Protests Make It To East Texas

Between 150 and 500 students from Tyler’s John Tyler High School walked out of school Friday morning in protest of immigration reform.

Accordking to KETK-TV Tyler, the students marched to the Smith County Courthouse in downtown Tyler, several miles from the campus.
In Friday morning’s editions of the Tyler Morning Telegraph, school administrators were actually quoted as saying the walkout would not happen, in spite of flyers being distributed around the campus in Spanish.

Typical of the conservative Morning Telegraph, they tried to make the students look like losers before they even walked out:

After hearing talk of a possible walkout Thursday, the principal offered on the school intercom an alternative for administrators and teachers to assist students in writing letters to express their views about the immigration issue to legislators representing the Tyler area in Washington, Ms. Erickson said. No students wrote letters, she said.

Hell, no, lady! They aren’t going to write a letter. What good will that do? It isn’t 1975 where letters and telegrams to Congress remain the manner in which Congressmen know what their constituants are thinking. For one thing, after the Anthrax scare a couple of years ago, letter writing isn’t even the preferred option of communicating with anyone in D.C.

John Tyler is one of two public high schools in Tyler Independent School District. The other is Robert E. Lee High School in South Tyler. John Tyler, however, has the higher minority population.

Students who participated in the JT walkout face an unexcused absense and parent notification. Word of the protest was spread through flyers.

The theme of this morning’s march was summed up with marchers collective cry–”We are not criminals!”, the station noted.

[Note: If you are a student from John Tyler High School who walked out in protest Friday, I'd like to hear from you and perhaps do an interview. Please email me at Vince_Leibowitz@cox.net.]

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