OPINION: Students reserve the right to protest

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution promises to the American people that not only do they get freedom of speech, but they also have the freedom to protest. The Bill of Rights does not explicitly state the age to whom these rights apply. Students may be young, but their beliefs are not inherently lesser than the adults in power. One of the most patriotic things an American can do is defend their rights as our Founding Fathers did nearly 250 years ago.
According to the Metropolitan State University of Denver’s student activism resource guide, they state, “Student activism is a powerful catalyst for transformation and social change. Activism can be an effective method of educating, raising awareness to help empower our communities, opening new ways of thinking, and enabling students and others to confront and solve problems facing our society.”
Activism is not restricted to adulthood, and advocacy does not have to be rooted in political issues. Student groups can protest injustices or unreasonable rules in education, such as an unfair dress code. A student does not lose one’s First Amendment rights by simply walking into one’s school building.
Students are permitted to protest as long as it does not interfere with the school day.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) stated under their online page, Your Rights in School, “You do not lose your right to free speech just by walking into school. You have the right to speak out, hand out flyers and petitions, and wear expressive clothing in school — as long as you don’t disrupt the functioning of the school or violate the school’s content-neutral policies.”
While “content-neutral” policies may seem intimidating, they simply mean that the viewpoint does not matter. As written by the ACLU, “So, for example, a school can prohibit you from wearing hats — because that rule is not based on what the hats say.” This means that while you are prohibited from wearing a hat, it does not matter whether or not the hat’s message is disagreed with. A hat displaying a pride flag on it and a hat supporting a sports team are both prohibited on the same level.
In the late 1960s, students who attended the public school in Des Moines, Iowa, wore black armbands to protest peacefully against the Vietnam War currently happening. After the participating students were suspended by the principal on the grounds that it disrupted the learning environment, the parents sued. The case went to the Supreme Court under the name of Tinker v. Des Moines. In the ruling of 7-2, it was voted that the school could not suspend the students as teachers nor students lost their right to protest by being on school grounds.
As citizens of the United States, we are not only permitted to protest, but it is our sworn right to stand up to injustice, whether it is on a local or government level.
The United States’ first African American justice to serve on the Supreme Court was Thurgood Marshall, previously a civil rights lawyer.
During a seminar about civil rights presented by the U.S. State Department in 1966, Marshall said, “This government was founded on protest.”
Students cannot be silenced from protesting. Our ages do not make our opinions any less important than those above us. We are directly affected by decisions made by both the school boards and governments. Rules are not necessarily made to be fair to the students and students have the right to protest because when we see something, we can say something.