First-hand accounts of college protests

👋 Welcome back to the Daily Edition
Today: Finding freedom in constraints, font pairings, and why assumptions are not your friends
By Harris Sockel

Police have arrested over 800 protesters on U.S. college campuses in the last two weeks. At Columbia University, near me, students set up camp outside the library and occupied the dean’s office — the same building where antiwar activists once imprisoned the dean in 1968. Today’s protesters are demanding the university divest from Israel — though no one really knows how Columbia invests its $13.6 billion endowment.

William Spivey, who turned 18 just after the Vietnam War draft ended and lived through protests against apartheid and McCarthyism, takes the long view: “Student protests have generally been on the right side of history… One can dispute the tactics and tone of the protesters, but they were generally ahead of the curve compared to much of the nation, particularly its elected leaders.”

For an on-the-ground perspective, I want to share three stories that added some humanity and nuance to what I’ve heard in the news about these protests — they’re written by students and local residents who’ve visited demonstrations over the past week:

• Social psychologist Devon Price visits the Northwestern University Liberated Zone (an encampment outside the school’s library), where he observes, “an entire social ecosystem had sprouted in the fertile ground student activists had developed.” Protesters recently struck a deal with the university: In exchange for ending the encampment in June, NU will fund Palestinian students and visiting faculty.
• Editor Sarah Lynette writes in from Cal Poly Humboldt where despite media coverage focusing on violence, she says those, like her, “who were actually present at the demonstration… can verify that it was [peaceful]… Local musicians performed a free concert, which students followed with a karaoke session.”
• A student at Ohio State, where 36 protesters were arrested, claims police violated university policy by arresting students without warning. She describes a chaotic scene of people “smashed together, in pain, having a hard time breathing,” and writes, “Hearing people plead to the police that they could not move and that they were being trapped reminds me of something and it should remind you, too… The Kent State Massacre, May 4th, 1970. The National Guard was called in to disperse the student protesters and killed four students.”

These are just a few perspectives, and I encourage you to explore relevant topic pages for more. I’ll be doing the same.

What else we’re reading

• Scott H. Young delivers seven counterintuitive rules for being a little bit happier. This one stuck with me: “Within every constraint is a choice. Every forced option contains a range of possibilities.”
• A designer at Adobe reveals the secret to pairing fonts: balance contrast and similarity. These rules apply to any design choice: When you place things that are too similar (but not the same) next to each other, it can look like a mistake. Likewise, extreme contrast feels disjointed. What you want is a single design element linking your choices together.
• Bad things happen to all of us (or will, it’s inevitable). When a Bad Thing happens, don’t try to paper over it. Don’t ignore it or seek to power through it. Accept it. Medium VP of Content Scott Lamb writes, “Acknowledging its reality… is in fact the thing The Bad Thing most wants and needs, though perversely it is also the thing that robs it of its power.”

Your daily dose of practical wisdom: about software development

Developer Claudia Minardi lists seven engineering tips for her former self. Tip No. 1, useful in software and in life: Assumptions are not your friends.

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Edited and produced by Scott Lamb, Jon Gluck, & Carly Rose Gillis

Questions, feedback, or story suggestions? Email us: tips@medium.com