Students Speak Up after Historic Election
Benson students walked out on Friday in protest of President Donald Trump. We spoke to students and organizers to find out why.
By Elizabeth Larrison —
On November 6th, 2024, Donald Trump became the second President of the United States to be elected for a second nonconsecutive term. By lunch the next day, fliers were being handed out to Benson students advertising a walk-out. On Friday at 1:00PM, only two days after the election, students got up and left their 7th period classes.
According to Benson Polytechnic High School Vice Principal Sara Callies, around 70 students signed out at the front office and left the school. Students marched around the front of the school, with signs boasting slogans including, “Climate Can Not Wait”, “Protect Trans Kids”, “F*ck Trump”, and “This Body is Mine, Dont Belong to The Government!” [sic].
Students were voicing their fear and anger towards President Trump’s proposed policies. Tamani, a sophomore in the Communications and Design Academy who chose to not give me their last name, said, “I’m really upset [...] I heard Trump is a fascist and he’s trying to take away people's rights, and I don’t want that because [...] I’m mixed. I'm 25% Black. I’m autistic. I’m a part of the LGBTQ and I’m discriminated against by most in the government because of my identity. I’m really upset.”
Jason, a KBPS senior, who helped to make signs and decide on chants, said, “It sucks that we saw what Trump did on January 6th. It showed his true colors. He threw a fit, and got a whole bunch of people hurt, a few people killed, and we decided to elect him back. It sucks, but at least we have people here who care about us and it shows right now.”
Another senior, Jazira Flores, states that they are, “[…] disappointed completely and utterly that this entire country is not united in any sort of way. There’s a complete divide in our beliefs and our entire system is completely crashing because of it. People are losing their rights. People are dying, children are dying. People are being raped and murdered and it’s a destructive world. We need to work together.” When asked if this is an effective way of getting their voices heard, Jazira said, “If I can disrupt them and not hurt them, not cause violence or any issues, I will. I will make my voice heard.”
Freshman Kamaya Mcleod said, “I feel like [the election results] suck because, personally, Project 2025 has nothing good in it for America at all. They’re basically just ruining America. Everytime I say something about it, people say ‘oh, like the first four years of this president he was good’ but that's only because he wanted to be elected again. [...] He has nothing good planned for America.”
However, not every student walked out. Some students feel much less passionately, including 10th grader Weston Elias, who said “Honestly It does not matter. The American machine will keep chugging.”
So how was this organized on such short notice? I spoke with Jacob Apenes and Sriya Chinnam, two organizers from Sunrise PDX, the Portland Chapter of the Sunrise Movement. The Sunrise Movement is a non-profit that fights for “climate revolution”. Chinnam had reached out to Connor Jacobsen, in order to make sure that they had all the resources they needed. Chinnam said, “We really believe that young people are the future of this country, and young people are the future of the world. And that politicians and leaders do listen to us, even though sometimes we can feel that we’re powerless and hopeless.”
Both students and administrators had only heard about the walk-out at around noon on November 7th, the day before the demonstration. Connor Jacobsen, the KBPS senior who organized the walk-out, said that he had decided to stage a walkout at 6PMon Wednesday. “I used flyers to get the word out,” Jacobsen said.
The organizing timeline was short. Jacobsen said, “The same time you heard about it yesterday at lunch was basically the exact same time we got a message from Connor. It was put together in about 24 hours.”
“This was really short notice. [...] This is just the beginning, this is just gonna grow from here. Next week there's gonna be another walk-out and hopefully more schools are gonna get involved,” Chinnam added in reference to another walkout scheduled for Friday, November 15th.
