"Ain't no power like the power of the people, cause the power of the people won't stop!"

Students are infuriated and they are doing something about it. They chant as they pass, waving signs and yelling at the cars in the intersection. The rain is pouring and it is freezing cold but the loud shots continue as the hour goes by. What happened to get so many teenagers mad? What event has sparked almost 2,600 students to walk out of class and protest? The war. Although the war is not an educational issue, it is an issue of concern. The Students For Peace and Justice and Montgomery Blair's own Students for Global Responsibility organized a walk out on March 20 and the students responded fully. The plan was to protest the war by walking out at 1:00p.m. They then walked down to the metro and continued the protest downtown. High schools across the county also participated in the walk out, but with Blair's sheer size they were overwhelming.

As plans were made for the walk out Blair's principal, Phillip Gainous, approved the protest as an unexcused absence for the students. Essentially, this means that the protesters were given permission by the school to leave their classes at 1 p.m. If Blair says it is alright for the anti-war protesters to walk out, then what is stopping all other student organized groups from doing the same? Where is the line drawn between school-based activities and protest displays?

Also, because students are allowed to walk out, how many students left class for the actual protest? The police were placed outside the building to enforce the protest restrictions. Because the walk out was approved, it appears that the administration also thought they could have complete control over every aspect of the protest. An administration run walk out seems to be a contradiction in my mind.

The pressure of being a minority in any case is always hard. But in this case if you are for the war, you are part of a small group in the very liberal Blair community. When the walk out began, the students who support the war or those who did not want to protest were left alone in the classrooms. It was almost an incentive to protest, to not be the last student standing. Peer pressure is what high school may be about, but that is not what a protest should be about.

With the administration giving permission, how many of the protestors really had strong feelings against the war? And does it matter? Probably not. In the long run, the point of fact is that 2,600 people left class to protest war with Iraq, not weather each individual student felt strongly on the topic.