Student Protests Against Trump's Policies: A Nationwide Uprising

Student activism has historically surged during times of perceived injustice and violence, and the Trump administration's policies have been no exception. From immigration to higher education, students across the United States have mobilized to voice their dissent, drawing parallels to the anti-war protests of the Vietnam era.

Immigration Policy Protests

Los Angeles Student Walkouts

Thousands of students from schools across Los Angeles walked out in peaceful protest of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Social media accounts tied to the walkouts also provided advice on how to take public transportation and stay safe during the protest. The reason I came out is 'cause we're so young and I feel like people always think that like young people don't have a voice and in reality we have one of the strongest voices.

One student, Matthew, said, “It felt important because I was speaking out for those that don't have a voice." Alexis, a senior at Brío College Prep, said administrators locked down his campus after agents detained a nearby fruit vendor, who was a part of their community.

Support and Opposition

Students said the response from teachers and school administrators ranged from supportive to cautious. “Los Angeles Unified supports the rights of our students to advocate for causes important to them,” a district spokesperson wrote in a statement to LAist. Dozens of adults volunteered to accompany students from their schools to downtown, where they handed out water, snacks and sunscreen. Rachel Crowe, one of about 10 volunteers in bright yellow vests who arrived at the protest with students from John Marshall High School, said, "They just deserve an outlet. That's wild to have to balance being a high schooler and not knowing if your parents are coming home."

Arrests and Vandalism

The following morning, Officer Rosario Cervantes said five people were arrested in connection with the protest - four juveniles for suspected vandalism and one adult for suspected battery on a police officer. LAist saw several individuals tag the buildings and bus shelters along the route.

Read also: Impact of Trump on Student Debt

California-Wide Demonstrations

Despite warnings from some school officials about possible disciplinary measures, including suspensions and enforcement of curfew laws, students across the state have organized their own protests and walkouts. They’ve rallied under the “ICE Out” slogan, coordinating demonstrations to condemn what they described as a sweeping mass deportation campaign. Gabrielle Trujillo, a sophomore at UCLA and reporter for the campus’s “La Gente” magazine, was among more than 1,000 students who participated in a walkout. “Everyone was united in that we were pretty fed up with how ICE was treating both American citizens, undocumented people and everyone, regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity or immigration status,” Trujillo said.

Student Perspectives

One student, Santos, said, “They value us less as humans, and it’s unacceptable. My father is an immigrant. My mother grew up in an immigrant household. I’ve seen the fear in their eyes just going outside, and the fear they have for our people." Nearly 200 students walked out of schools in Clovis Unified and Fresno Unified on Feb.Kelly Avants, CUSD’s chief communications officer, said that while CUSD values free speech, students should find ways to express their opinions and prioritize their education. A.J., a student, said, “I’m just hoping that these protests can help stop [ICE] in some way, you know, even if it’s just a little bit. Immigrants do so many good things for America, but [people] only see the bad. We’re working people. My mom works hard. My dad works hard, as well. Sometimes they work under the table to make even less than minimum wage. Without immigrants, where would we be?"

Social Media's Role

Social media has become a major tool that students use to organize protests. An online review reveals various unofficial social media accounts created for schools and districts like San Fernando Valley, Irvine and Los Angeles. Once students from a school share a post about an upcoming protest, students from other campuses may join in, spreading the social media reach.

Law Enforcement Response

“During demonstrations, our role is to ensure public safety while safeguarding the rights of individuals to peacefully assemble and lawfully express their views,” said Anthony Gamble, a Sacramento Police Department public information officer.

Long-Term Commitment

“We know this is going to take a long process. What this one day aims to signify is that young people in this generation are committed to this cause,” Qin said. “We’re not stopping on Friday, we’re not ending the conversation here."

Read also: The Impact on Education

Protests Against Higher Education Policies

Students Rise Up

Students, faculty and staff at more than 100 campuses across the US rallied against the Trump administration’s assault on higher education on Friday - the first in a planned series of nationwide, coordinated protests that organizers hope will culminate in large-scale students’ and workers’ strikes next May Day and a nationwide general strike in May 2028. The day of action was organized under the banner of Students Rise Up, a network of students including both local groups and national organizations such as Sunrise Movement and Campus Climate Network. Students were joined by faculty and educational workers’ unions like the American Association of University Professors and Higher Education Labor United.

Denouncing the "Compact"

Protesters called on university administrators and elected officials to denounce the president’s months-long effort to force US universities to abide by its ideological priorities and urged them to reject Trump’s “compact”, which would give universities preferential access to federal funding in exchange for a commitment to advance the administration’s conservative agenda. Only one university, New College of Florida - a public school that state legislators have turned into a bastion of conservatism - has so far accepted it. Alicia Colomer, managing director at Campus Climate Network, said ahead of the protests, “Universities should be a place of learning, not propaganda machines. That’s why students, workers and alumni around the country are taking action.”

Nationwide Demonstrations

As the day unfolded, hundreds of students across the country walked out of classes, unfurled banners and rallied on campuses, often joined by faculty and other staff. In addition to denouncing the compact, they called for a more affordable education and for the protection of all students - from transgender to international ones. At the University of Kansas, about 70 students demanded administrations divest from weapons manufacturers and Israel, refuse to collaborate with ICE, safeguard gender-affirming housing and meet faculty’s demands for fair contracts. At Duke University, in North Carolina, students and professors held signs demanding the university stand with immigrants, pay its workers a $25 hourly wage, and protect trans and international students. At Brown University in Rhode Island - one of the first institutions to reach a settlement with the Trump administration earlier this year - passersby were invited to endorse a banner listing a series of demands by dipping their hands in paint and leaving their print, while a group of faculty members nearby lectured about the history of autocracy.

Opposition to Political Influence

In New York City, students and faculty from multiple campuses gathered by the midtown headquarters of the investment firm Apollo Global Management to protest against its CEO, Marc Rowan, a billionaire Trump donor and key architect of the compact whom they say “has no business making policy for higher education”. They cited Rowan’s involvement with the online University of Phoenix, which they described as “the largest single producer of student debt in the country” and his role in paving the way for the ongoing abuse of civil rights legislation to target universities over students and faculty’s criticism of Israel. Amy Offner, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Guardian that the campaign against Rowan is part of a broader effort to protect US higher education from the influence of ultra-wealthy individuals. “Billionaires should not control what can be taught and studied in the United States,” she said.

Restriction of Speech Concerns

Mikey Rush, an economics and African and African diaspora studies senior, said his main concern with the compact is it would restrict faculty and students’ speech, further than recent state legislation. “This won’t stop at higher education, ” Rush said.

Broader Implications

The protests marked the first time that students, faculty and staff have staged such a large-scale response. “There is only one way forward in saving higher education and democracy writ large and that is students, faculty, staff united,” Todd Wolfson, the president of the AAUP, said on a call with protest organizers last week.

Historical Context: Student Free Speech

Tinker v. Des Moines (1969)

The 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District case ushered the principle of student free speech into the sphere of public consciousness. In December 1965, John Tinker (age 15), Christopher Eckhart (Age 16), and Mary Bell Tinker (Age 13) organized a protest against the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands to their respective schools. Prior to the student demonstration, school officials learned of the protests and quickly instituted a policy that would suspend anyone wearing the armbands in school, citing fear of disrupting the academic environment and inciting counterprotests. The students ignored this attempt to silence the demonstrations, which led to the suspension of the young protestors. A lawsuit was filed against the school district under the assertion that students’ First Amendment rights had been violated. Eventually, the case reached the Supreme Court and was ruled 7-2 in favor of the students.

Dissent and Criticism

Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of the student protestors, the sentiment that students should be afforded first amendment rights was not ubiquitous. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black’s public dissent displayed a deep displeasure towards the ruling and insisted that “taxpayers send children to school on the premise that at their age they need to learn, not teach.” Moreover, the Chicago Tribune criticized the decision by saying that it would undermine public schools’ ability to maintain discipline.

Significance

While this case covered the first amendment rights of students in public schools, not universities, it was one of the first instances where the highest court in the United States grappled with the issue of student free speech. More importantly, a precedent was created where academic environments, despite being subsidized or under the jurisdiction of the government, were established as spaces for young people to exchange ideas and political opinions.

Anti-War Protests in the 1960s and 1970s

May 2nd, 1964, marked the day of the first major nationwide student demonstration against the Vietnam War. In March 1965, faculty and students staged the first ever “teach-in” at the University of Michigan. The teach-in prompted fierce criticism from university administration and state government policymakers. Governor George Romney wrote in a letter to Arnold Kaufman, a professor of Philosophy, explains that the teach-in invites “anarchy in saying that (Kaufman), or any other person or group, (had) the right to decide when an issue is important enough to halt the regular activity of a public institution”. Potentially, the most notorious student protest of the 20th century was the Kent State University incident, which took place on May 4th, 1970. The protest began peacefully until tensions escalated between demonstrators and local police, leading Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes to send in the National Guard. By noon on May 4th, 3,000 demonstrators had gathered on campus. When General Robert Canterbury ordered the protestors to disperse, the protestors grew angry and began throwing rocks, prompting the General to instruct his men to load their weapons. According to the University, “between 61 and 67 shots were fired in a 13-second period,” leaving four dead and nine wounded.

Healy v. James (1972)

The antiwar demonstrations that took place over the course of the 1960s and 1970s required intervention from the federal courts. Healy v. James (1972) determined that students attending public universities are still protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution. The case was associated with a Central Connecticut State College student group, Students for a Democratic Society, who, because of their association with violence on other university campuses, were blocked from forming a campus chapter. Dr. F. Donald James, the University President, explained that the group’s tenets were “antithetical to the school’s policies.” Catherine Healy, who was a student at the college, appealed the decision, which eventually made its way to the Supreme Court. Justice Lewis Powell delivered the opinion of the Court and explained that Judge Fortas established in Tinker that the need to institute order does not override freedom of speech protections on college campuses.

Hess v. Indiana (1974)

Similarly, Hess v. Supreme Court reverse an Indiana Supreme Court decision that ruled in favor of the conviction of undergraduate student Gregory Hess, who was arrested on Indiana University Bloomington’s campus in May 1970 during an anti-war protest.

Current Challenges to Student Free Speech

Deportation Threats and ICE Actions

The White House recently released an article entitled 365 WINS IN 365 DAYS: President Trump’s Return Marks New Era of Success, Prosperity. During his second term, Trump has sought to reshape higher education according to his doctrine, and universities that fail to meet his demands will face consequences, including massive defunding and withdrawal of federal grants. Naturally, these concessions from university administrations have affected students in the worst way. Many Northwestern students rejected the deal on the basis that it undermined political speech. campuses have had their First Amendment targeted either indirectly through the leveraging of defunding threats or directly through deportations and unlawful detentions. For example, last year Tufts’s Rumeysa Ozturk was hauled off the street in Somerville, Massachusetts by masked ICE officers for simply coauthoring an article that called out her university for its inability to divest from Israeli companies and acknowledge the genocide in Palestine.

Government Response

Similar to the government reactions against Vietnam protests, the Trump administration will maintain a rigid stance against those who reject his agenda and critique his policies. Students who deem the arbitrary detention of their peers morally unjust will continue to face consequences that undermine their rights. Still, students are taught in university to engage in discourse and critical thought. The government is meant to protect students in this endeavor as it is their constitutional right. Students are entering another battle against the government as campuses across the country have risen up against violence perpetrated by ICE.

Student Determination

Amidst this deportation surge, students still hope that the federal courts will protect them from the Trump administration’s attacks against their freedom of speech. Mary Beth Tinker, in reflecting on how her protests against the Vietnam War helps contextualize the recent protests against human rights violations in Palestine, explained that “students need freedom of speech in order to advocate for their interests and discuss the issues of their lives.”

Geographic Spread and Participation

New research by Professor Erica Chenoweth’s Nonviolent Action Lab shows that the protests against the Trump administration’s policies have not only been notably large and persistent, but they are more geographically diverse than past protests, reaching into counties that voted for Trump. In counties that voted for Trump, and especially ones that voted overwhelmingly for Trump, we see smaller absolute numbers of participants in protests. So, during, the whole of Trump’s first term, the average protest participation was something like 40 people per 10,000 in a county. In the second term, we’re seeing a higher number. We’re up to 65 people per 10,000 in each county as the average protest figure over the whole of the second term so far. That’s a sizable increase in nationwide protest participation. In the areas in which Trump won, which do tend to be more rural and tend to have lower overall population density, we’re seeing smaller numbers compared to the national average, but those numbers are growing over time. Whereas we saw 2 people per 10,000 in the whole of Trump’s first term in places that ultimately went strongly for Trump, we’re seeing now 7 per 10,000, which is a significant increase.

Impact and Future Analysis

Protests are a way of expressing and participating in shaping the political conversation between elections. We know from lots of research that when people protest, local leaders are much more likely to be responsive to their demands. And that results in changes in policy. It can result in something getting on the agenda that otherwise wouldn’t. It can result in new legislation. It can result in power shifts and changing coalitions. The big questions that naturally arise are, What impacts are these protests going to have on things like special election results and midterm elections? What results might they have on changing public opinion about different policy issues or overall approval ratings? What impact might these protests have on the types of conversations that are had in the country? There are also many questions about what can explain the broadening and deepening of protests in the United States. How is it that the country has experienced such a growth in protest over the past number of months and been able to maintain, a basically peaceful movement, even as rhetoric claims otherwise?

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