1968 saw massive student protests across the globe. In the United States, students and anti-establishment youth led the peace movement in opposition to US involvement in the Vietnam War. In France, nationwide student demonstrations and worker strikes against the government and poor labour conditions pushed the country to the brink of revolution — an uprising now remembered as the May ’68 events. In Czechoslovakia, student Jan Palach set himself on fire to protest against renewed suppression of free speech and the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact armies.

   During that same year, Japan witnessed its most intense student protests in modern history. Brilliant with multi-coloured banners and helmets, university students from across Japan protested against issues ranging from “American imperialism” linked to the US-Japan Security Treaty, to domestic concerns such as conservative government policies, university corruption, underpaid medical student labour, and more.

   Medical students at the time were forced to work long hours without pay, prior to receiving a doctor’s licence. In response to these exploitative conditions, University of Tokyo students locked down buildings and went on indefinite strike. The protest rapidly swelled to include students from other departments and, in solidarity for the movement, even students from other universities.

   The uprising reached its peak in May, when students barricaded and occupied Yasuda Auditorium for 249 days. Protesters, organised under the newly formed Zenkyōtō (全共闘, All-Campus Joint Struggle Committee), demanded the withdrawal of unjust discipline against a medical student. Students even chased professors seen as insufficiently supportive, at times imprisoning them within their own office until they submitted self-criticisms. By November, key figures had resigned in order to meet the demands of the students. However, by that time, the demands had evolved from concrete objectives to ideologically complex and increasingly militant.

   On January 19, 1969, the university finally summoned the police to restore order on campus. Armed with shields, fire hoses, and batons, police stormed the campus to forcibly remove the students, while students resisted with Molotov cocktails, acid bombs, and stones from the vandalised auditorium. After a fierce 36-hour siege — broadcast live in full colour on national television for a stunned audience to watch — the police finally recaptured Yasuda Auditorium.

   Although the public first supported the student uprising, the spectacular violence and prolonged disruption shifted public opinion towards supporting police intervention. At the same time, the movement itself began to lose momentum. Several Zenkyōtō organisations voted to disband and return to class, leaving leadership of the national federation of student unions — the Zengakuren （全学連）— in the hands of the most extreme, militant, and radical sects.

   Despite declining membership, uprisings continued, escalating in violence. The sects of the Zengakuren began to split over how to continue the student cause, also losing their leading members due to arrest and desertion by the 1970s. One sect called the Japanese Red Army （日本赤軍） pursued a campaign of international terrorism in the Middle East, massacring 26 civilians at Lod Airport (now known as Ben Gurion International Airport) outside Tel Aviv, Israel. The radicalization and violent deeds of the left-wing student movement shocked Japanese people. As a result, the movement, and political activism in general, came to be seen as distasteful. Participation in the student movement also became increasingly risky, as Japanese corporations began to blacklist the most extreme student activists. Youth activism greatly declined after 1972 amid a tightening job market, oil shocks, and recessions combined with the broader delegitimisation of the student movement.

   Despite its setbacks and defeats, the Japanese student movement played a major role in both Japanese politics and the global wave of anti-war activism. The 1960s was an important era of student advocacy in a global political landscape increasingly defined by democratic ideals. Student activism and university protests continue to be a large part of politics today, championing human rights despite recent global threats to democracy.

   This legacy is evident in modern youth movements, such as Bangladesh’s Gen-Z revolution. In July of 2024, university student protests began over Bangladesh’s job quota system. What began as a small struggle became a mass uprising after a video of a student being shot with rubber bullets went viral. Bangladesh erupted in fury, unleashing their resentment towards the regime, which was marked by corruption, rigged elections, and extrajudicial killings. The students were met with deadly force and thousands were killed. Following mounting pressure from weeks of student-led protests, the regime finally fell. In February 2026, Bangladesh will hold its first elections since establishing an interim-government.

   The struggle against the government produced a rare moment of national unity and renewed hopes for systemic reform. Not only have student protests extended beyond the university campus and brought nations together, they are also no longer constrained to geographical borders. Globally, pro-Palestinian protests have persisted on campuses — from the United States to Amsterdam and Sydney — displaying the power of student solidarity in confronting international conflict.

   Universities, at their core, are institutions committed to academic freedom. Academics and students learning in an open environment, without interference, will inevitably propagate new, and even controversial, ideas about societal issues. This puts universities at the forefront of wider societal debates. Student protests reflect the unique and diverse position of universities as a societal institution — through protesting over internal university issues, the students’ causes often speak to wider societal challenges and will to work towards progress.