IZZIE WEBB
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatening to take away state funding from high schools with students who participate in protests is a restriction of the First Amendment.
In response to high school students protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Jan. 30, Abbott argued walkouts are disruptive and lead to criminal chaos, and the schools allowing this behavior should be treated as co-conspirators.
But what is so criminal about student walkouts?
This type of political demonstration has been conducted by students since 1766. The Great Butter Rebellion at Harvard University, where students protested poor food quality, is considered the first student protest in the United States.
While today’s protests are heavier than just arguing against stale bread, it shows how students have always used walkouts as a way for their voices to be heard.
The law can’t strip students from their first amendment rights at their school entrance, but there are rules they must follow.
Number one on the list being they must show up.
When Alexandria Wineglass asked her daughter why she participated in Boswell High School’s walkout during the day, her daughter said, “Nobody will listen if it’s on the weekend.”
This is why high school students conduct walkouts.
They’re not old enough to vote, and their voices are locked inside a building eight hours a day, five days a week for 36 weeks a year.
The only logical way for them to argue against what is happening is by breaking the number one rule, being there.
So, again what is criminal about this behavior?
Nothing, really. Unless you think students skipping class to voice their opinions about issues they’re passionate about is chaotically harming people.
Yes, students by law must go to school. However, the law can’t force students to stay.
And if there were to be a law created stating this, how would it be enforced? By hiring a doorman for each exit?
The thing is these are children who have been impacted by ICE. Whether it was a family member, a friend or a friend of a friend, it doesn’t matter.
Instead of remaining silent or complacent, these students are using their first amendment right to be heard.
Abbott hasn’t been impacted negatively by ICE. He endorses it. He won’t stop defending ICE, even if it means calling teachers and students who think differently than him criminals.
This is the biggest problem of all of it. By calling them criminals, they’re changing the rhetoric.
Instead of discussing something that has always happened, they’re now making it sound violent.
There have only been two students arrested, and it was because they had alcohol, according to Kyle Police Department.
However, police there had to arrest 45-year-old Chad Michael Watts for beating up a high school girl protesting.
By making children sound like criminals, you subject them to violence. By calling school districts criminal, you subject them to violence.
By allowing students to freely speak their minds through forms of protesting like walkouts, you aren’t subjecting them to violence. You’re giving them the space to gather and discuss what is affecting them during a time when the world is chaotic.
Students aren’t driven to create violence through protesting. It’s the words being used by people in power that fuels others to be violent against those with opposing opinions.
Calling teenagers criminals for speaking up is wrong, and threatens their safety more than them doing a walkout in the first place.
Instead of threatening to take away school funding and students’ voices, Abbott should consider finding more ways to support student growth by actually listening to what the future generation is saying