Local Newspaper: This Past Winter, 200 Students

¶ … local newspaper: "This past winter, 200 students from California State College traveled to the state capitol building to protest cuts in funding for various state college programs. The other 12,000 California State College students evidently weren't so concerned about their education; they either stayed on campus or left for winter break.

Since the group who did not protest is far more numerous, it is more representative of the state's college students than the protesters; therefore, the state legislature need not heed the appeals of the protesting students." Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. You can also discuss, what if anything would make the argument more sound and persuasive or would help to better evaluate its conclusion.

The argument 'the bigger the better' is specious when applied to car advertisements and portion helpings at fast food restaurants and is similarly inappropriate when applied to evaluating the strength of support of a protest. All the students on campus to a man and woman could support the student protesters' sentiments regarding funding at California State College. However, the students who chose to remain on campus might feel that the ears of the legislators would be deaf to their appeals.

Moreover, the other students might support the protester's stand on the issue of cuts in funding, and even the protestor's feelings regarding the issue's importance, but not necessarily the specific students and organization in charge of this particular protest. Perhaps a radical socialist or communist student group organized the protest, and students did not wish to associate themselves with the other issues advocated by the group organizing the protest.

Also, the issue at hand is cuts in various California State College programs -- merely because individuals did not join in with the protest does not mean they did or do not care about their educations in general. Perhaps the cuts for the proposed programs are relatively minor, except in the eyes of those students most affected by the cuts. But those who will be affected by the cuts -- perhaps students of minority or sociologically disadvantaged backgrounds, still deserve to have their voices acknowledged as valid.

Also, the fact that the California State College is quite vast in its numerical population, rather than a small liberal arts school of uniform socioeconomic and ethnic composition, may mean that many part-time students might be counted in the numbers of the 12, 000 strong of its population. Some of the 12,00 students may only be taking a few classes at California State College.

Full-time students and students embarking upon professional undergraduate degrees, in for instance, engineering, education, or social work, might be more adversely affected and more inclined to protest than those taking only a few subjects half-heartedly, whose future livelihoods did not depend upon the maintaining of the funding at stake in the legislature, or whose main commitments are to the office and to the home rather than the school.

Thus, 200 out of 12, 000 might not be an accurate percentile, and the 200 whom are affected might have a great deal at stake that is important for the legislature to consider.

Lastly, the timing of the protest, perhaps to coincide with the legislative vote, might have been deliberately undertaken by legislators to coincide with final exams, when many California State College students are busy studying to keep their merit scholarships, or to succeed in their work study jobs, or, if away, to earn even more money in jobs designed to finance their education. Merely because they do not have the time to protest does not mean that they do not care about their education -- in fact, far from it.

They may care so much that they may not have the luxury of the time to engage in activism -- itself a sad commentary on the educational and legislative system. How to make the quoted journalistic statement more persuasive and more rational, regarding the protest? Firstly, the journalist could have found those who disagreed with the protesters on the campus, to provide evidence that the sentiments they ascribed to the non-protesters were echoed in the actual voices of the students not at the state house.

Secondly, more information could have been provided about the protesting group.

Were the protesters simply outraged students who had banned together on this particular issue? Or were specific student leaders, with a particular and more expansive agenda than the cuts, leading the protesters? Was the group or the students leading the protest connected with another political agenda, beyond that of the cuts? What exactly were the nature of the cuts, and whom would they affect -- what was the 'profile,' in other words, of the student whom would be affected the most by the proposed cuts? Two possible ways to rewrite the paragraph might be as follows.

"The unusual sub-zero temperatures did little to deter 200 students from the Black Student Union of California State College to travel to the state capitol building to protest cuts in funding for various state college programs. One might blame the weather for the fact that the other 12,000 California State students did not also express their concern, or the fact that the nature of the cuts are largely thought to affect members of the school's minority and poorer populations.

Other students either stayed on campus or left for winter break." The conclusion that 'since the group who did not protest is far more numerous, it is more representative of the state's College students than the protesters; therefore, the state legislature need.