jazmiahenry / ethnicprotests

ethnicprotests

While the First Amendment is normally evoked in common parlance to denote the right to free speech, other four protections under the Constitutional amendment are important as well. One right in particular, the right to assemble, has been used by marginalized members in society to advocate for equal rights and protections under the law. In 2009, Stanford Professor Susan Olzak created a dataset that attenpted to combine every ethnic protest in the United States from 1954 through 1995. These protests were ones initiated by oppressed groups against governmental institutions. This dataset was collected so that researchers could study and compare the events of ethnic protests from 1954-1995. Instead of using the data to answer questions about collective action, I will be answering a research question of my own: "Does the presence of police officer escalate or de-escalate violence that happens during or directly after and as a result of ethnic protests?"