have the views that we have and to express them openly, but not in a way that is going to jeopardize other people.”

At the moment, SDS is still working to get on its feet. Nevertheless, it has already shown its presence around campus by supporting the Jena 6 rally and helping the College Democrats with their chalkings in front of Sharples.

Besides championing its own views, SDS also strives to serve as a support group for various other organizations on campus.

“One of our goals is to be not only an ally, but a really reliable ally for groups on campus,” Clark said. SDS has seen significant interest from students, and especially from first-years, some of whom have already undertaken leadership roles in the group. The group’s attraction to members stems from three main points, the first being its emphasis on the importance of every member in the group. “One of the principles of our chapter of SDS is that we don’t really want a steering committee,” Sufrin said. “Everyone has a say about what’s going on.”

The group’s radical beliefs and the diverse opinions held by its individual members also contribute to its popularity.

“I knew about SDS in the ’60s, and I know the ’60s get looked down upon just for being extreme in many ways,” Sufrin said.

“But I really think [the ’60s were] a heyday of activism … Now in the year 2007, there is such an opportunity to come back to that radical activism and to restructure SDS,” Sufrin said. “Swarthmore Progressive Action Coalition held a meeting for all the progressive groups on campus, and I asked them, ‘Are there radical groups on campus?’ and they pointed me right to SDS.”

Clark values SDS because the group intends to share its viewpoints with the broader activist community. “I think that it’s really important to escape that high school mentality of holding a viewpoint and joining a club with members who share that viewpoint and having that be enough,” Clark said. “People need to be proactive and share their views on a broader scale. That’s really important to SDS — not just having a group of people that believe X, Y and Z, and sympathize with each other.”

Swarthmore’s SDS is also in contact with its partner groups at neighboring schools, Haverford College and Bryn Mawr College.

The leaders of Haverford’s Students Toward a New Democracy and Bryn Mawr’s SDS are on the Swarthmore SDS’s listserv, opening doors to future collaboration. “As students, our lives are very busy, and by working together we hope to be able to drastically increase the amount of work that we are able to do,” said a senior Haverford student and STAND member Rob Korobkin in an e-mail.

Bryn Mawr senior and SDS member Dina Mazina, also believes SDS will open students’ eyes to a world and future beyond college.

“I think the revival of Swat SDS, and SDS in general, says something very interesting about the current state of our society,” Mazina said in an e-mail. “I’m glad to see a group at Swarthmore, as well as here at Bryn Mawr, that has a national affiliation. I hope it helps all of us get out of our respective bubbles.”

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