On Sunday, Nov. 8, the Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival screened “Get in the Way: The Journey of John Lewis” in Washington University’s Brown Hall. The film followed the efforts of Rep. John Lewis, former leader of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), from the Civil Rights movement to his present work in Congress. In attendance for the screening was the Congressman himself.

During the Civil Rights movement, Lewis followed the credo highlighted in the film—“Get in the way”—to work towards social change in this country. A student himself at the head of an organization comprised of students, John Lewis helped to legitimize the students’ voice in calling for change. Yet, in light of recent national events, it has become apparent that the voice of the university student holds far more power than ever before.

Take the recent events at the University of Missouri (Mizzou) for example. The Mizzou students’ ability to call for and enact change on campus through direct action shows the power of the student voice that has been diminished in previous generations. Students in this day and age are taking the credo of John Lewis—“Get in the way”—to heart and it’s working. But what is it working towards?

The removal of Tim Wolfe as president of Mizzou was a result of students’ direct action. Mizzou students lost confidence in the head of their university and acted upon that lost confidence. Since a university is a non-democratic system, protests are one of the most direct ways for students to enact administrative change, but in the end, the removal of Wolfe from his post seemingly amounts to nothing more than a symbolic change. That’s not to undercut what the protesters accomplished, because their work was a massive coup. Yet, while Wolfe implicitly supported a culture of systemic racialization and discrimination, his removal will not drastically change that culture, as we’ve seen firsthand through backlash against protesters.

What the protesters’ work to remove Wolfe does do, however, is set a precedent for the breadth of student power. Now, in the wake of the incidents at Mizzou, administrators across the nation are wary of the power their student bodies hold. As students, in incidents of discrimination, subjugation or oppression, we should use this newly validated power to create systematic and meaningful change instead of focusing only on symbolic gestures. By thinking critically about what goals a protest should achieve and how best to institute changes to campus culture after those direct actions are taken, we can create a better community and more inclusive home.

As students, we must also remember the available avenues of our power. In the age of social media, it is far easier to disseminate information and create discourse than ever before. But social media does not create change by itself. Going back to John Lewis’ example, you have to be disruptive to achieve goals. As we have seen over the last year, a significant portion of the backlash directed at the student voice claims that it is too disruptive. There is a curious paradox in academia that advocates for nonviolent protests, not unlike the ones we had on our own campus last year and on Mizzou’s in the last few weeks, but condemns them as counterproductive when they occur. Again, in a non-democratic system, protests are how the student voice is manifested; they are the students’ way of getting in the way.

Moving forward, we need to recognize and embrace the power in the voice of the student. We need to realize that that power is not trivial, and therefore should not stop at symbolic appeasement. We need to understand how best to get in the way.