LAFAYETTE, IN — Hundreds of students at Lafayette Jefferson High School spilled onto the sidewalks surrounding the school Wednesday morning – most of the student body, by the estimate of classmates – many holding signs and chanting to protest the activities of federal immigration enforcement agents and to stand in support of local immigrants.
“The richest schools in Indiana are doing it,” said sophomore Sophia Bittinger, an organizer of the protest. “We see Carmel and Brownsburg doing it. Our school is full of minorities, so we should stand up.”
Students from Jeff joined a movement sweeping high schools across Indiana. Hoosiers Rise, an Instagram account that promotes progressive causes, shared a list of more than 40 Indiana high schools where walkouts and protests have either already happened or are planned for February.
Bittinger started an Instagram account called “jhs.against.ice” after Alex Pretti was shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 24. Her friend Zarielis Zayas, also a sophomore, joined the account’s leadership soon after, and by Jan. 31 the two began posting about the 9:40 a.m. walk-out set for Wednesday.
With help from the widely followed school meme page and like-minded Instagram accounts, including Take Action Greater Lafayette and Ayuda Mutua, word spread through school halls and group chats.
“Someone really needed to stand up in our school,” Bittinger said. “I think a lot of people had the idea. It was talked about around our school, doing a protest, but I think I just needed to stand up. I was raised to be very political and stand up for people I care about and causes I care about.
“It’s not even about politics at this point,” she shouted over honks and cheers from her classmates ahead of her. “ICE is treating people unfairly and hurting people.”
The students streaming by on sidewalks surrounding the high school’s campus, lap by milelong lap, represented differences in race and birthplace and language at a school that prides itself on diversity. “I’m in piano class with someone from Ghana,” senior Marquise Fowler said.
One girl played mariachi music from her phone as she and her friends marched. Jair Guadalajara drove by in his SUV, a Mexican flag flying from his passenger-side window. Another boy leaned out of a pickup truck window, fist raised as the truck revved its engine and sped down South 18th Street.
“We should be standing up, because all the kids here come from immigrants,” sophomore Lucy Urbanski said.
Karen Magallanes, a sophomore walking beside Urbanski, was born to immigrants from Mexico. She said she’s seen images of immigration detention facilities and news of families being broke up. “I just want this to end,” she said.
Students who elected to protest were marked absent for the classes they missed, and school Principal Mark Preston said via email that any disciplinary follow-up would be strictly attendance-related. Preston said administrators and staff were aware of the protest “several days prior” and were careful to maintain a neutral political message.
Zayas said the protest was a way to help her friends’ immigrant parents by bringing immigration policy awareness to the school and community. She said she feels frustrated that she and her friends can’t vote until the next presidential election.
“Sometimes, we can’t voice our opinions without being told we’re just kids,” she said. “It may seem little, but our voices do mean something, and it’s something that a lot of us forget. So this gave us a purpose.”
An hour into the walkout, a group of about 20 students shed their coats and danced on the green-painted concrete of the band practice lot, skipping and twirling. A mariachi song about a feisty bull played from a speaker. The students formed a ring, some climbing on each other’s shoulders, which 20 minutes later became a mass of at least 80.
By 11 o’clock, the dancing wound down and the walkout began to disband. Friends grouped up to walk back to class. One girl turned to her friends as they stepped off the practice lot and, face flushed, reveled in the excitement of the morning: “I feel so alive right now.”
Contact Israel Schuman atischuman@gannett.com or on X @ischumanwrites.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Lafayette students walk out of class in anti-ICE protest, immigrant support
Reporting by Israel Schuman, Lafayette Journal & Courier / Lafayette Journal & Courier
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