These students protested racism and sexual violence. They say school officials responded with retaliation

In January, students at Olympia's River Ridge High School came together for a week-long protest. The high school’s Black Student Union, joined by allies, called for district administrators to address racial and sexual violence on campus.

Now, the Black Student Union is considering filing a class action lawsuit against North Thurston Public Schools for alleged retaliation by school officials.

The Black Student Union and their advisor allege that the school retaliated against students for speaking out, in the form of failing grades and other punitive measures.

Laila Markland is a senior at River Ridge High School and a Black Student Union member. Marland said the group initially planned an assembly on the topic of "building community" for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. But after hearing from Black and brown students about instances of racism, sexual harassment, and sexual assault, the group shifted their focus to protesting.

“How do we have this assembly on building community when there is no community in school and it's very unsafe?” Markland said.

The student group said that in school, there are reading ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic — and then there are what they call the "silent Rs:" Racism and rape culture.

“The main goal was to really bring those silent Rs to light and try and get some solutions,” Markland said.

North Thurston Public Schools superintendent Deb Clemens and school board president Dave Newkirk said in a joint statement published in The Olympian that the district “investigates all allegations of racial harassment, sexual harassment, and/or assault reported by our students.”

They also said that they recognized that harm has occurred in the district’s schools, and said district leaders have drafted a response for all short-term goals the students presented during the walkout. Even so, student activists said this is not a satisfactory response.

During the week-long protest, students met with administrators to negotiate terms for ending the protest.

“They wanted us back in classes, that was their main goal,” Markland said. “There were a lot of threats like, ‘All these people are going to be suspended, expelled, arrested.’”

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On February 4, Clemens and Newkirk said in a joint email statement to parents that the walkout had "become disruptive to the work and learning environment of staff and students," particularly for students with special needs. Teachers pushed back on that assertion, calling it "ableist."

In their February 4 statement, district officials announced that students would no longer be permitted to protest on campus. They also wrote that by the following week, "all students on campus are expected to attend classes as assigned.”

“A lot of students did go back to class because that's a scary email to get,” Markland said. “We lost numbers but there were definitely still people out there protesting.”

In order to get back to class, however, the students had a list of demands: No disciplinary action against protest participants, academic accommodation for missed work and finals, and policy changes in the student handbook.

Markland said administrators agreed to all the demands. But some students are still trying to figure out fallen GPA’s and missed work ahead of the end of the year.

Markland said she’s lucky — none of her finals were disrupted and her teachers supported her participation in the protest. She considers herself a good student, but she attributes the support she's received to having teachers that share her point of view. She that's rare to come by in the school district.

Markland is not among the students involved in potentially filing a lawsuit. She's finishing her last year at River Ridge but still wants to see much more tangible results.

“It kind of breaks my heart to see how much effort we've all put into this. And it feels like it didn't really go anywhere,” she said.

Markland said that returning to class after the strike was rough. She said it feels like students and faculty moved on and are not interested in having the same kinds of conversations about racial or sexual violence on campus, like they went back to "business as usual."

“Although there wasn't direct punishment, it kind of does feel like a punishment,” she said. “All of the things that we needed to happen to go back to class weren't happening. And we're just kind of being put back in these classrooms where we don't feel safe.”

Markland said watching students coming together and share vulnerable stories was beautiful. The thing she misses the most is the community she and other students were able to build.

"There was so much joy, even though it was so hard and we were scrambling most of the time to come out to the field every day, and turn on some music and dance, and then go march and hold up signs and hear these really heavy stories, and then come together and eat lunch and laugh. It was such a beautiful moment of these two very different kinds of feelings coming together."

Markland recalled students dancing to the "Cupid Shuffle" in the school gym, in between chants, meetings, and negotiations. She said she wishes more people got to see the layers of the event.

"If that's just what school felt like on a daily basis, and it wasn't like a select group of people creating that, I feel like the education system would just be totally different."

Markland also said she wants to see stronger support for students, so they don't have to resort to protesting to get school officials to take action.

The situation at River Ridge High School raises big questions about students’ free speech rights and how public school officials contend with students’ participation in social justice and anti-racism movements — which, by necessity and design, are disruptive to the status quo.

Kids these days know how to use their voices

The protest at River Ridge is part of a larger trend in Gen Z students organizing demonstrations against issues like racism, gun violence, climate change, anti-trans and anti-gay rights legislation, and school reopening amid the ongoing pandemic.

Across the country, public schools, students, and parents have been having conversations about students’ First Amendment rights and revisiting restrictions that have been in place for decades. That includes their right to protest.

“Students don't shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate,” said Kendrick Washington, Director of the Policy Advocacy Group at ACLU of Washington.

Washington pointed to the landmark Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District. In 1969, this case set a precedent for student speech: Schools cannot censor student speech if it is not disruptive.

Washington said that there are clearly some situations in which a school can ban or can stop protests. Administrators at River Ridge said the protest in January was disruptive; Washington said there are a multitude of ways to address disruptive protest.

"The first would be to do the least restrictive thing possible, which is to say, ‘Hey, protest, but we have to bring the noise level down.’”

Washington said it seemed "improbable" that the district couldn't designate time and space for students to demonstrate.

“Their tactic seems to be 'How quickly can we silence these kids? How can we shut them up?'" Washington said. "And that's pretty much wrong, however you slice it, whether it's legally, or ethically, or morally.”

Soundside reached out to North Thurston Public Schools to ask about the protest ban.

The district said via email that “NTPS takes student freedom of expression quite seriously and acts in compliance with the established law on student free speech.”

Officials said that students are indeed entitled to constitutional protections, including “the right to assemble and protest. However, that right to protest is not protected when it causes a disruption to the learning environment of the school.”

Soundside also asked about allegations of retaliation or punitive measures against student protesters. The district has not yet responsed to those allegations; we will update this story when it does.

Soundside Producer Brandi Fullwood spoke with Laila Markland, a senior at River Ridge High School and a Black Student Union member about the protests in early 2021. Host Libby Denkmann spoke with Kendrick Washington, the Director of the Policy Advocacy Group at ACLU-WA about trends across the state and nation.

You can hear the full conversation by clicking the audio above.