About 15 St. Thomas students joined the crowd of 300 anti-war protesters Monday at the Minneapolis Federal Courthouse. Marv Davidov didn’t care that they represented only a fraction of the St. Thomas student body; he liked what he saw.

“We’re really proud of our students,” said Davidov, an adjunct professor in justice and peace studies and a long-time social activist.

Compared with the peace movements of the Vietnam era, he said, the current anti-war movement is ahead of schedule. He said the students are more mature and better educated on the issues now than when the United States entered the Vietnam War.

“They remind me of the best of the S.D.S.,” he said, referring to the Students for a Democratic Society, a national organization of more than 200 chapters during the Vietnam War.

Senior Melissa Bruggeman said she joined the rally to help raise awareness of the peace movement.

“At St. Thomas it’s pretty easy to just ignore it,” she said. “And this isn’t something that should be ignored.”

But Bruggeman said protesting isn’t the only way to help the cause. Students need to educate themselves from a range of sources and try to educate others along the way, she said, something she tries to do as a member of the Student Coalition for Social Justice.

“We want to create more dialogue between students,” she said.

With that goal in mind, Bruggeman and friend Lindsay Clarke plan to eat lunch in the lower quad, possibly under the U.S. flag, with anti-war signs by their side. They invited others to join them.

Michel Klausen came to the rally with a sign that read, “War does not end violence, it only continues it.” On the reverse side she had written, “University of St. Thomas students for peace.” Klausen said she hoped the rally would prove that public opinion isn’t as in favor of military action as the nation’s polls say.

Some of the students said the protest caught them by surprise. Brian Myers, a senior who drove three friends to the rally, said he had learned of the event only a few hours earlier. More students would have been there if they had known about it, he said.

Most of those in front of the federal building were under 25 years old. They stood for about two hours during evening rush, holding posters and waving peace signs to motorists. At one point the crowd chanted “Hands off Afghanistan; hands off the world.” Some drivers honked approval while others yelled objections, such as the construction workers who told them to move to Afghanistan.

Davidov was thrilled with the youth movement at the rally and the clear, focused thinking he saw in the crowd. He said he was confident that his students would continue the cause on campus.

Most of those students were planning to attend a forum Thursday in Murray-Herrick with students and professors to discuss the war on terrorism.

Davidov, who joined fellow professors Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer and David Smith at the rally, said he didn’t bring any of his students with him.

“I didn’t have to,” he said with a smile. “They came here on their own.”