ERIC Number: EJ1454699
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0018-2680
EISSN: EISSN-1748-5959
Available Date: N/A
"Isn't It Terrible That All These Students Are Voting?": Student Suffrage in College Towns
History of Education Quarterly, v64 n3 p319-345 2024
The 1971 passage of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution was a significant step in advancing voting rights that offered a new route for young people to participate in public life. While met with enthusiasm in many quarters, the question of where a substantial segment of the youth vote--college students--would cast their ballots was a concern even before the amendment's ratification. After ratification, it became a serious point of conflict, with opponents to college-town voting arguing that students should be forced to vote where their parents lived. In numerous towns these arguments turned to efforts to deny or complicate registration and voting, intimidate students, or gerrymander to reduce students' influence. At times, these efforts were explicitly aimed at Black students. This article examines these efforts to prevent students from voting in their college towns in the 1970s, demonstrating that they could serve the strategy of disenfranchising the newly franchised.
Descriptors: Voting, Civil Rights, College Students, Racism, United States History, State Legislation, African American Students, Activism, Political Issues, Court Litigation
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A