The Fight for American Democracy on College Campuses

The last time Congress ratified the Voting Rights Amendment to the US Constitution was just 55 years ago, but most people couldn't tell you what. The 26th Amendment lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. promises continue to be broken.

The results of the November 2025 election remind us of its purpose, consistent with that of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to “encourage greater youth political participation.” This month's election results are a wake-up call as the nation faces a new, unprecedented constitutional and moral crisis every day and young voters are sounding the alarm. Eighty percent Young voters backed California's Proposition 50, which aims to “neutralize partisan gerrymandering” threatening GOP-led states, the largest share of any age cohort. In New Jersey, Virginia and New York, youth turnout has risen sharply this cycle, while overall voting rates are also rising.

But 2025 may be an exception. Since the passage of the 26th Amendment, the general trend has been for youth voting rates to lag behind those of any other age group. Compare turnout among 18-24 year olds in 2024 (47.7 percent) with the 65+ group (74.7 percent)—a 27-point difference. Widespread disparities in voting between the youngest and oldest age groups are a pattern, not an anomaly: the difference was higher in 1982, when the last class of baby boomers first came out to vote.

What's stopping America's youngest voters from turning out to vote? While voter enthusiasm is certainly critical, systemic mechanisms clearly hold back this constitutionally protected class of voters.

In Montana, when the state Supreme Court struck down a 2024 voter suppression law that eliminated same-day registration, banned the use of student IDs to vote, and barred those recently turned 18 from accessing mail-in voting, the Legislature was undaunted by enacting new law requiring willing registered students declare their intention to remain in the same district after graduation.

In Indiana, student ID cards have been used for voter identification for 20 years, but they were recently banned. It is assumed that 50,000 students at Indiana University Bloomington used a student ID to vote in the 2024 election. The new restriction came after loss of on-campus polling place at Indiana's 45,000-student Purdue University, a polling place that has been available to students since at least 2004.

IN South CarolinaState law allows only voters over 65 to vote by mail without having to provide an explanation. Similar laws remain on the books in six other states, and they have a clear impact on youth voting patterns.

According to Inside Higher EducationNew laws in 27 states could prevent students from voting. These restrictions defeat the purpose of the 26th Amendment, which was ratified to eliminate the “special burden” placed on young voters in accessing the ballot.

Our new book Youth Voting Rights: Civil Rights, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, and the Fight for American Democracy on College Campusesuses four case studies to examine the evolution of voting rights from the perspective of student communities that served as sites of legal precedent. Case studies written by faculty from respective institutions tell the stories of various civic leaders involved in eliminating voter restrictions and how they worked in coalition to shape voting rights for the nation.

It turns out that the formula is not always identical, but that some combination of young and old, students, teachers, administrators, community organizations and/or elected officials can work together to achieve extraordinary success. Moreover, in addition to coalition building, which inherently requires some form of consensus building, a variety of tactics, sometimes coordinated, are required: a combination of organizing, advocacy, public education, and, if necessary, litigation.

The book's case studies take the reader from Tuskegee, Alabama, to Prairie View, Texas, and then to Greensboro, North Carolina, and all the way to Dutchess County, New York, to explore how, from the beginning of the Second Reconstruction in 1954 to the present, student bodies fought against authoritarianism to secure access to the ballot. It is not surprising that three of the four case studies take place at historically black colleges and universities, as they were the original vanguard of autocratic resistance. The obstacles facing our higher education institutions today may not be the same, but they do rhyme, as do the opportunities to confront them.

It turns out that the lessons learned from these campaigns constitute pedagogy in their own right, furthering the long-standing mission of higher education institutions to promote democratic values. For example, it was Tuskegee Institute faculty who studied and documented the refusal of local election officials to register them to vote. They were the first to testify before the newly formed U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 1958, recommending key practical decisions that formed the basis of provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. They also brought the first successful case against racial gerrymandering in the United States Supreme Court, overcoming the court's reluctance to intervene in redistricting and creating a springboard for what became a revolution in redistricting.

The case studies also show the power of coalition building in the face of voter suppression, especially across generations and institutional players, to enable the nation to rise. At Bard College, when students understandably grew weary of the county elections office's refusal to place a polling place on campus, it was a community organization Andrew Goodman Foundationwhich poured in key resources. Bard President Leon Botstein even served as a plaintiff along with his students in successfully pushing for an on-campus polling place. At Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) and North Carolina A&T State University (NC A&T), students have been key mobilizers, with critical support from organizations such as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Common Cause North Carolina.

We also found that these efforts impacted students' careers. At PVAMU, where students have been at the forefront of youth voter suppression—and particularly black youth voter suppression—for decades, many of these student leaders reawakened to their civic engagement and pursued careers in public interest law. The same can be said for the students leading Bard and NC A&T. These efforts align with the purpose of higher education: to prepare future leaders.

On this country's 250th anniversary of independence, as the United States Supreme Court appears poised to destroy key guarantees of the Voting Rights Act, we should remember that the country previously struggled with a seemingly insurmountable hegemony of corruption, enslavement and tyranny. We have navigated these cycles of political and physical violence through a social movement architecture of some combination of organizing, propaganda, public education, and litigation. This muscle is part of the country's DNA.

We must remember that this struggle was ultimately met extension new rights—that is, Reconstruction—in the face of authoritarian threats. Young people have always been part of the multi-generational writing of America's history, and we will need to continue to engage them in creating a stronger democratic and just future.