In the rush to document history, students, faculty, and staff clamored for there to be oral histories capturing this moment in Columbia’s history.

How will student protest and University reactions be archived, preserved, memorialized, and used/misused for varied agendas and purposes?

In consulting with oral history collection donors, interviewing narrators, designing oral history projects large and small, the ethics of this work and its attendant risks are again in sharp relief since the start of the student protest encampments on Columbia’s campus and now worldwide.

First and foremost, there should be an ethical commitment on the part of those creating such projects and archiving them to the safety and well-being of students as the ones creating history. Whether actively protesting or caught up in the securitization of their University, which includes their living quarters, students certainly have stories to tell about this time. However, these young people have also seen unprecedented brutality and disrespect for their personhood and their ideals. As I remind students in my oral history courses and as oral history best practices cautions: oral historians are not therapists nor are we mental health professionals. There are risks and dangers in gathering stories in the midst of traumatic incidents and from vulnerable communities.

Another consideration at this time of heightened surveillance is the wisdom of creating evidence for entities seeking to criminalize free speech in the form of protest. As the infamous Belfast case illustrates, oral histories, particularly those collected or archived using institutional resources are susceptible to legal discovery, subpeoneas, and other tools of institutional power.

For that reason, the Oral History Archives at Columbia will not be actively collecting oral histories from student protestors.

This safeguard doesn’t preclude advising students who might be interested in documenting their own history, but my advice is cautionary, privacy-minded, and empathetic to narrators’ safety. They’re also advised to seek out communit-based repositories or archives whose values align with theirs. Who does one trust with legacy at a time like this? Regardless of my curatorial and ethical commitments to the field of oral history, OHAC remains situated within structures whose priorities extend beyond historical integrity and documentation.

In conversations with curatorial and archival colleagues at other institutions, consensus is grounded in our ethical commitments to human right, first, and then responsible stewardship of materials (including consensual acquisitions and public access). Those ideal and advice for best practice are elaborated upon in the Society of American Archivists’  Committee on Ethics and Professional Conduct latest “Statement on Ethical Acquisitions of Campus Protest Materials” (linked below) and in conversations, such as the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries just passed panel on, “Documenting Dissent: Capturing Student Protests, Navigating Disinformation, and Ethical Considerations,” which featured well-timed insights from established practices such as Project STAND.

Statement on Ethical Acquisitions of Campus Protest Materials

My advice to colleagues–staff and faculty–who area anxious for students to preserve their own history: first, THEY’VE GOT THIS.

Student groups, with advice from archivists and historians, understand the importance of history. They are also dealing with the continued emotional and financial costs of attempting to create the kind of world they want to live in. Still, the students in our community also understand, through witnessing how institutional power operates, the value of that history in creating revisionist narratives that favor the powerful, deciphering the intentions of those who crave being adjacent to power, and the historical institutional cooptation of freedom discourses. These students will tell their own stories when and how they want them told. Only then will oral histories–consensually offered, preserved with integrity, and used with care–will this particular revolution be documented.