Chiara Klaiman, a student from Beacon High School, said, "I’m out here because it has come down to the wire, we have to act now." The U.S. government "doesn’t have the right to impose its views on a sovereign nation," commented Moira, a student from New York University.

At other schools, including Walton High in the Bronx, students were threatened with suspension if they left class to protest the war. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that if students wanted to protest they should do it "after class."

The same day as the student protests, Bloomberg stated that the city administration would probably grant a march permit to United for Peace and Justice for a March 22 demonstration through the streets of Manhattan. The same coalition organized the February 15 rally, which city officials barred from marching claiming "security concerns."
 

More than 100 students left classes at Newton North High School to march and drive in the pouring rain to a rally on the steps of the war memorial at Newton City Hall. They were joined by students at Newton South and Arlington High Schools.

The students held a several-hour teach-in with an open microphone. "For every U.S. soldier who dies, 300 Iraqis will die," said Hiro Tanaka, 16, a junior at Newton North. "We have no right to kill these people."

A handful of pro-war students dressed in camouflage T-shirts came to observe the rally on their lunch hour. They were asked to speak and engage in discussion and debate. When they declined, a number of antiwar students went over to talk to them.

Students also walked out at the high school in suburban Lexington when the school’s principal threatened them with suspension if they spoke to the press. Many wore T-shirts that read "No War!" An overflow crowd attended an antiwar rally at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

On March 8 the weekly antiwar rally in Lawrence, Massachusetts, drew 35 people, including some members of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees who work at the Malden Mills plant there. Joining the protest were participants in a month-long Amherst-to-Boston march for peace sponsored by the Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist Order.
 

A small number of students supporting the war also came to the rally. A few of them with signs saying "Bomb Iraq" and "We want War" climbed onto a structure immediately above the rally and shouted pro-war slogans. This effort to disrupt the antiwar rally by shouting down the speakers was prevented by those who came to hear the speakers and have a civil discussion. Some of them, with signs opposing the war, climbed up next to the disrupters, jostling for space to make sure the antiwar signs became the backdrop of the rally.

Later in the day, 10 high schools students joined the rally, mostly from Charlotte’s Northwest School of the Arts. They held a banner in festive colors opposing the war, which they made on the spot. A group of Muslim and Palestinian students hung a clothesline up with color copies of photographs of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the Palestinian people’s resistance.
 

The most effective strike was at the High School of Creative and Performing Arts (CAPA), where 28 youth walked out despite threats of one-day suspensions. CAPA students were welcomed as heroes at the rally, as was a student from Schenley High School who was expelled for her organizing efforts.

The students sent a delegation to meet with the head of the Board of Education. They returned to report they will be meeting with the entire board to request that body adopt a resolution which reads in part, "we...oppose any use of educational funds to support military action in Iraq. Since said use of educational funds would be impossible to prevent if war is declared, we oppose a preemptive U.S. military attack on Iraq."

The strike and rally were called by the Pittsburgh Association of Peacemakers and Proactive Youth (PAPPY).
 

Zola Neal, 16, said that at Woodrow Wilson High School more than 100 students participated in the walkout February 21. The students were given a 20-minute detention period for their participation. She plans to be part of the walkout when the massive invasion begins.
 
 
Related articles:
Protesters drawn to revolutionary ideas  
 
 
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