K–12 students have a First Amendment right to protest peacefully in school — wearing armbands, writing for the school paper, etc. — but students have no right to disrupt classrooms with strikes and walkouts.

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Students are legally obligated to attend school, and parents rightly expect that their children will not be pressured into taking political positions, much less illegal actions, by administrators, teachers, or outside groups. Yet for a decade, student walkouts for political protests have been normalized, even encouraged, by teachers’ unions, advocates of “action civics,” university admissions offices, and adult political activists. Now, Democratic politicians are openly trying to egg on student walkouts, while Republicans are saying “no more.”

High school walkouts in protest of President Trump’s 2016 election victory hit more than half of the states. This year’s wave of middle and high school walkouts in protest of ICE reached more than three dozen states. In between, we’ve seen successive waves of K–12 walkouts over issues such as gun control (2018) and Gaza (2024).

In her Democratic Party reply to President Trump’s State of the Union address, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger lauded “the determination of students organizing school walkouts all across the country,” then took a swipe at Governor Greg Abbott of Texas for trying to keep students in school. Here is yet another example of Democratic radicalism — this time coming from a supposed voice of moderation. Nor is Spanberger’s SOTU reply an isolated incident. Democratic legislators in Georgia and Washington State have introduced bills to encourage student walkouts.

Meanwhile, Republican leaders in Florida, Texas, and Oklahoma have moved to block walkouts, especially when abetted by teachers and administrators. The exception is Idaho, where a disappointing tie vote in committee blocked a bill that would have discouraged student walkouts.

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As walkouts spread and divide the parties, the issue is drawing ever more attention at the local, state, and national levels. This higher profile for the walkout issue is helpful, not only because it lays bare Democratic radicalism, but because it increases the likelihood that red states, at least, will prepare for the next wave. Unless states pass laws that discourage student walkouts, they’ll continue to be caught unawares when the next disruption comes. So, let’s take a closer look at what’s been happening in the states. There we’ll find not only potential solutions, but evidence that the besetting sins of student walkouts cannot be reformed away or eliminated by better supervision. Walkouts themselves must end.

Democrat Osman Salahuddin, assistant majority whip of Washington State’s House of Representatives, filed a bill this year that would give students at least two days off per year to protest or lobby. The bill was likely filed too late to pass this year, but it gives you a sense of what’s out there.

More revealing are a pair of bills filed in Georgia, one in the house providing at least two excused absences per year for student strikes or protests, and one in the senate providing at least one excused absence per school year.

Some indication of what’s behind these bills is given by an incident in Cobb County, Ga., just before the January 30 Nationwide Day of Action, which called on students to walk out of schools to protest ICE. A few days before the walkout, Cobb schools issued a statement noting that walkouts are disruptive and would lead to consequences, such as student suspension. Eight Georgia Democratic state legislators quickly condemned the school district for threatening to punish students who, the legislators said, were only “practicing their First Amendment rights as Americans.”

Those legislators were wrong. There is no First Amendment right to walk out of school. Students are perfectly free to express themselves politically, but they must do so in school by wearing T-shirts, writing op-eds, etc., not by walking out. Both Georgia bills were filed shortly after the Cobb clash, and it seems likely that legislators, having discovered that the school district was simply following both the law and standard procedure, decided to encourage school walkouts by another route.

Whether or not these bills move forward, nearly 300 students did walk out of South Cobb High School classes on January 30, chanting slogans like “F*** ICE.” Many of those students credit the eight Democratic legislators for emboldening them to defy their school. These lawmakers say they’re encouraging civic responsibility. I say they’re opening the Pandora’s box of politicized education. (This Georgian agrees.) I’ll explain further below, but let’s first visit some red states.

Unsurprisingly, Florida under Governor Ron DeSantis took a very different approach to student walkouts than Georgia’s Democrats. Florida Education Commissioner Anastasios (Stasi) Kamoutsas issued strong guidance last month on the handling of student protests, rightly emphasizing the priority of instructional time and campus safety. Kamoutsas also warned teachers and administrators not to “encourage, organize, promote, or facilitate student participation in protest activity during the school day.” Citing Florida administrative code, Kamoutsas told educators to “take reasonable precautions to distinguish between personal views and those of any educational institution or organization with which the individual is affiliated.” If only other states would adopt and enforce that policy.

Last year, I reported on a state legislator in Texas who introduced a bill designed to discourage student walkouts. That legislator, Steve Toth, was inspired by my model Politics Out of Schools Act, but he souped it up with significant penalties for teachers, administrators, and school districts that permit, excuse, or orchestrate student walkouts. Although Toth’s bill did not advance, the governor’s office was well aware of it. It may be no coincidence that Governor Abbott has just adopted a tough policy on school walkouts quite similar to the one proposed in Toth’s bill. (It may also be no coincidence that Toth’s long-standing willingness to fight cultural battles helped land him the Republican nomination for the congressional seat now held by Dan Crenshaw.)

Abbott put the point of his new policy well when he said, “[A Texas school district] gets taxpayer dollars to teach the subjects required by the state, not to help students skip school to protest. . . . Our schools are for educating our children, not political indoctrination.” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has followed up by investigating three school districts for potential violations of the state’s tough new walkout policy. Texas is doing it right, but it would still be smart to pass Toth’s 2025 bill on walkouts at the next legislative session. That would safeguard the future. In any case, the Spanberger–Abbott standoff makes the political parties’ diametrically opposed positions on school walkouts crystal clear.

Oklahoma is another red state on the right track. Last month, Governor Kevin Stitt praised the suspension of more than 100 students who walked out of class to protest ICE, after they were warned of significant consequences.

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But are student walkouts really a bad idea? I believe they are, and I made that case in detail during the 2024 Gaza walkouts. Essentially, walkouts are wrong not only because they’re illegal but because (1) they force schools to take sides in political disputes; (2) they leave students vulnerable to self-interested manipulation by the district’s political leaders; (3) they subject students to political pressure from their peers; (4) they subject students to political pressure from their teachers; (5) they subject students to political pressure from outside organizations; (6) they produce divisive conflict rather than thoughtful exploration of opposing opinions; and (7) they present a significant threat to student safety, while raising liability issues for schools.

I explored these points in my earlier pieces, but let’s have a look at the way in which a couple of them have been borne out by the recent walkouts.

In the first place, we’ve just seen open encouragement by teachers’ unions in Minnesota of student walkouts to protest ICE, as well as organized anti-ICE teacher sick-outs in Arizona. At one California high school, nearly every teacher gave student walkout organizers class time to recruit participants. The political biases of teachers in general, and teachers’ unions in particular, as well as their increasing willingness to flaunt those biases, mean that students are at constant risk of being goaded or manipulated into walkouts by authority figures who effectively hold students as a captive audience in their classrooms.

Open teacher bias is a serious problem, but so is the impossible dilemma created when teachers handle walkouts without overtly taking sides. Schools face the threat of liability suits if students are injured when under public care. At the same time, the law requires schools to act neutrally with respect to the political content of a given protest. Some schools deal with these imperatives by barring teachers from accompanying walkouts, while disclaiming responsibility for students off the premises. Other schools send teachers to guide and supervise walkouts, portraying teachers as politically neutral managers focused on safety, not as participants.

But how can that distinction be made? In 2024, Berkeley, Calif., teachers guided a student Gaza walkout to a Jewish community center, where children inside were subject to anti-Israel chants. Denials of teacher responsibility for this antisemitic demonstration were unconvincing.

Last month, a Los Angeles teacher was fired for opening a locked school gate that students were trying to scramble over to join anti-ICE protests. School policy said no students should be allowed off the premises. The teacher claimed he was just trying to prevent injuries. Maybe, but the distinction between minimizing injury and effectively enabling — even encouraging — a walkout is well-nigh impossible to make.

An all-city anti-ICE walkout in Washington, D.C., in February culminated at the National Mall. According to the New York Times, “many students said that their teachers and administrators knew of the plans, which had circulated widely on social media in recent days, and did not object.” Did those teachers and administrators approve of and encourage the walkouts? Students obviously took the failure to object as approval, which it very probably was. Would a walkout against transgender bathroom use have drawn similar acquiescence from teachers and administrators? I doubt it. At any rate, even teacher silence in the face of an illegal walkout can’t help but be taken as approval. That, in turn, is bound to put political pressure on students who may not want to participate.

Even if ostensible safety concerns sometimes offer cover to teachers with an ideological bent, the walkout safety issue is real. A February anti-ICE walkout in Philadelphia went wrong when students reportedly blocked traffic and jumped in front of vehicles, threw snowballs at motorists, kicked cars, and damaged property. Students then clashed with police, after which five were arrested. When more than 50 ICE-protesting students entered a Kroger store in Cincinnati last month, they reportedly went to the beer section and started throwing cans and bottles up at the ceiling. A customer was hit in the head. A number of incidents were reported in Seattle, where thousands of students walked out in February. In one case, students reportedly yelled profanities and held their middle fingers up at a truck, whose driver and his woman passenger argued back. The woman then raised a gun (without pointing it) after which students started screaming and backing away from the truck. True, Americans can’t stop protesting because things sometimes get out of control. Yet the safety of minors during school hours is a decidedly different matter.

Meanwhile, what’s going on in Idaho? Why has a deep red state blocked an excellent bill prohibiting schools from issuing excused absences for student protest walkouts and political lobbying expeditions? True, the bill failed on a tied committee vote, but in a ruby red state that’s a disappointment.

Idaho just experienced a number of significant walkouts over ICE. Yet Quinn Perry, deputy director of the Idaho School Boards Association, testified against the bill, warning that it “entangles schools in monitoring constitutionally protected activity.” The truth is the reverse. As noted, students have no constitutional right to walk out of school for purposes of protest, although they are perfectly free to express their political opinions in nondisruptive ways inside the schoolhouse. What’s more, by allowing a few political walkouts, schools entangle themselves in the danger of lawsuits for treating various causes differently. These problems crop up all the time, as when Chicago schools positively encouraged walkouts over Gaza but urged Jewish students not to protest October 7, or when New York City gave blanket permission to 1.1 million students to march for “climate action” but condemned October 7, to the dismay of pro-Palestinian teachers’ groups.

Idaho House Bill 794, sponsored by State Representative Steve Tanner (R., Nampa), offers the best response to Deputy Director Perry’s claim when it says, “granting excused absences for student walkouts or lobbying for political purposes invites political favoritism from school districts and places inappropriate political pressure on students with diverse views.” That is the real “entanglement” to be avoided.

Idaho’s tie vote notwithstanding, the powerful responses to student walkouts in Florida, Texas, and Oklahoma give ample reason to hope that states are finally moving to discourage the ever-growing politicization of our schools. Yet the issue now divides the parties and, increasingly, the battle goes national.

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