Students may have the right to walk out of the classroom to join a protest–but the courts have been clear:
Schools retain the right to punish the scofflaws for being truant, according to both school legal experts and civil rights advocates.
“That’s the law,” said Peter Eliasberg, chief counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.–
“Schools have the ability to punish students who are not attending class.
“The motivation for it is irrelevant except to the extent that you can’t have a harsher punishment for students who miss school to engage in a protest compared to students who miss class to hang out with their buddies.”
In regions with large populations of undocumented immigrants, including Southern California, New Mexico and Arizona, many students or their parents risk deportation.
Advocates who work with these families have reported increased anxiety and fear within local communities following the election of Donald Trump whose platform included tougher immigration policies.
Sloan Simmons, a partner in the education law firm of Lozano Smith, noted that school administrators are generally prohibited from limiting student speech and expression on campus unless it is disruptive to the education environment.
“This raises the question of whether student walkouts, imbued with expressive meaning, are subject to regulation by school officials,” Mr. Sloan wrote in a client news brief last month.
A 2009 ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, he explained, clearly provides for student expression and the consequence. Under the ruling, a school can regulate student walkouts–not on the grounds of free speech but on student conduct.
“In other words, regardless of the political nature or subject matter motivating the student walkouts or participation in public rallies, a school’s anti-truancy policies and the regulation of same under applicable Education Code provisions is aimed not at the truant student’s speech activities, but the student’s required attendance at school–absent an excused absence,” he said.
Mr. Sloan said such events can be used as an opportunity to “remind students of the importance of free speech rights and respecting the views of those with whom they disagree.”
