Protest has a price, but it’s not all bad

ACROSS Maryland and throughout much of the country, thousands of students walked out of class on Wednesday morning to honour the 17 people killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, exactly one month ago.

It is heartening to see a generation stretching its political wings and seeking a remedy to the roll call of recent mass shootings – from Sandy Hook Elementary to the Las Vegas Strip.

In some schools, the protests were embraced by school administrators and teachers who helped guide the conversations, identifying this as a “teachable moment”. In others, there were assemblies or in-class activities meant to raise many of the same issues.

And in yet some, participation in protests was banned, perhaps because of concern, ironically, for student safety and disruptive behaviour; perhaps because administrators felt uncomfortable with the issue of gun control or a concern for how emotional these issues have become for students.

As for students who may face detention or a similar fate for walking out of class when they were told by school authorities not to do so? Good.

As long as the punishment is proportionate to the offence, it is perfectly fine for a school system to impose rules for conduct and then punish students for defying them.

And here’s the best part: Students should proudly accept those consequences. They could scarcely be getting a better real-life lesson in what social protest is all about.

From the Boston Tea Party to the modern Civil Rights Movement, civil disobedience has never been without adverse consequences. Henry Thoreau, Susan B. Anthony, the Rev Martin Luther King Jr – they all took their lumps standing up (or sitting down) for what they believed in.

You want to make a meaningful statement? Sometimes, there is a price to be paid. Are the students who walked out of class on Wednesday morning serious about doing something about mass shootings, particularly advocating for restrictions on gun ownership?

If so, it will take a lot more than an extended recess, it will take commitment, it will require a great deal of homework, and it will mean sacrifice and doggedness.

Most people aren’t up to such a challenge. Some remarkable individuals are.

As we’ve noted before, the outspoken student leaders from Parkland seem to have that fire and urgency. Do their peers from Hereford or Severna Park or North Carroll have the same?

Chances are, this wasn’t a political awakening. Those are rare.

More likely, it was a fad. Selfies were taken and a lot of Instagram posts came out of it. Yet it could turn out to be more. We hope it does.

The grown-ups have surely failed to do much about the problem.

As if to illustrate this, a Northern California teacher with weapons training accidentally fired his gun in a classroom Tuesday slightly injuring a student during a safety lesson. He’s been put on administrative leave. And President Donald Trump, with support of the NRA, wants to put more guns in the hands of more such teachers.

So who is more naive, the adults who put their faith in “good guys with guns” to prevent future shootings in schools or students who temporarily left their classrooms in search of better answers? — The Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service