Opinion: Grinnellians need to show the f**k up

America, the “land of the free,” is hurtling towards an authoritarian, fascist state run by far-right politicians and billionaire oligarchs. The supposed bastions of free speech and thought, universities, are proving themselves to be complicit in these efforts. As seen at countless schools across the country, university administrators are refusing to stand up to the Trump administration.

Attacks upon immigrants, people of color, trans people and left-wing activists are becoming ever-present. In the past three weeks, we’ve seen the detention of pro-Palestine organizer Mahmoud Khalil and the firing of union organizer and president Grant Miner, both students and activists at Columbia University. This is just the start of what will certainly be a government push to stifle freedom of speech and critique of the Trump administration.

These trends, however, did not start suddenly. They have been a part of a decades-long push to end student autonomy and activism. Grinnell College, despite its progressive reputation, has not been immune to this. At Grinnell, the administration has repeatedly demonstrated that it will not protect student rights when they conflict with the institution’s bottom line.

We have seen a steady assault on student self-governance. In 2023, over $100,000 from the student activities budget was transferred to the administration, stripping student organizations of financial control. The following year, the College made meal plans mandatory for all students and eliminated off-campus living for anyone who was not a fourth year. Key student leadership roles, such as the All-Campus Events Chair, have been erased.

These decisions reflect a broader trend of centralizing power and eroding student agency at Grinnell. This does not even begin to touch on the administration’s harmful labor practices and continued union-busting efforts — for example, in 2018, the College attempted to use the Trump administration to overturn the rights of all students in the country to unionize, saying that unionization would “result in the creation of an underclass of serfs.”

However, Grinnellians have a long history of resistance and organizing. The Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers (UGSDW) is a prime example of solidarity in action. What began in 2016 as a small group of dining hall workers questioning their conditions has evolved into a campus-wide movement for student labor rights. This history should serve as a framework for how we organize and fight back today. As the former co-presidents of UGSDW, we have spent countless hours organizing for undergraduate workers at Grinnell College. The following editorial serves as a call to action.

At its core, this struggle is about how we define ourselves. A student is an individual — they show up for class, do their homework and nothing more. Grinnellians, however, are part of a collective, united by our shared experience of living, learning and growing in the prairie. We must view ourselves as Grinnellians, not just students. Grinnellians question the scripts they have been given. They scheme and strategize with one another for the collective good. And most importantly, Grinnelians show the f**k up.

However, we must be careful to avoid the pitfalls of nostalgia for “old Grinnell,” because Grinnell has often not been a safe place for many students. Even in the last few years, we’ve seen racist, homophobic, transphobic and xenophobic actions harm many Grinnellians. Our past culture, in some ways, has excused or even propagated these actions. So, instead of wishing for what Grinnell used to be pre-COVID, we should be shaping our campus culture for the present. Culture is not set in stone. It is shaped by the collective. In other words, we cannot go back to “old Grinnell,” but we can create a future for a better Grinnell.

How exactly can we build that future? Unsurprisingly, we believe the answer is solidarity. Solidarity is more than a slogan — it is an active, ongoing commitment to mutual care, collective action and resistance against systems that seek to divide and weaken us. We have the power to construct a different campus culture, a different reality for current and future Grinnellians. We must build networks of support that sustain each other in the face of institutional indifference.  We must collectively work to dismantle harmful systems that erode institutions of higher education as spaces for critical thought and democratic participation, work to provide for one another’s immediate needs and ultimately construct a campus community that is built on the values of mutual care, active participation and solidarity. 

We need to show the f**k up. Showing up means caring about each other in the short and long term. It means when your friend invites you to a presentation on their MAP on something you don’t really care about, you show up for your friend. It also means that when forces both near and far threaten the rights of our fellow Grinnellians, we don’t meet that threat with passive acceptance, posting on YikYak or complaining to our friends in D-hall. We must respond with thoughtful, forceful and consistent collective action.

Both of us are guilty of not caring sometimes, but when the stakes are so high, we cannot let indifference and passivity win. We understand people have valid criticisms about our past activism, and we welcome debate, but that does not change the fact that our work has and continues to come from a place of deep care for our fellow Grinnellians. We need to have kindness for each other and direct our anger toward the institutions that threaten us.

In sum, show up to that Harris, join a club, organize a protest and most of all, show up for each other and the things that matter to us.

We end with a quote from Octavia Butler: “There is no single answer that will solve our future problems. There’s no magic bullet. Instead, there are thousands of answers at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.”

Choose to be a part of that answer. Be a Grinnellian.

This editorial is reflective of the personal opinions of the authors and in no way reflects the official position of the Union of Grinnell Student Dining Workers (UGSDW).