Thousands of students throughout the Bay Area braved the rain and walked out of their classes on Wednesday to take a stand against gun violence. The marches lasted for 17 minutes—one for each person killed in last month’s Parkland, Florida, gun massacre.
The protest is being called the largest student demonstration since the Vietnam War and comes ahead of another one coming up on March 24 called March for Our Lives.
Some schools supported the student protest, while others locked their gates or threatened punitive action. The ACLU sent an advisory to districts ahead of the rallies to remind administrators that even children have a right to peaceful assembly.
“We must ensure that our schools are supportive, welcoming, and safe,” Sylvia Torres-Guillén, director of education equity for the ACLU of California, said in the statewide advisory. “We hope school administrators will not discipline students for protesting and instead take this as an opportunity to engage in a discussion with students about the issues they are standing up for.”
Notre Dame High students held up signs demanding change.
One of the biggest demonstrations took place at Prospect High School, where students are spearheading the upcoming March for Our Lives demonstrations later this month.
Students held up signs that read “Enough is Enough,” “#MeNext?” and “I go to school to get As, not PTSD.” They chanted, “Hey hey, ho ho, gun violence has got to go.”
Prospect High students. (Photo by Teresa Lanz, via Facebook)
Students in the Milpitas Unified School District protested despite initial warnings from Superintendent Cheryl Jordan, who later wound up changing her tune and offering to facilitate class discussions and counseling. Milpitas Mayor Rich Tran expressed his support, as did Councilman Anthony Phan.
1) @MilpitasUnified welcomed Trump appointee @BetsyDeVosED in Milpitas amidst public safety concerns, yet will penalize student #walkout on #gunviolence. This is shameful and implicitly endorsed #Trump agenda.
— Anthony J. Phan (@anthonyjphan) March 14, 2018
2) If students are retaliated against, I will actively seek to withdraw city support for @MilpitasUnified partnerships. Students should be empowered to participate in democratic process. They are brave to do something, as others are bystanders and enablers of #Trump agenda
— Anthony J. Phan (@anthonyjphan) March 14, 2018
A second-grader from San Jose went viral by joining high schoolers in the protest. Because Trace Elementary School would not allow students to walk out, Leonardo Aguilar asked his mom to walk him over to nearby Lincoln High to join the rally.
“Guns are not safe and people get hurt,” the young activist told reporters. “And teenagers shouldn’t bring guns to school.”
Leonardo Aguilar was the only one to walk out of his second grade classroom so he joined the highschoolers at Lincoln High in San Jose. @CBSSF #walkout pic.twitter.com/v9SQAAEn4f
— Len Ramirez (@lenramirez) March 14, 2018
> Silicon Valley Students Take a Stand Against Gun Violence
“Silicon Valley Students Take a Stand Against the Bill of Right”
There. I fixed it for you.
> The ACLU sent an advisory to districts ahead of the rallies to remind administrators that even children have a right to peaceful assembly.
ACLU?
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roger_Nash_Baldwin
“Communism is the goal.”
. . . .
“[I]f American champions of civil liberty could all think in terms of economic freedom as the goal of their labors, they too would accept “workers’ democracy” as far superior to what the capitalist world offers to any but a small minority. Yes, and they would accept — regretfully, of course — the necessity of dictatorship while the job of reorganizing society on a socialist basis is being done.”
I wonder if there were any protests/walkouts in Chicago?