BROOKLYN COLLEGE–On Oct. 15, the Brooklyn College Student Union (BCSU) held a panel to teach students about the Henderson Rules, the “code of conduct” for students on campus during protests, as well as to open a conversation about their efficacy for modern student protests.
The event featured two CUNY School of Law [CUNY Law] students who are members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), explaining what the Henderson Rules were and how students can protect themselves.
2nd year CUNY Law student, Owen Schalk, and 3rd year student, Marah Birnbaum, presented a slideshow explaining the Henderson Rules’ origins, which stemmed from a massive student protest in the spring of 1969 across various CUNY campuses.
“There was a very successful mass movement of students who were mobilized around these key demands that brought the university to a halt, and then actualized progressive social change,” said Schalk. “In response to the student protest, there’s this series of 200 to 300-page documents that describe the situation that took place across campuses in New York City (NYC), and then later proposes solutions based off of this, which later becomes the Henderson Rules.”
