Schools all over the country allowed students to participate in National Walkout Day to protest and demand gun control. But what would happen if students wanted to stage a walkout to protest something like abortion? Would the politics of such a demonstration be equally accepted?
California high school teacher Julianne Benzel posed this question to her class. Now she’s being punished…
A California high school teacher was placed on paid administrative leave this week after she pointed out an apparent double standard surrounding Wednesday’s national school walkout against gun violence…
The majority of schools nationwide agreed not to punish the students participating in the walkout and some even made certain accommodations in support of their efforts.
Julianne Benzel, a history teacher at Rocklin High School in Rocklin, told a local CBS affiliate that she discussed the walkout with students in her class last week and questioned whether schools would be just as supportive of students protesting against abortion.
“I just kind of used the example, which I know it’s really controversial, but I know it was the best example I thought of at the time — a group of students nationwide, or even locally, decided ‘I want to walk out of school for 17 minutes’ and go in the quad area and protest abortion, would that be allowed by our administration?” she said.
CBS Sacramento has more:
“We had a dialogue in class about it in Thursday and Friday. And today I received the call. So I am aghast,” said Julianne Benzel.
Benzel says she never discouraged her students from participating in the national school walk out, but she did question whether it’s appropriate for a school to support a protest against gun violence if they’re not willing to support all protests.
