Lots of of scholars from the Bronx and citywide walked out of college on Might 27, 2025 to protest the Trump administration.
Picture Emily Swanson
Lots of of excessive schoolers from throughout the town staged a walkout on Might 27, rallying in Union Sq. towards what they view because the Trump administration’s undermining of Constitutional protections and pupil freedoms.
Among the many organizers had been college students from the Excessive Faculty of American Research at Lehman Faculty and Bronx Science, beneath the group We The College students, a nonpartisan coalition fashioned within the months since Trump’s second time period started. An estimated 20 colleges had been represented on the protest, in keeping with pupil leaders.
Through the rally, college students held handmade indicators, some with common slogans (“Protect Our Country,” “Respect the Constitution”) and others pointedly directed at President Trump and his administration (“Morons Are Governing America,” “Ikea has better cabinets”).
Picture Emily Swanson
The group screamed, “Hands off education!” and “The students united will never be defeated!” as passersby stopped to take photographs and movies. Some onlookers stated they had been glad to see youth in motion. “You gotta fight. We let you down,” one instructed the group.
Oliver Wong, a senior on the Excessive Faculty of American Research, instructed the Bronx Instances that he heard concerning the rally on social media and needed to come help. When requested about what Trump administration insurance policies had been most regarding to him, he responded, “What can I say? Everything.”
Particularly, Wong pointed to the administration’s threats to greater schooling funding, particularly at Harvard College, the place the President has moved to cancel all the college’s federal contracts totaling $100 million and block it from admitting worldwide college students.
Trump has accused Harvard of an general liberal bias that fosters antisemitism, however the faculty has clapped again, suing over the worldwide pupil ban and in any other case publicly standing as much as Trump. The threats hit near residence, stated Wong. “We know Columbia folded.”
Underneath the circumstances, Wong stated he was “optimistic but scared” about his future.
Picture Emily Swanson
Margot Freudenheim, a senior on the Excessive Faculty of American Research who helped set up the occasion, stated they hoped the rally and the large turnout would assist quell a few of college students’ fears.
“What’s the point of fear and despair if it doesn’t motivate you to do anything?” they stated.
Freudenheim stated the We The College students rally follows the nation’s lengthy custom of pupil protests, corresponding to these throughout the Vietnam Struggle. Though younger individuals are residing in occasions they referred to as “definitely scary,” the work of coalition constructing was a solution to counteract despair and arise towards the “erosion of democracy and expansion of executive power,” Freudenheim stated.
The group goals to signify a spread of pupil political viewpoints and can hold momentum going with one other rally on June 14. Their actions present that younger individuals can and can present as much as defend their rights — to the advantage of everybody, Freudenheim stated. “We don’t want to grow up in an America where the Constitution is irrelevant.”
