Baltimore County students erupted in protest last week in response to the racist and xenophobic tweets of one of their teachers threatening to turn students’ names over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. On Feb. 3, a day where some tried to organize “A Day Without Immigrants” protests, an Overlea High School teacher posted on X: “Was just sent a list of students who are allowed to legally skip today in support of illegals as most are illegal. Do I contact ICE or let it slide?”. Two days later, he continued: “We had almost 50 students at my school be legally excused to skip and support illegals protest earlier this week. All are either immigrants or kids of. If you want the names to investigate families to find illegals, let me know in dm [direct message]. I’ll give names and school. All in Md.” The X account is now deactivated and school system officials are investigating, but students didn’t need to wait for an investigation.
Students walked out of their classrooms and held a lunchtime protest within the halls, including alumni and some teacher support. They chanted “We are one.” As one alumna said, “You should feel safe to go to school.” And it is true: no human should be “illegal” as this bigoted teacher claimed, and every person should have access to education without feeling endangered. We should be inspired by the students who were not willing to tolerate this type of behavior by the teacher. Even though he was in an authoritative role to them, they were not afraid to stand up and fight back.
