Students lead even as legislators fail them

In the wake of the devastating shootings in Parkland, Fla., in March that claimed 17 lives, students rallied across the nation to protest inadequate gun control. Such student advocacy in the face of utter despair is a testament to the resilience of the survivors, the strength of their convictions, and the thirst for change.

Official school reactions have ranged from supportive to hostile, with policies regarding the walk-outs a seeming reflection of the political landscape in which they are located. In New York City, the bastion of American liberalism, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo sprawled horizontal on a sidewalk as part of a “die-in” with students. In contrast, trigger-friendly territories, such as Needville Independent School District (NISD) in Texas, issued an edict warning students that “disruption of school will not be tolerated … understand that we are here for an education and not a political protest.”

Education and political protests are not mutually exclusive and, if anything, they share the distinguished honor of being pillars on which democracy rests. To sever the tie between education and political agency is to grossly misunderstand the very nature of a democratic society, which — this administration not withstanding — is one we still purport to be.

Constructive citizens are not birthed at the womb, but born instead in schools. A public education as envisioned by the Founding Fathers (specifically, Thomas Jefferson) exists “to instruct the mass of our citizens in these, their rights, interests and duties, as men and citizens.” Citizens were expected to participate in political decisions and a public education was to equip individuals for such an endeavor. For the American revolutionaries, public education was created as a safeguard against the tyranny of the aristocracy, or any type of authoritarian rule for that matter.

For schools seeking to threaten students with punishment for exercising their civic duty, they should note that the Constitution does not bend as easily to the whims of school administrators as they would like.

The First Amendment protects the right of expression in schools. The Supreme Court has consistently affirmed that students do not “shed their constitutional right to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

School officials can neither ban speech based on an expectation that the speech will cause a disruption nor punish students more severely than they would otherwise another type of conduct. These prohibitions on student protests are a misguided attempt to strong-arm youth whose politics school administrators disagree with. Not only do they undermine constitutional and democratic ideals, but also it is a manipulative attempt to force students into accepting unfair reprisals by framing punishment as a natural consequence of choice. As long as their demonstrations are peaceful and nondisruptive, protestors remain under the aegis of the First Amendment.

History is made of civil dissenters, many of whom were students standing up against the injustice around them. From the students who sat in at “whites only” counters in North Carolina, who were integral to desegregation, to the Vietnam protests on campuses nationwide that led to the withdrawal of American troops from war, to the Tiananmen Square protests in China that exposed the country’s human rights violations to the world, student protestors have changed the course of history.

The gun lobby is powerful, but not impervious to civic action. The Parkland students and their peers, through persistence and conviction, are ready to lead in the place of legislators who have failed them. They embody the best of democratic ideals — advocacy on behalf of the oppressed and exercise of civic duty. We do them a disservice when we smother their voices instead of fostering their leadership.