#NeverAgain: Our Education Fellows Respond to the School Gun Violence Uprising

In the tragic aftermath of the horrendous shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, students who witnessed the atrocity are taking leadership roles in a nationwide call for action to demand stronger laws to end gun violence. The students have called for a March for Our Lives on Washington, D.C., on March 24 to “end gun violence and mass shootings in our schools today.”

But numerous public officials, including President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, have instead called for more uniformed police in schools and for arming teachers with concealed carry handguns.

The Progressive’s Public School Shakedown Education Fellows explain where they stand in this debate.

As we’ve seen with #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, the hashtag #NeverAgain, started for the horrific assault on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, will change the discourse of the nation.

The #MeToo movement calling for public accountability for sexual abusers fomented debate on due process as allegations became more widespread. #BlackLivesMatter engaged the nation in a dialogue about the modern-day lynching of non-white citizens by law enforcement and the few consequences for that violence. #NeverAgain is criticizing organizations, such as the National Rifle Association, that oppose sensible gun control and calling out politicians who take money from these organizations.

In response to #NeverAgain, President Trump and the NRA have both suggested that teachers should be armed. With debate on how many teachers should be armed and how they should be trained. But the social problems underlying the #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movement should rapidly inform our perspective on arming teachers.

If the NRA and Trump’s proposal is realized, the inexorable nightmare scenario of a white teacher shooting a black teenager in a classroom will occur. This, and the classroom shootings that would inevitably occur after, would predictably send the nation into recriminations due to the lack of accountability for gross malfeasance that #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter have spotlighted.

If the nation follows the advice of Trump and the NRA, the #NeverAgain movement would then need to also address the modern-day lynching of students in their own classrooms. Is that a consequence we really want to see happen?

Julian Vasquez Heilig, California Fellow

Fifteen years ago I was the president of a local teachers union on strike. That action came at the end of several long, frustrating years of contract negotiation, and nobody was very happy about it. But we had run out of ways to get attention to what was going on. People ignore teachers pretty easily.

But students? Students are much harder to ignore. When adults march or strike, it’s easy to dismiss them as just acting in their own self-interest (as if trying to live in a country where people are decently paid and have basic health care and are safe isn’t inherently good for all). But for students, the most obvious way for them to pursue their self-interest is to stay home, stay quiet, tap away on their phones, and listen to their music. On some level, we all understand that if students take to the streets, things have gotten bad.

Just two years ago, we were inspired by the Newark Students Union as it put pressure on now-ex-superintendent Cami Anderson. Now we can be inspired by this new movement centered on gun policy. These students are no more naïve than those who believe that guns are magical protective devices, and they’re no more rude and out of line than a state legislature that tells them, to their faces, that their lives don’t matter. They bring an undeniable energy to the streets that teachers and other adults cannot, and we can best help them by supporting them and amplifying them—and staying out of their way.

I never wanted to be a “strike president.” But sometimes a fight comes to you. These students have chosen to rise, and that is significant, because as a culture, we give young people a pass—they don’t have to take on these kind of issues if they don’t want to. The fact that they have chosen to rise tells us everything about their strength, their character, and the crisis time that has brought them to this moment. We are fortunate to have their leadership.

Peter Greene, Pennsylvania Fellow

Will arming teachers with guns really make children safe? People who are in schools say, “no.”

Antonio Travis of Black Men Rising, a black youth advocacy organization in New Orleans, told me his school already feels like a prison training camp, with more security than counselors. Armed teachers would not make him feel safer, he said.

Travis attends one of the urban schools people tend to talk about when they talk about “safe schools for black children.” But mass shooters and serial killers aren’t usually black.

Still, black children are getting killed, and in response we've decided to create prison camps as if that’s going to make the community safe. What black students and teachers would prefer instead is for their schools to be excellent. We know that they’re not.

In the black community, we’ve seen our kindergarten children being sent to quasi-juvenile jail in the name of safety. More guns and more policing are not the answer.

Ashana Bigard, New Orleans Fellow

I am heartened and inspired by the determination of the Parkland, Florida students who sprang into activism almost instantly after surviving the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. And it’s important that the broader activist community take care to situate them within a tradition of survivors channeling anguish into action, and to protect and guide them on their activist journey.

Setting aside the conspiracy nuts and the naysayers dismissing these efforts because of age—such meritless ideas deserve to be ignored—I confess to being deeply troubled by the number of well-meaning adults proclaiming that these young people will be the ones to finally “save” America from our bullet-riddled nightmare. It would be deeply irresponsible for us to step aside and leave traumatized teenagers to “save” us from anything, even if such a thing were possible.

Yes, adults—particularly those among us who haven’t been lifelong advocates of any kind—should keep quiet if their only words are to belittle these young people. But in proclaiming them as saviors, people are also ignoring countless people who have spent years in the trenches on issues related to gun violence. Newtown families didn’t “do nothing” about gun violence after their children were massacred at Sandy Hook. Trayvon Martin’s family didn’t “do nothing” about gun violence after George Zimmerman murdered their son in cold blood. Gabby Giffords, and the Community Justice Reform Collective, and so many community peacemakers like them didn’t “do nothing” about the tremendous suffering and loss that drives their work.

Rather, their efforts are a key reason these young people have been so effective in speaking and organizing around these issues. It is from their perch on those giant shoulders that the Parkland students deftly deploy stats about NRA lobbying investments to rebut disingenuous politicians, and use social media to organize and crowdfund marches and walk-outs, and so on. We need not erase those who came before these students in order to praise them; we need to help these students—and the rest of the country—see that work and build upon it, rather than abandoning children to a desperate mission to reinvent the wheel while mourning their dead friends and teachers.

We as older advocates must help these students look out for their well-being during this hard time. We must be a firewall against attacks on their integrity (and, God forbid, their safety) as they organize. We must help them navigate the choppy waters of coalition organizing, which is tough even under the best of circumstances. And for the Parkland teens in particular, we must help them use their power and privilege ethically, so that they can help protect and elevate their darker and poorer counterparts facing state and other forms of violence for engaging in the same kinds advocacy they’re celebrated for. That is the only way they will help create lasting, positive change for all of society, not just students in communities like theirs.

Lest we forget, it was affluent, white America’s fear-driven response in the wake of Columbine that accelerated the wave of zero-tolerance policies and expansions in school policing that have shunted millions of students of color into the school-to-prison pipeline (with plenty of officers abusing students of color along the way, whether or not they ended up being pushed out of school). This clearly didn’t stop school shootings; it just made schools even less safe and more traumatic for students of color. Generations of students are worse off because that wave of voters and policymakers didn’t stop to consider or collaborate with communities of color already working on comprehensive solutions to gun violence and community safety more broadly. For this latest movement to be successful, they must avoid making that same mistake. Otherwise, they won’t help build safer communities, they’ll just further entrench our society’s tendency to sacrifice already-vulnerable people for the mere illusion of security.

Sabrina Stevens, Washington, DC Fellow

Instead of the reflexive and dangerous policy proposals for more guns in our school, I would prefer we discuss the lack of training teachers already have in working with students living with trauma. Too much of our professional development is centered around new elements and concepts without much time to reflect or digest them.

For instance, if we find out that some of our children are homeless, we could have a guidance counselor speak to us about signs of depression or policies for students with interrupted formal education. We also need a chance to reflect on the situation and to follow up with our peers.

We could all use CPR-style training in case of emergency situations. Taking CPR training has helped me see how to keep people safe while staying calm and focused. Teaching staff how to respond during dangerous scenarios (without firearms) can show educators that they already have some of the tools to temper down harmful situations and keep kids safer. We’ve heard a number of educators who, through conversations and relationships, prevented potential shooters from going further with their plans.

Our best response is often the one that comes naturally to the most critical and compassionate of us.

José Luis Vilson, New York City Fellow

The Parkland students really are fighting for their lives. They see that what’s needed is to ignite a debate and backlash against those in power who have for too long protected gun manufacturers by hiding behind the Second Amendment—a defense the students understand doesn’t pass muster.

The right to bear arms, as the Founding Fathers argued, was to have a “well-regulated militia” to defend the country. They believed that all citizens should be part-time soldiers to avoid having a “standing army,” which could be used against the people. The well-regulated militia, as described in the Second Amendment, has now been reinterpreted to be any individual who wants any kind of weapon. This is far from what those writing the Constitution had in mind.

With these arguments and the passion of students who are leading this effort, there is finally the promise for change based on rational thinking.

Dora Taylor, Northwest Region Fellow