Contentious protests disruptive to education
School not the place for demonstration
December 18, 2017
Schools and students should encourage respectful political discourse, but students should not escalate to protesting during school.
While students’ constitutional right of freedom of expression in school remains protected, schools as a whole should (and public schools are obligated to) remain overtly apolitical. Faculty need to keep their political leanings out of the classroom to allow for students to develop their own beliefs. School protests work against this neutrality by encouraging faculty to become involved and forcing the school administration to comment or interdict.
Still, the largest problem with protesting at school is disruption. Even the most perfectly executed, peaceful protests create conflict anywhere diversity of opinion exists. No matter the kind of protest, it will receive publicity and insight contention.
People are expected to take sides, either with or against the protesters. Often arguments and conflicts distract from learning as protests are just too inherently controversial. Acceptable forms of protest still create conflict, and rarely is the conflict beneficial during school — it creates a disturbance, rather than beneficial awareness.
Even if somehow there is absolutely no problem or distraction caused by a protest, students primary focus in a school environment should be learning. If a group of students feel strongly about an important issue, they should organize awareness outside of school because their time in school needs to be spent in class.
Schools are first and foremost a place of education where students should be developing and strengthening their knowledge and awareness of events which call students to protest in the first place. Students should employ justified, successful protests outside of school, where they can protest without any school restrictions and without disrupting their own and other students’ education.
