Collective refusal depends on institutional support that shields participants from penalties

Evidence

Institutional support can go a long way toward allowing individuals to “afford” to refuse. During the sit-ins, faculty at black colleges offered advice, the NAACP provided legal support, and other organizations offered nonviolence training workshops. Perhaps just as important, the Bennett administration made it clear to their students that they wouldn’t be penalized for their participation in the sit-ins. Dr. Willa B. Player, the president of Bennett, said at the time that “the students were carrying out the tenets of what a liberal arts education was all about, so they should be allowed to continue.” — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 304

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s thesis that Odell isn’t recommending naive withdrawal — refusal has material/institutional preconditions. — connects to: Direct collective refusal reveals the contingency of official power. — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 435; Institutional power responds to community defiance with retaliation and decisive action. — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up: Environmental…, 440; Symbol bans fail without social support but succeed when the public resists collectively — Gregory H. Stanton, Ten Stages of Genocide, 2 (+2 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The structural insight that individual refusal is only possible where institutions absorb cost is foundational to Odell’s whole argument.