Sydney Martinez, Campus Carrier news editor
On Jan. 20, the one year anniversary of President Donald Trump taking office for the second time, students across Georgia colleges and high schools gathered in protest of his administration. According to 285 South News, students from 22 high schools and colleges in Georgia partook in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protests throughout the week.
Kennesaw State University (KSU) Junior Stephan Sellers and senior Grace Blomberg organized a walkout at their college. Approximately 500 students gathered and spoke out about the removal of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro from his country and the actions of ICE.
“What prompted us to do this walkout was the string of events that have been happening in the past couple of weeks,” Blomberg said. “We saw the, basically, invasion of Minneapolis by 2,000 to 3,000 agents, and then we saw the murder of Renee Nicole Good, a legal observer, by ICE.”
Last Friday, about 50,000 Minneapolis residents participated in a general strike, in which individuals didn’t go to work so they could protest, according to Reuters. Sellers said that some residents were calling for it to go nationwide. Sellers said that students should answer the call to join the walkout Friday because these issues are too urgent.
“We can’t wait until the midterm elections to see change in this country,” Sellers said. “People are being killed in broad daylight. It seems like almost every day you wake up and it’s something new.”
KSU was not the only college where students organized a walkout. Kenidee Hite, a Georgia State University (GSU) freshman, reported that her school began to protest as early as 1 p.m. Jan. 20, on the green space near Langdale Hall.
“I didn’t know the protest was happening that day,” Hite said. “I saw my friend’s Instagram story that there was a protest going on against Trump and ICE.”
When Hite joined the protesters around 5:30 p.m., they had moved down to Hurt Park. Although Hite left the protest at 7 p.m., she said the protest was still going at 9 p.m.
“I’m glad I went out there, and I’m glad I’ve seen [the protest], and I’m glad to really know what’s truly going on,” Hite said. “As a people, we should definitely have our voices heard, and we should definitely be out here calling out what’s wrong so they can make it right.”
At KSU and GSU’s walkouts, different speakers gave accounts of their experience with being an immigrant or a child of immigrants. Others gave facts on what had happened in Minneapolis.
“[A speaker] came on and started talking about how the current political party in power is blaming all the issues in America on immigrants and how that is factually incorrect,” Leonardo Fuentes, a sophomore at KSU, said. “If anything, the immigrants are providing more and being less violent than the civilians of America.”
Fuentes, a participant in the walkout, believes protests may not be the most effective way to raise awareness but acknowledges their importance on college campuses.
“In my own personal politics, protests like [the one at KSU] may not be the most meaningful in terms of grand impact,” Fuentes said. “I still think it shared a sentiment across the entire school that there are people out here who don’t feel that we are agreeing with the current politics and that there are people who are willing to stand against what’s happening right now.”
High school students have followed suit, organizing protests at their schools, with many of them planned to take place Friday in solidarity with immigrants who have been detained and deported by ICE. High schools where students have announced a protest include Banneker High School in College Park, Paulding County High School in Dallas and Adairsville High School in Adairsville.
“I feel like just seeing everything that’s going on around [the country] is insane,” Ashley Galdamez, a junior from Marietta High School (MHS) said. “It’s getting out of hand. I feel like we want to make a change, even if it’s not a big change, we want to [leave] some sort of impact.”
Galdamez, Lia Santillan and Erika Narvaez, three juniors at MHS, came together to organize a protest that they have since postponed. The students are working with their school’s administraton to plan a larger district wide protest that will take place on their high school’s grounds. Prior to canceling, they made a flyer for the walkout and uploaded it to Instagram for their peers to share.
“We’re mainly posting [the flyer] on Instagram, and a lot of people who support the Hispanic community are reposting it, wanting to join and support [the protest],” Santillan said.
The students’ intention was to show their community that they shouldn’t be afraid to speak up and show support for the immigrant community in Marietta.
“It’s a very sensitive topic, but we want people to know that it’s okay to speak out for those who can’t,” Santillan said.
The students emailed the administration at their school to make sure they could proceed with the protest and ensure the safety of the students who want to walkout. Their principal and superintendent supported the cause but wanted to help create a safe environment for the students that want to protest.
“They told us straight-up that they can’t approve the walk out,” Narvaez said. “They all want to help us [protest] the right way. [Grant] Rivera, the superintendent, he told us that he can contact the police department so that we have a safe protest.”
At Berry, students are welcome to exercise their First Amendment rights, according to Associate Dean of Students Lindsay Norman.
“Any student at an American university or college has the right to gather,” Norman said. “That’s a right that almost all students have.”
Norman said that no matter what a student’s cause may be, Berry’s administration is willing to show students the proper steps to organize without risking harm to others.
“We do want students to exercise their rights, all students, not from around a certain cause, but all students,” Norman said. “If [students] care enough about something they want others to know about, it’s our job to help them do that safely.”
Norman said that protesters on campus shouldn’t block entrances to buildings to prevent students from going to class and shouldn’t be so loud that they’re disturbing instructional activities.
“I think if a student plans to protest, they need to make sure that they do so with their safety and the safety of everyone else involved [in mind],” Norman said. “If they were to block someone leaving a building or entering a building, that could be dangerous for a couple of reasons, [for example], if there [was] a fire.”
In the case that student protesters were to violate Berry policies, Norman has faith in the administration to guide students on how to properly protest on campus rather than prevent students from gathering.
“I think if there was any time where students were gathering or protesting in a way that might violate our policies,” Norman said. “I’m hopeful that we could intervene to say, ‘Hey, how can we not prevent you from doing it, but how can we take this gathering that’s happening and adjust it so that it supports all of our campus policies?’”
Norman said that a club could hang up flyers, though each building has a specific flyer policy that they would need to follow. To hang up a flyer in an academic building, one must contact the building administrators to follow the correct guidelines. Flyers in Krannert need to be approved by the Office of Student Involvement (OSI).
“As long as the activities outlined in the flyer don’t violate a campus policy, then it can remain up,” Norman said.
Norman recalled the protest that occurred on campus in 2020 during Mountain Day. Students protested and demanded the hiring of a Chief Diversity Officer during the Grand March.
“There was a year that some students gathered during the Grand March on their own, separate from those processing down the hill, but they were protesting,” Norman said. “It worked really well. It was obviously something students felt passionately about.”
Norman said that the demonstration was a perfect example of students exercising their First Amendment rights at Berry.
“I think those students were safe,” Norman said. “They weren’t disrespectful, they didn’t impede anyone’s access to anything, they were exercising their rights, which is, to me, a really important thing for me to do and to learn how to do safely.”
Norman says she hopes students can use what they’ve learned at Berry to be active in their community and speak up respectfully.
“What you learn here, at Berry, is what you take forward, right?” Norman said. “So, what can you do where you can talk to people raise awareness about something that you care about? I would love for you to learn it at Berry and take that so that you can do that in your community after Berry.”