Until recently most of the research on college student protest of the 1960's has taken either a political socialization or cultural-historical perspective. The research reported here takes an organizational perspective with the expectation that an examination of student protest should contribute to a theory of organizations. Two classes of structural variables are indicated: (1) quality, autonomy and parochialism; and (2) recruitment and mobilization. These variables can be seen as providing a characterization of the relations of a college or university as an organization to other organizations in its environment. Organized student protest is conceptualized as a characteristic of an organization and it is suggested that major variables accounting for the presence of protest are the level of intolerance and the level of political activity. These two variables in turn are determined by relations of the focal organization to other organizations. Although the model does not provide perfect prediction, it was found that higher quality, secular, and larger colleges and universities are characterized by tolerance and political activity. It is concluded that an organizational perspective leads to greater understanding of protest behavior, and an examination of such behavior contributes to the understanding of organizations. (Author/HS)