Students Led a 1960s Free Speech Movement: Colleges Are Grappling with Its Legacy | Retro Report

Activists at the University of California, Berkeley, inspired by their work with civil rights leaders, started a movement in the 1960s to expand students’ right to free speech. For several years, the Berkeley administration had restricted political advocacy on campus amid rising Cold War fears about communist infiltration of the nation’s universities. The student activists, an ideologically diverse group that included some campus conservatives, challenged Berkeley’s longstanding speech policies, facing arrest in the process. The success of their movement set the stage for student protests against the war in Vietnam and apartheid in South Africa.

This video was made with support from The WNET Group’s reporting initiative Exploring Hate.