JUDY PUTNAM

Putnam: 'Fear has no place in our schools' say students joining new movement

Judy Putnam
Lansing State Journal
Okemos High School Senior Eva Schwarz, 17, joined students across the country who walked out of classes March 14, 2018 to protest school violence.

OKEMOS – Will students in Parkland, Florida inspire a wave of political involvement, the likes of which we haven't seen since the Vietnam and Civil Rights protest eras? I hope so.

There's evidence that the #NeverAgain movement is inspiring young people across the country, many of whom walked out of their high school classes at 10 a.m. Wednesday for 17 minutes to support Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

A former student at the Florida school is accused of a murderous rampage that left 17 dead on Feb. 14.

The walk-out message to state and national leaders: It could happen in any of our schools — do something. Most of the students weren't even born on April 20, 1999 when two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado killed 12 students and one teacher and injured two dozen more.

Though it wasn't the first school shooting, it's seared into our collective memories as the start of the modern string of school shootings. Now there are so many we argue over how to count them.

That means today's high school students have spent their entire school careers with the possibility of another student or stranger rampaging through the hallways.

Okemos High School Senior Janeen Zheng, 17, was among an estimated 600 students who joined the national walkout at Okemos High School. She carried a sign reading "I Walk with MSD."

She said at her school, administrators helped arrange a space for students to rally. During the event in a school parking lot, a handful of students offered comments. Then they read the names of the victims at Stoneman Douglas and sang "Amazing Grace" as they released 17 balloons. The students walked in silence back to their classes.

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Balloons were launched Wednesday at Okemos High School as an estimated 600 students joined a national walkout to protest school violence.

Zheng said she was grateful for her school's accommodation, but she would have walked out even if administrators tried to stop it. In Portland schools, sadly, students were given detention for walking out instead of participating in an administrator-led discussion that avoided the topic of gun control.

Related:Portland students get detention for protesting gun violence outside high school

"I think it's something I'd definitely like to continue until Congress makes clear that they are going to do something about it – until they actually take action," Zheng said.

She favors stricter background checks for gun purchases as a starting point, something she sees where both sides of the gun safety debate might agree.

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Friends William Jones, Janeen Zheng and Eva Schwarz participated in the national walkout Wednesday, March 14, 2018 to remember the victims at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. They are all 17.

Zheng is a first-generation American and her parents, immigrants from China, are not politically active. After her own research and soul-searching, she calls herself a moderate who leans Democratic. She keeps her opinions to herself on social media as she has friends and acquaintances across the political spectrum.

After Sandy Hook, she, like others, talked about it and looked for solutions, then it faded.

"It's just really frustrating to me. I also have been at fault," she said. "How many more shootings are going to happen until we start taking action?"

J. Cherie Strachan is a political science professor at Central Michigan University. She also directs CMU's School of Public Service and Global Citizenship.

Since the '80s, Strachan said young people have shied away from political involvement. Instead they focused on volunteering and civic engagement.

Related:Lansing-area students walk out to protest gun violence, honor Parkland shooting victims

That could be changing with the growing student school safety movement.

"It's hard to 100% predict. It does seem like there is a commitment to carrying this forward, particularly with the Parkland students leading the charge," Strachan said.

In conservative Florida, the first gun control measures in two decades were approved in the wake of the Parkland massacre.

"They've shifted the national conversation and changed what we're talking about," Strachan noted.

A student at Stoneman Douglas has raised $3.3 million through GoFundMe to support the March for Our Lives in Washington D.C. March 24 and to help victims and their families.

A local march on the Capitol in Lansing is also being planned at 10 a.m. for the same day.

Zheng said she will attend the Lansing rally. Her friend, Eva Schwarz, 17, a senior, also hopes to be there but has a conflict with a school event.

Schwarz said she attended the Women's March on Washington in 2017, and one in Lansing in 2018. She also attended the state March for Science in Lansing last year.

She's made time for it despite a full plate of extracurricular activities. She is the high school drum major, runs track, and plays French horn in the band. She's on the student council as well as a leader in a school volunteer project. She comes from a family of Democrats who are politically aware.

"I think this is the culmination of years of tragedies in schools and movie theaters and everywhere else. I really do think this is the thing that's finally going to get the ball rolling," she said.

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Schwarz, like Zheng, wants stricter background checks for weapon sales. She also supports bans on assault weapon and bump stocks. Her sign read "Disarm Hate," and "Fear has no place in our schools."

While the left has focused on gun control and the right on personal responsibility and mental health, Schwarz sees the need for both.

She said she's been heartened by a recent focus on mental health at her school when a speaker came in to discuss depression.

Since Parkland, administrators have stood watch by the unlocked front door at her high school, which gave her comfort. The rest of the outside doors are locked.

"As someone who's going to these schools, it's very relevant to me. It has to do with the place I spend the majority of my time,' she said. 'I'd really like everybody to be safe especially in the places we go to learn."

Judy Putnam is a columnist with the Lansing State Journal. Contact her at (517) 267-1304 or at jputnam@lsj.com. Follow her on twitter @judyputnam.