Harvard Students Launch 'Resistance School' With Course on How To Resist Trump

NEW DELHI: The first day of Harvard University’s Resistance School began today, with the first lecture on “Democracy against Domination: Power, Populism, and Resistance in the Era of Trump.”

This is part of a four week course that will train activists to “resist the Trump agenda” created by progressive students at the University’s Kennedy School of Government.

The course is open to students across the world. The University had not anticipated the interest that this course has sparked, with wide coverage and queries from countries outside the United States as well.

The program organisers are using a four in-person and live-streamed sessions, along with interactive homework assignments to hone “the skills they (activists) need to take collective action and effectively resist the Trump agenda.”

The Women’s March and the March for Science after Donald Trump was inaugurated US President was an inspiration behind this course. Shanoor Servai, a co-founder of Resistance School, and a student at Harvard, told CNN "Resistance School started with a couple of students chatting with acouple of professors, having a sense of outrage and despair and beginning to feel overwhelmed and exhausted with the question of 'Whatare we going to do after the election?'"

The first class has already 10,000 people registered, along with 3000 groups. The course, as per the Universitys website includes sessions on Political Advocacy, Building Capacity for Action and the speakers are Professors largely.The founders of the program say that they encourage people to join in groups and not individually. "Resistance School is a free four session practical training program to sharpen the tools we need to fight for our values at the federal, state, and local levels," the school's website states. "Our goal is to keep the embers of resistance alive through concrete learning, community engagement, and forward-looking action."

“On November 8, we lost more than just the presidency,” the group’s website says. “We lost yet more ground in the decades-long campaign against progressive values. Republicans now control the Senate, House, and more state legislatures than they have in almost 200 years. Those losses have emboldened the right to launch an all-out attack against our nation’s creed — that all are created equal.

Sessions include:

• Communicate our values in political advocacy.

• Mobilize and organize our communities.

• Structure and build capacity for action.

• Sustain the resistance long-term.