Know Your Rights: Skipping School to Protest

By Paul Rathgeb, WireTap. Posted June 16, 2006.

It is a dark day in the history of America when an eighth-grader commits suicide after participating in a student walkout, protesting anti-immigrant legislature. On March 30, Anthony Soltero -- an organizer of his school's walkout -- shot himself in the head after the administration of De Anza Middle School in Ontario, Calif., threatened Soltero with a three-year prison term, forbid his involvement in the graduation ceremonies and threatened his mother with a fine.

Rallies across the country began in response to the proposed federal bill H.R. 4437, which would penalize 11 million illegal immigrants as felons. Anthony, a 14-year-old student, helped organize a student walkout in the week following the 1 million-strong March 25 demonstration in Los Angeles opposing the legislation. In Los Angeles County alone, over 8,500 students walked out to protest, and many now confront harsh disciplinary consequences.

The abuse of students skipping school to engage in political activism and exercising their constitutional right to free speech needs to stop. Democratic principles are rarely protected by young people sitting behind their desks. From the Civil Rights movement to the environmental movement, youth have been at the forefront of fighting for social justice.

The months of March and April found city streets crowded with young people, from Detroit to Los Angeles, doing exactly what our civic duties call us to do -- if we don't like laws being passed in our name, we speak up.

Nativo Lopez, the organizer of the March 25 demonstration in Los Angeles and president of the Mexican American Political Association, spoke out in support of Soltero and his family on Counterpunch.org:

"It's fine if they read passages from the Constitution, the history of the country, biographies of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson -- who the English, back in the era of the American Revolution, accused of terrorism," Lopez said. "But then these children who are willing to practice these same precepts and theories can be reprimanded for actually living the Constitution."

What rights does a high school student have when she walks out of the school to protest? Under the California Education Code Section 48950 students who are engaging in free speech outside of the campus are protected by law:

"School districts operating one or more high schools and private secondary schools shall not make or enforce any rule subjecting any high school pupil to disciplinary sanctions solely on the basis of conduct that is speech or other communication that, when engaged in outside of the campus, is protected from governmental restriction by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or Section 2 of Article 1 of the California Constitution."

For more information on your rights to skip school to protest, check out Schoolwalkouts.info created by the National Lawyers Guild or refer to "School Discipline: A Guide for Students & Parents," an ACLU handbook on suspension and expulsion in California public schools.

Paul Rathgeb is the founder of Natural Learning, a journal of Olympia Free School. His recent project is RiseOut, a weblog supportive of a young person's choice to drop out of school.

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