I’ll take points one, two and three in succession:

• Martin says I misrepresent her appreciation for sixties-style political activism, quoting an earlier piece voicing doubts about protest marches. Fine with me, but why did her article explicitly call for acts of political theater, from sit-ins to danceathons, and implicitly endorse the activities of groups like the Weather Underground and the Black Panther party? As always, read it and judge my assertion for yourself. Nonetheless, for Martin, it seems that reinventing activism for our generation means doing the same old thing, but on the Internet.
• Martin notes that the schools she visits on her paid speaking tours aren’t “elite institutions.” If she chosen not to rely on generalizations in her article, and instead talked specifically about what and who she had seen, and where she had seen it (“reporting”), I wouldn’t have had those misconceptions. She also neglects to respond to the real point in the sentence she cites: Only 21 percent of 18-29 year-olds go to college but the rest count as youth, too. That’s reflective of the general population, as the most recent census reveals that barely a quarter of the U.S. adult population has a bachelor’s degree or higher. I’d call the top 24 percent of educated people in our country an elite, whether they go to an expensive private University or state school.
• Martin points out that she’s reported on successful youth activism in the past, at my own university and around the country. I’m glad she’s aware of youth activists, but I’m left with the following question, Courtney: If you knew about these activists, how come they didn’t make it into your article entitled “The Problem with Youth Activism”?

When use youth voting and political participation as evidence of youth political success, Martin writes that I’m buying into the “safe, the institutional, the domestic” way of changing the political world. But that’s exactly when she sounds like she’s getting her AARP magazine: When she looks through that sixties lens that says working within the system isn’t working at all. But I’d argue—and I know my more radical friends might disagree with me, and occasionally be right—that the ability for young people to work powerfully within the system was one of the victories of that golden age of youth activism. Martin does right to recognize that “our generation has a more pragmatic, educated approach to change than our parents ever did. We are far more effective in so many ways,” even if sometimes she seems to forget it.

In all fairness, Martin writes that she’s trying to shine a light on students who don’t feel like they have the power to create change in the political and social arenas, and for that I commend her, even if I disagree about how many people actually comprise that segment of the population. But she should direct students towards useful and powerful means of self-expression (ahem, Campus Progress, ahem) and not towards activities that waste time and effort. She also suggests that I ask the non-involved why they’re, well, not involved. That’s a worthwhile project. I just wish she’d done it in her own piece on the same subject; indeed, she asked everyone from psychologists to national organizations to herself, but never seemed to level the question at a real life apathetic student. So if we’re agreeing to disagree, let’s also agree not to try to speak for our generation. We can only try to be as accurate as we can when we report on it.