About 35 students at Bloomington High School South walked out of class last Tuesday and met at the front of the school to protest ICE.
“The wrong ice is melting,” one sign said.
Other signs read, “I thought they said love thy neighbor” “Immigrants built America,” and “Can’t spell cowardice without ICE.”
The protest was intended to stand in solidarity with students in Minneapolis.
Earlier this month, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good. Last week, ICE agents detained 5-year-old Liam Ramos on his way home from school in Columbia Heights, a suburb of Minneapolis, and took him and his dad to a detention facility in Texas.
Ramos is one of four children in the Columbia Heights school district detained by ICE agents in the last two weeks. And just this past weekend, federal immigration officers shot and killed intensive care nurse Alex Pretti.
“We wanted to express solidarity with all of these students who are in a really tough situation right now, because when they're walking to school or just trying to go through life, they have to worry about ICE,” said South junior Maisie Robinson, who organized the protest. “I think all of the Minneapolis students are experiencing a really big disruption to their education right now, especially after Renee Good was killed. So, we wanted to show that we don't condone or support what ICE is doing in Minneapolis, and that we are watching, and we are noticing, and we are standing with our Minneapolis peers.”
The students walked along the front of the school, where the buses line up in the afternoon. They picked that path so that people could see them.
This was South freshman Olivia Sapp’s first time participating in a walkout. She held signs that read “Hot girls melt ice” and “I like my horchata with no ice.”
“It felt like, wow, I can actually do something, even if walking out isn't going to just make everything stop,” she said. “It feels good to, you know, feel like part of something.”
They continued along the side of the school where art classes are held and then crossed to the sidewalk next to the soccer fields. At that point, a vice principal and a security guard told them that if they didn’t go back to the other side of the street, they would face harsher consequences.
The students continued walking along that side anyway past the administration building, until the sidewalk ended, and then crossed back to the sidewalk closer to the school.
They went down to Walnut Street and walked along the road for a bit before returning to the front of the school.
When back at the main entrance, they chanted “No justice, no peace, no ICE in our streets.”
“A lot of us feel that there are no repercussions for ICE agents who are harming people, whether it's the killing of Renee Good or the pepper spraying and tackling of countless protesters,” Robinson said. “We won't stop pushing back until ICE is not doing what it's doing now.”
Robinson said she was able to leave class without resistance from a teacher. However, she said others were told teachers would need to write down their name if they were going to walk out. Sophomore Sami Mandell was one of them.
When Mandell left her AP European History class that afternoon, her teacher warned her they would have to send an email to the administration with her name. Mandell walked out anyway.
“We can't have this going on in our country,” she said. “We're getting to the point where we're starting to see way too many similarities to Nazi Germany. And I feel like that is way too far, and any way I could show support for getting ICE disbanded is good.”
A message teachers received from South’s admin on Parent Square, an online messaging platform, told teachers to check their emails about the walkout.
“We cannot support walkouts,” the message said. “If students ask, let them know that we can’t allow them to leave.”
Robinson said she sent an email to the principal notifying him there would be a walkout. The principal wrote back saying the school administration couldn’t condone it.
“We also want to stand up for the issues that matter to us, and that is at some level nonnegotiable,” Robinson said. “I'm not going to stop protesting on an issue that matters to me, because it is affecting my classmates and it is affecting people…And so I think standing up for that issue is something I will do regardless, and I don't need administration support, but I would like them to know what we will be doing for our safety, and I understand that legally, they have certain things they're supposed to do, but it also wasn't quite the response I hoped for.”
According to the American Civil Liberties Union webpage on student walkouts and protests, students have the right to free speech in school but can be disciplined for participating in a walkout and missing class. However, the school is not allowed to implement a punishment that is more severe because of the “political nature of or the message behind your action.”
Robinson, Mandell and Sapp said they haven’t faced consequences. They don’t know of any other participants who have gotten in trouble, either.
“I think being told by a teacher that if you go protest and if you go use your voice, you're going to get in trouble, has a little bit of the opposite effect than intended,” Robinson said. “I think you hear that and it makes you want to use your voice even more. It makes you want to really stand up for what you believe in.”
MCCSC did not respond to a request for an interview with South’s principal.
In light of Pretti’s killing last weekend, Robinson said the message from last week’s walkout remains relevant and reinforces the fact that ICE is acting unjustly.
“Instead of any sort of improvement, any sort of accountability on the part of ICE, they're instead doubling down, continuing what they had been doing and continuing to hurt and kill people who are peacefully protesting,” she said. “And because of that, I think the message of our walkout remains very important, and the message that we want to send is that we won't stand for that. We won't let that be done and stand by silently."
