It appears that a few students at Denton’s two universities came out to protest the liberation of Iraq (registration required).

About 250 students and faculty members gathered outside the University Union at noon to express their feelings about the possibility of the United States going to war against Iraq. Another 60 came together outside the Texas Woman’s University Student Center as part of a national student protest, “Books, Not Bombs.”

However, there were some who came out to protest the protesters.

In answer to the protest, another student group showed support for President Bush and possible actions in Iraq.

“I support the sovereignty of our country to protect us against terrorist attacks,” said student Michael Wright. “I support us taking care of business so we make sure we don’t get killed when we walk down the street.”

Just to put things in perspective, let’s take a look at some information for both of these schools.  While they don’t give an exact number, this page tells us that The University of North Texas is ” the fourth-largest university in Texas (more than 30,000 students)”.  And according to the last published factsheet from Texas Woman’s University they had an enrollment for Fall 2002 of 8694 students (and they aren’t exclusively a woman’s university with 782 male students).

Let’s do a little math, shall we?  For UNT, assuming a student body of 30,000 and a protest count of 250 (which includes faculty and counter-protesters, by the way), that would indicate that at most 0.83 percent of the student body was involved.  At TWU, that percentage is a similarly impressive 0.69 percent (using the protester count of 60 and the fall enrollment of 8694*).  What was that about “the majority” of the people being against war in Iraq?

On the way back from lunch today one of my coworkers made the observation that people who are against something are far more likely to protest that those who support it.  Those who are protesting against war would best remember that.

* TWU also has facilities (albeit small ones)  in Dallas (at Parkland and Presbyterian hospitals) and Houston.  They did not give the breakdown for enrollment at each facility, although Denton is their primary campus.