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As Gen-Z comes of age, they’re finding their voice in the “Movement of Movements,” and Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Minnesota is helping them do just that. 

By Sommer Wagen, Posted April 10, 2024

Merlin Van Alstine took on the role as “The Liberal” in high school. Now a senior in college – with dyed green hair, fingerless gloves with finger and hand bone decals, several buttons with  activist slogans attached to their backpack and work boots – their appearance aligns with that  stereotype. They're soft-spoken, and they chuckle and grin sheepishly in conversation, yet they  maintain a quiet power that comes alive when they’re organizing. 

Van Alstine can be found at protests with a neon yellow high visibility vest shining against their  all-black attire along with a group of their similarly dressed peers. As a member of the University  of Minnesota – Twin Cities chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), they often take  on the role of protest marshal, making sure people can protest safely without disturbance from  outsiders. They walk alongside the march with a steely solemnity that comes from deep pride in  what they’re doing. 

“I just don't think people should be treated [badly],” Van Alstine said of their persona. 

Van Alstine joined SDS at the very beginning of their college career in Fall 2020. They had  encountered the group that summer when they traveled to Minneapolis from their hometown of  Bloomington to protest the murder of George Floyd. Despite being only 15 minutes south of the  Twin Cities, they didn’t get many opportunities to organize. 

“I’d hear about protests from the news, but it wasn’t something that was feasible for me to  engage in,” they said. “So I just started going to meetings and things because I was like, ‘I have  to get in on this.’ And I haven’t stopped.” 

SDS (aka “New SDS” to distinguish itself from its predecessor) is a national student activist  organization with over 40 chapters at universities across the United States. The group’s origins  trace back to the 1960s when the original SDS was heavily involved in the Civil Rights  Movement and gained notoriety for national protests against the Vietnam War. By the time the  War was winding down, the original SDS had split into several factions and ultimately dissolved  in 1974.

High school and college students revived SDS in 2006, solidifying its status as an organization  by and for young people. Members of the day were motivated to organize by the key events of 9/11, the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina. These days, members organize around police  accountability, reproductive justice, protecting ethnic studies programs and most recently  Palestinian liberation. 

Approximately 20 people make up Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. That figure is a mere three ten-thousandths of a percent of the  University's enrollment as of the Fall 2023 semester. Still, their protests draw crowds in the  hundreds and previous resolutions have received overwhelming support from the University  community, the most recent of which being a question on the 2024 campus election ballot asking  whether the University should divest from Israeli corporations funding the genocide of  Palestinians. 

As Generation Z – defined as those born between 1997 and 2012, or people ages 11-26 – comes  of age, SDS members are becoming increasingly aware of their place in the world and their  power to shape its future. What helps SDS maintain their presence on campus is a steadfast  dedication to making sure their 50,000 peers know they have a voice and how to use it. 

El pueblo unido … 

SDS at the University of Minnesota meets in a windowless, fluorescent-lit room tucked away on  the third floor of Nicholson Hall, an ironic meeting place for a group with such a notorious  history and presence. Start times of 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday evenings means having to trek to  campus through the dreary darkness and cold of winter. 

Still, the group fills in every desk arranged in a circle taking up the breadth of the room and  people roll to the side to let those coming in late fill in. People carry conversations with their  neighbors and across the room and greet newcomers as they arrive. There’s a concentrated  youthful camaraderie that energizes the stale fluorescence of that windowless room. 

The young people in SDS embody the diversity of those raised in the digital age, where  information and community combined on the Internet to encourage defiance against socially  accepted ways of being. “We have a joke that everybody in SDS is gay or trans,” Van Alstine told  me. It’s fitting, considering the existence of LGBTQ+ people has always been politicized and it took the Stonewall Uprising to kickstart their liberation movement.

The founders of the original SDS were mostly white, upper class men, and persistent misogyny  within the group partially contributed to the emergence of the women’s liberation movement and  the group’s demise. Today, space is made at the beginning of every meeting for people to  introduce themselves with their pronouns and there’s a solid contingent of members who are  women, transgender and nonbinary people. 

As much as the composition of SDS has evolved over the years, what’s remained true is that  young people are the ones spearheading movements of social change. 

“A lot of young people struggle with finding their voices and activism is an empowering way to  step into their [voices] and something to build their [identities] around,” said Sasmit Rahman, a  junior at the University who has been an SDS-er throughout college. 

Rahman, Van Alstine and fellow member Mira Altobell-Resendez all joined SDS because they  felt called to be a part of something bigger, to take concrete action against the injustices they’ve  witnessed. Gen-Z as a whole is markedly civically engaged in terms of both mobilization and  voter turnout. It’s a characteristic that stems from witnessing a deluge of acute trauma – the  Great Recession, school shootings, climate change, a global pandemic – and turning those  experiences into action, just like the original members of SDS did. 

“Gen-Z had two options,” said John Della Volpe, a political activism scholar and director of  polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. “One [was] to flee and the other was  to lean in and fight and try to change the system.” 

The kids in SDS are friendly and lighthearted but also know how to organize and get things done.  Space is made for everyone to share their thoughts on each topic, an attitude stemming from an  aversion to hierarchy in favor of direct participation in decision making. Some still have more  ideas than others, but nothing moves forward unless everyone agrees. 

It’s not surprising that such a small group is so tightly knit, but therein lies the group’s strength.  SDS depends on low membership turnover to maintain a consistent presence and to help new  members in furthering their work. Many members have participated for their entire college  careers, if not longer. 

Altobell-Resendez graduated from the University in three years and now works at the Disability  Resource Center on campus. They’re still an active member of SDS.

“I stick around because the point of SDS is to build the broader student movement,” they said. “I  don’t mind sticking around until I feel like the torch is ready to be passed off to other people who  can take the lead…instead of starting from ground zero every few years.” 

Altobell-Resendez also noted their passion for the work they do and a love for the people they’ve  met through SDS both locally and nationally as factors that keep them involved. 

“The people I’ve known in SDS, especially those I’ve known for a while now, have all ended up  becoming my best friends,” they said. 

The commitment SDS members have to each other as well as their common causes extends  beyond day-to-day organizing. In March, five students at the University of South Florida were  arrested for protesting Gov. Ron DeSantis’ attacks on ethnic and gender studies at state  universities. Known as the Tampa 5, SDS chapters around the country rallied and raised funds to  post their bail and fund a speaking tour for the students. In Dec. 2023, all charges against the  Tampa 5 were dropped. 

Rahman said that knowing a large national community has their back is one of the most  meaningful parts of being in SDS. 

“If I were to go out and get arrested tomorrow, there would be hundreds if not thousands of  people screaming until I got out,” they said. 

Stand Up, Fight Back 

Under a crisp, clear blue sky one Saturday in November, over a hundred students and community  members filled the driveway of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs on the University of  Minnesota’s West Bank campus. The red, black, green and white of a Palestinian flag unfurled  proudly even in the gentle breeze. Below it was a flag displaying the crimson and white logo of  SDS. 

“BIDEN, BIDEN, YOU CAN’T HIDE!” a young woman yelled into a microphone. Her name  was Emily and she was emceeing that day’s protest calling upon the University of Minnesota to  divest from its Israeli investments in the wake of its siege of Gaza which has left over 30,000  Palestinians dead as of March 25, 2024.

The crowd repeated back the phrase in unison. Emily’s voice cracked as if it could barely contain  her desperation and anger. “WE CHARGE YOU WITH GENOCIDE!” 

Rahman was there, too, and led chants as the protest marched down South Washington Avenue  towards Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s office. They weren’t supposed to be leading chants that day and  Emily, one of SDS’s new members, wasn’t supposed to emcee. They both took on the roles at the  last minute. 

“It’s very much so, like, ‘Here’s what needs to happen. Who wants to do it?’” Rahman explained. 

Presently, the fight for Palestinian liberation has defined SDS’s activism since the siege of Gaza  began, as well as that of college groups across the country. The group Students for Justice in  Palestine, whose UMN chapter is heavily involved with SDS, has been banned at multiple schools for organizing protests that some have claimed to be antisemitic. 

It’s during these high intensity periods that Van Alstine finds themself most dedicated to their  work with SDS. 

“I’ll go to class and it’ll be, like, what I’m thinking about,” they said. 

SDS seemingly comes out of the woodwork during high energy periods, but lack of action  doesn’t sway its members from the cause. Rahman has come to terms with the fact that  movements naturally lose interest as a function of the contemporary news cycle, but that doesn’t  make the work less important. 

“In those low energy moments we’re still out there. We’re holding protests even when it’s  snowing, it’s dark out at 3 p.m., it’s, like, negative five degrees, even when it’s just us,” they  said. 

At the end of the protest that clear November day, all of the SDS members posed for a picture,  beaming at the camera in their high visibility vests. They wore their dissent like badges of honor. 

Even the hundreds of people who weren’t a part of SDS who marched with them down  Washington Avenue did so with concentrated energy and the knowledge that even if nothing tangible came of their protest, that their voices were still being heard.

“There’s this stereotype of the liberal college student that’s going to be really mad for, like, four  years, then graduates and becomes conservative or whatever, and that’s not true,” Rahman said.  “A lot of people who are in SDS and who join the movement stay in the movement.” 

Joining SDS requires a lot more than joining the math club – i.e. writing statements and  speeches, interrupting Board of Regents meetings, handing out flyers in blizzards and releasing  banners at the Mall of America during Black Friday – but those that do join say they are more  than up for the challenge, spurred by the realization that the state of the world around them is far  from fixed in its disorder. 

“Part of growing up and a part of becoming an adult is realizing you can kind of do crazy shit,” Van Alstine said. “The student movement is colloquially known as the movement of movements.  Young people in general have always been involved in movements of change and the New SDS  has kind of grown out of that.” 

On Dec. 10, Van Alstine spoke at the MN Anti-War Committee’s Human Rights Day protest  dedicated to Palestinian liberation. Standing in a freshly snow-covered neighborhood, their white  and black keffiyeh around their neck and high-vis vest decorating their shoulders, in front of  thousands of people from across the Twin Cities, their usual solemnity transformed into a fiery  rallying cry as they spoke about the ongoing student struggle for change. 

“Every week I hear about students from across the country facing political repression and every  single time these amazing students never back down!” they said to impassioned cheers. “They  may try to kick us off our campuses, suspend us and put us in jail, but we will never back down  because when we fight we win!” 

“When we fight we win!” they shouted again. The crowd roared once more. “When we fight we  win!” 

Updated to include 2024 Campus Election, Tampa 5, and War on Gaza information on March  26, 2024.