Minnesota Public Schools Allowing Student Walkouts Despite Obvious Safety Concerns | Erika Sanzi

School districts in Minnesota and elsewhere are making a choice when they allow student walkouts during school hours for specific causes. They may frame it as "student voice" or "civic engagement," but stripped of the slogans, it is viewpoint discrimination. They are loosening their custodial responsibility over other people’s children in service of their preferred ideology. Now, the cause of the day is to oppose ICE and deportations more broadly.

The decision to actively or tacitly allow students to walk-out of school with no consequences raises a host of questions that too many schools seem unwilling to answer — including some that have real legal consequences. It’s curious that more journalists aren’t asking these questions.

Students from St. Paul public schools during a massive walkout to the State Capitol in St. Paul, Minn., to protest ICE actions in Minnesota. (Photo by Renee Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Who is authorizing these walkouts?
We are repeatedly told these events are "student-led," yet staff involvement is an open secret. Teachers alert students in advance and post on social media. Administrators signal that attendance rules will not be enforced. Supervision plans are quietly arranged. Student Unions (that are run by adult activists) often take the lead. There is nothing organic about these events and, despite claims to the contrary, they are almost never spontaneous expressions of student speech. They are basically field trips without the parent permission slip.

That distinction matters legally. Schools act in loco parentis during the school day, assuming a duty of care over students. When districts knowingly allow students to leave class en masse, they are making an affirmative decision — not passively observing protected speech.

Are outside groups involved?
There is mounting evidence that these walkouts are not purely organic. Messaging, organizing materials, and synchronized timing suggest coordination by outside advocacy groups like MECha, Sunrise Movement and Socialist Alternative. When students across multiple schools — and even across states — engage in near-identical protests on the same day, it strains credulity to call it coincidence.

Public schools are not supposed to function as organizing hubs for outside political movements. Allowing external groups to influence or coordinate protests during school hours raises questions about viewpoint neutrality, misuse of school time, and whether districts are facilitating political advocacy rather than educating students.

Why aren’t parents being asked for permission?
Minnesota schools require parental consent for far less consequential activities: field trips, off-campus privileges, even certain classroom lessons. Even administering aspirin requires parental permission. Yet many districts do not notify parents when students are released from class to protest, sometimes outside school buildings. Parents drop their children off expecting supervision and academic learning, not unsanctioned demonstrations influenced by adult activists.

From a legal standpoint, parental consent matters. Courts have long recognized that schools’ authority over students is tied directly to their duty to supervise. When schools knowingly permit students to leave instructional time and gather elsewhere without parental permission, they weaken the argument that they maintained appropriate control.

Students from North Senior High School in North St. Paul, Minn., march to North St. Paul City Hall as they staged a mid-afternoon walkout in protest of ICE. (Photo by Anthony Souffle/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

What happens when something goes wrong?
This concern is no longer hypothetical. We have already seen students fighting at the state capitol in Minnesota during a school walkout. Large groups, heightened emotions, limited supervision, and public spaces create foreseeable risks: injuries, traffic incidents, medical emergencies, or physical altercations.

Foreseeability is key. When harm is predictable and preventable, liability becomes a real question. Districts cannot plausibly claim surprise if a student is injured during a school-sanctioned walkout that administrators knew was coming. They are knowingly taking a risk.

Who is actually supervising?
Are students confined to campus? Are staff actively monitoring behavior, or merely present in name? Can students leave the group? Are attendance records accurately maintained? Districts tend to offer vague assurances rather than concrete safety protocols. "We’re monitoring the situation" is not a plan — and it is not a legal shield either.

Would walkouts be allowed for other viewpoints?
In the recent past, we have had student walkouts for #MeToo, "trans rights," BLM, Palestine and gun control, always in favor of what could loosely be labeled "team blue" or "the left." We don’t see school-sanctioned walkouts to oppose abortion, stand up for the 2nd amendment or support Israel.

Would administrators permit walkouts for causes that conflict with the school’s preferred ideology? Would staff quietly facilitate protests opposing prevailing political narratives? Selective enforcement undermines claims of neutrality and invites constitutional challenges for viewpoint discrimination.

Schools exist to educate children and keep them safe during the hours parents are legally required to send them there. That custodial duty does not disappear because a protest feels righteous or "on the right side of history." The whole point of civil disobedience is that it comes with sacrifice — a detention, loss of privileges, a zero on a missed quiz. These school-sanctioned walkouts have none of that.