The Student Occupation Movement in Japan

In Japan, the campus occupation movement was driven by an offshoot of the broadly broader leftist movement. Students would occupy one or more campus buildings and barricade themselves inside in order to force campus administrators to listen to them on a particular issue. This tactic was not unique to Japan. In the United States, campus occupations took place at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the fall of 1967,. At Columbia University in the spring of 1968, and at UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University in the fall., eventually spreading around the entire country. A massive student revolt in May of 1968 saw the occupation of several university campuses in Paris.