When the Justice Department lifted a school desegregation order in Louisiana, officials called its continued existence a 鈥渉istorical wrong鈥 and suggested that others dating to the Civil Rights Movement should be reconsidered.
The end of the 1966 legal agreement with Plaquemines Parish schools announced April 29 shows the Trump administration is 鈥済etting America refocused on our bright future,鈥 Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said.
A group of Black students, left, enter the Boothville-Venice School on Sept. 12, 1966, in Plaquemines Parish, La., as a group of white mothers wait at the entrance of the school.
Inside the Justice Department, officials appointed by President Donald Trump expressed desire to withdraw from other desegregation orders they see as an unnecessary burden on schools, according to a person familiar with the issue who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Dozens of school districts across the South remain under court-enforced agreements dictating steps to work toward integration, decades after the Supreme Court struck down racial segregation in education. Some see the court orders鈥 endurance as a sign the government never eradicated segregation, while officials in Louisiana and at some schools see the orders as bygone relics that should be wiped away.
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The Justice Department opened a wave of cases in the 1960s after Congress unleashed the department to go after schools that resisted desegregation. Known as consent decrees, the orders can be lifted when districts prove they eliminated segregation and its legacy.
Five Black children, accompanied by several adults, arrive Sept. 1, 1966, at formerly all-white Woodlawn High School in Plaquemines Parish, La., to apply for registration.听
Long-running case
The Trump administration called the Plaquemines case an example of administrative neglect. The district in the Mississippi River Delta Basin in southeast Louisiana was found to have integrated in 1975, but the case was to stay under the court鈥檚 watch for another year. The judge died the same year, and the court record 鈥渁ppears to be lost to time,鈥 according to a court filing.
鈥淕iven that this case has been stayed for a half-century with zero action by the court, the parties or any third-party, the parties are satisfied that the United States鈥 claims have been fully resolved,鈥 according to a joint filing from the Justice Department and the office of Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill.
Murrill
Plaquemines Superintendent Shelley Ritz said Justice Department officials still visited every year as recently as 2023 and requested data on topics including hiring and discipline. She said the paperwork was a burden for her district of fewer than 4,000 students.
鈥淚t was hours of compiling the data,鈥 she said.
Murrill asked the Justice Department to close other school orders in her state. In a statement, she vowed to work with Louisiana schools to help them 鈥減ut the past in the past.鈥
Civil rights activists say that鈥檚 the wrong move. Many orders have been only loosely enforced in recent decades, but that doesn鈥檛 mean problems are solved, said Johnathan Smith, who worked in the Justice Department鈥檚 Civil Rights Division during President Joe Biden鈥檚 administration.
鈥淚t probably means the opposite 鈥 that the school district remains segregated. And in fact, most of these districts are now more segregated today than they were in 1954,鈥 said Smith, who is now chief of staff and general counsel for the National Center for Youth Law.
A range of instructions
White picketers demonstrate against integration Sept. 1, 1966, outside Woodlawn High School in Plaquemines Parish, La.
More than 130 school systems are under Justice Department desegregation orders, according to records in a court filing this year. The vast majority are in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, with smaller numbers in states like Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina. Some other districts remain under separate desegregation agreements with the Education Department.
The orders can include a range of remedies, from busing requirements to district policies allowing students in predominately Black schools to transfer to predominately white ones. The agreements are between the school district and the U.S. government, but other parties can ask the court to intervene when signs of segregation resurface.
In 2020, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund invoked a consent decree in Alabama鈥檚 Leeds school district when it stopped offering school meals during the COVID-19 pandemic. The civil rights group said it disproportionately hurt Black students, in violation of the desegregation order. The district agreed to resume meals.
Last year, a Louisiana school board closed a predominately Black elementary school near a petrochemical facility after the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund said it disproportionately exposed Black students to health risks. The board made the decision after the group filed a motion invoking a decades-old desegregation order at St. John the Baptist Parish.
A white mother walks with her son past a group of Black students arriving for classes Sept. 12, 1966, at formerly all-white Boothville Venice High School as racial barriers fell in Plaquemines Parish, La.听
Legal challenges
The dismissal raised alarms among some who fear it could undo decades of progress. Research on districts released from orders found many saw greater increases in racial segregation compared with those under court orders.
鈥淚n very many cases, schools quite rapidly resegregate, and there are new civil rights concerns for students,鈥 said Halley Potter, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation who studies educational inequity.
Ending the orders would send a signal that desegregation is no longer a priority, said Robert Westley, a professor of antidiscrimination law at Tulane University Law School in New Orleans.
鈥淚t鈥檚 really just signaling that the backsliding that has started some time ago is complete,鈥 Westley said. 鈥淭he United States government doesn鈥檛 really care anymore of dealing with problems of racial discrimination in the schools. It鈥檚 over.鈥
Any attempt to drop further cases would face heavy opposition in court, said Raymond Pierce, president and CEO of the Southern Education Foundation.
鈥淚t represents a disregard for education opportunities for a large section of America. It represents a disregard for America鈥檚 need to have an educated workforce,鈥 he said. 鈥淎nd it represents a disregard for the rule of law.鈥
Famous student protests from around the world
Famous student protests from around the world
Last May's proliferating pro-Palestine student protests match a storied history of student activism in the United States and around the world.
Colleges across the U.S. are preparing for the students' momentum, interrupted by the end of the spring semester, to pick up in the coming weeks as students return to campus for the new academic year. Many student activists, both pro-Palestine and pro-Israel, have used the summer to strategize.
From pre-Civil Rights demonstrations in the early 20th century to anti-gun marches last year, young people have gone to great lengths over time to make their voices heard鈥攕ometimes risking their lives doing so.听 explored famous student protests in modern history dating back to the turn of the 20th century.
Student protesters have come from all races, classes, genders, and nationalities. Their ages have ranged from middle schoolers to graduate students, and protests have occurred across institutions.
The impact of student protest movements has echoed throughout history. The White Rose resistance group in Nazi Germany, founded by medical students, inspired generations of nonviolent protestors, while the 1987 June Democratic Struggle in South Korea dissolved the military regime there and established modern-day Korean democracy.
In the United States, student activists have advocated for a wide range of issues, including women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, racial equality, peace, reproductive freedom, affordable education, debt-free tuition, police accountability, gun control, and more. Some of the biggest revolutions across the world have originated with students.
The responses from authorities have varied. In some cases, the young people have been allowed to protest freely, while others have been silenced and suppressed, sometimes violently. History is full of examples of police and military forces breaking up peaceful protests employing batons, tear gas, beatings, and even gunfire鈥攁s it is full of instances where protests turned into riots or prevented fellow students from attending class or other school activities.
Keep reading to learn more about famous student protests worldwide.
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1901: Wrze艣nia School Strike in Poland
When German school officials announced in March 1901 that religion classes at the Catholic People's School in Wrze艣nia, an annexed section of Poland, would be held in Germany, more than 100 students protested.
They rejected the German textbooks, suffering detention and beatings as a result. On May 20, 1901, officials dispersed a large crowd of students and parents in front of the school and jailed many of the adults. Over the next three years, trials unfolded while young people continued striking鈥攁t least two of whom were beaten to death.
1924-25: Fisk University protests
American students at the historically black Fisk University in the mid-1920s launched a massive protest聽against the school's white president, Fayette McKenzie, who'd taken extreme measures鈥攊ncluding shutting down the student newspaper and banning most extracurricular activities鈥攖o court donors.
When alumnus W.E.B. Du Bois, then a rising star with a daughter at the college, visited the campus in 1924, he called out the president in a speech from the chapel: "Men and women of Black America: Let no decent Negro send his child to Fisk until Fayette McKenzie goes." The speech prompted months of student strikes, marking some of the first Black student-led activism and serving as a precursor to the Civil Rights movement.
1930s: UCLA anti-establishment protests
More than 3,000 students at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1934聽took to the campus' Royce Quad to protest after five students were suspended聽amid the West Coast "red scare" for alleged communist affiliations.
They threw a police officer in the bushes, but police made no arrests. Meanwhile, with another war on the horizon, students at their sister school, UC Berkeley,聽.听
Royce Quad is the exact location where on May 1.
1942: White Rose Society resistance in Germany
As fascism was unfolding in Nazi Germany, a group of students at the University of Munich got together in the summer of 1942 to form a resistance movement that聽came to be known as the White Rose Society.
The group anonymously handed out fliers admonishing Adolf Hitler's regime and decrying the persecution of the Jews. In less than a year, however, the Gestapo had arrested most of the organization's key members and put the young activists on trial in kangaroo courts, sentencing many to death.
1956: Hungarian Revolution student marches
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 may never have unfolded had an organized group of student protesters not marched through the streets of Budapest on聽Oct. 23 of that year, carrying loudspeakers and chanting,聽
After reading an anti-communist proclamation demanding an independent Hungary, students stormed the radio building near the Hungarian Parliament, prompting police to open fire. The violence killed one student and marked the first bloodshed in the revolution that ultimately toppled the Soviet government.
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1960: Japan's Anpo protests
The United States and Japan in 1960 began talks to amend a treaty known as "Anpo"鈥攖he Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security鈥攚hich pledged American defensive support in exchange for Japanese land use. The negotiations聽, some of whom worried it would start another war.
Over the course of six months, student protesters broke into the prime minister's private home, occupied the airport to ground his plane, and faced off with police using water cannons. At one point a University of Tokyo student was killed. The treaty was still ratified but the activists聽.
1960-68: American civil rights protests (Greensboro to Columbia)
While there were student-led civil rights protests in the years that preceded and followed, it was from 1960 to 1968 that the height of college civil rights activism flourished in the United States.
The first major student-led event occurred when a group of Black聽students refused to leave an F.W. Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina, launching a series of sit-ins throughout the South. Student protests continued over the next eight years; by 1968 they were at a boiling point. The movement, combined with anti-war protests, culminated in an uprising at Columbia University.
There, more than 1,000 protesters took over five buildings and the dean was taken hostage. The events at Columbia were later called "."
1962: Rangoon University protests in Myanmar
On July 2, 1962, after a military coup overthrew parliament, students at Rangoon University in Myanmar (then Burma) gathered to voice their opposition to the new regime led by General Ne Win.
The school had long been a hub for student activism, but Win's military regime shut it down quickly,聽 and blowing up the student union building. The universities were closed, and when they reopened four months later, they were under strict government control. Student activists went underground for more than two decades, meeting quietly but not resurging in public with any significant numbers until the 8888 Uprising of 1988, named for Aug. 8, 1988.
1965-75: US Vietnam War protests (SDS Teach-ins to Kent State)
Although the Vietnam War started a decade earlier, it wasn't until the mid-1960s that the U.S. student movements picked up steam when the Students for a Democratic Society began orchestrating widespread "teach-ins" to voice opposition to the war tactics used by the U.S. government.
The first of these occurred in 1965 at the University of Michigan. By 1970, tensions hit a boiling point with the Kent State tragedy in which four students were killed by the National Guard, inspiring the Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young hit "Ohio" the following year.
1968: Tlatelolco Massacre in Mexico City
During the summer of 1968, unrest boiled in Mexico City as it prepared to host the Olympics. In an effort to present a good face to the world,聽, particularly with regard to labor unions. Students from multiple universities organized and held numerous demonstrations over the summer.
On Oct. 2, 10 days before the games were to start, a large group marched into the plaza to hold another peaceful protest. This time, troops opened fire, killing 300 to 400 people in what came to be known as the Tlatelolco massacre.
The next day, the government-controlled media painted the incident as a violent student protest; however, many now cite that day as the
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1968-1974: LGBTQ+ protests throughout the US
In 1968, a group of students at Cornell University at Willard Straight Hall, marking one of the first major LGBTQ+ student protests in the United States. The Student Homophile League also was formed that year at Cornell, making it the second in the nation after Columbia University.
The following year, the Stonewall riots occurred in Greenwich Village, marking a tipping point in the Gay Liberation movement and fueling nationwide student activism over the next five years.
1973: 'Take Back The Night' protests against sexual violence
With second-wave feminism in full swing, college campuses in the country were primed and ready for women's rights activism in 1973 when students at the University of Southern Florida held the聽.
Taking cues from related protests in Belgium and England, students draped themselves in black sheets and marched around campus carrying broomsticks, imploring the administration to create a women's center. These student-organized events preceded the Philadelphia march two years later that kicked off the national "Take Back The Night" movement, which continues fighting sexual violence to this day.
1973: Athens Polytechnic uprising
Tensions were growing in Greece in the fall of 1973 after more than six years of military rule. On Nov. 14 that year, a group of leftist students at Athens Polytechnic staged an impromptu sit-in. What began peacefully that saw Molotov cocktails thrown and ended with the military driving a tank through university gates.
No Polytechnic students were killed, but 24 civilians died, including several high school students. Following the incident, a high-ranking military officer leveraged the events that unfolded to stage a counter-coup, overturning the dictatorship that had been in power since 1967.
1976: Soweto Youth Uprising in South Africa
The Soweto uprising in 1976 marked the fiercest resistance to apartheid the South African government had seen up to that point. It began on June 16 when a group of students, emboldened by the growing Black Consciousness Movement, marched to Orlando Stadium under the guidance of the Soweto Students' Representative Council.
The immediate impetus was the government's implementation of Afrikaans聽as the official language taught in schools. Police responded with swift violence, killing up to 700 people, according to many estimates (though the government reported it as 176). Many South Africans who'd previously been uninvolved with the anti-apartheid movement were enraged by the police violence and jumped in in full force. Some historians cite the uprising as one of the聽.
1989: Tiananmen Square occupation in China
The Tiananmen Square massacre in China remains one of the most infamous student-led protests in world history.
It came in the wake of the death of Hu Yaobang, a high-ranking Communist Party official who'd become a reformer later in life. Political organization unfolded as pro-democracy students gathered in Beijing's Tiananmen Square聽to pay their respects. The crowd grew as students from other universities caught word and came down, prompting an occupation that escalated over the next six weeks with hunger strikes and other demonstrations.
On May 20, 1989, martial law was declared; on June 2, after more than a month of clashes, the military moved in with tanks, opening fire on hundreds and producing the iconic "Tank Man" photo. Death toll numbers vary from several hundred to thousands.
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1989: Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia
Few student activist groups can say they were responsible for toppling a government, but that was the case for the youth of the Velvet Revolution. Most impressively, it was accomplished with almost no violence.
On Nov. 17, 1989, in what was then Czechoslovakia, about 15,000 students entered Prague after days of anti-communist demonstrations. Riot police attacked them, but there were no serious injuries. However, a聽 set the stage for negotiations. Students met with Communist Party officials and continued striking over the next week and a half. By Nov. 29, they had succeeded in changing the Constitution. By the end of the year, a new president had been elected following four decades of one-party rule.
1998: Trisakti shootings in Indonesia
On May 12, 1998, frustrated by the Asian financial crisis and upset with their government, students at Trisakti University聽in Jakarta, Indonesia, staged a nonviolent protest, marching from their university to the legislative building. After being stopped by police not far from campus, the students' march transitioned into a sit-in, but riot police showed up, and students began dispersing. As students were returning to campus, police opened fire from behind, killing four.
Public outrage over the slayings led to the聽, who had been ruling as a dictator for 30 years.
1999: Iran student protests over free speech
Dubbed by some as the聽聽the response to the 1999 student protests at Tehran University was among the most brutal in student activist history. After a group of students peacefully protested the shutdown of a reformist newspaper, paramilitary officers raided student dormitories, setting beds on fire, breaking windows, grabbing women by the hair, and throwing students out windows.
At least one student died, and as demonstrations broke out nationwide over the next six days, thousands more were arrested. About 70 vanished without a trace. Rather than bringing greater freedom to Iran, the incident led to increased government suppression that included new "thought crime" laws.
2006: 'A Day Without Immigrants' demonstrations
On May 1, 2006, immigrants' rights groups in the United States organized "A Day Without Immigrants," .
Students played a huge role in the protests, which saw 1 million to 2 million people marching in Los Angeles alone. In the Santa Barbara School District, roughly one-third of the student population was absent and in the Los Angeles Unified School District, in grades 6 through 12, accounting for 27% of the total. In Hillsborough County, Florida, about 12% of middle and high school students stayed home.
2010: London tuition protests
After the United Kingdom's coalition government announced an increase to the cap on higher education tuition fees in 2010, university students throughout the country took to the streets to protest the growing cost of education.
Some of the biggest demonstrations took place in London, where 30,000 to 50,000 students marched and chanted. Riot police showed up聽in Westminster amid window-smashing and bonfires and kettled some in the crowd, a move that led to later criticism. Opponents argued that the police tactic, which essentially corrals protesters into one area for long periods, put them at risk of being crushed and denied them fundamental rights to food, water, and bathroom facilities.
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2011: Arab Spring fueled by youth
Although the mass protests that broke out in numerous Middle Eastern countries in 2011 (nicknamed the "Arab Spring") were carried out by people of all ages, students played a huge part in organizing and providing sustained momentum.
The youth movement has been credited for much of its success in countries like Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Libya, and Bahrain. Before the uprisings, students were also a driving force in Tahrir Square during the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
"The events of the past few months have shown us that聽," author Stephanie Schwartz said at the time. "... Social media, hip hop, the arts, and comedy have all played a role in anti-regime advocacy."
2011-13: Student education reform protests in Chile
Sometimes referred to as the "Chilean Winter," students carried out widespread protests throughout Chile between 2011 and 2013.
The demonstrations called attention to the educational system privatized in the early 1980s under the Augusto Pinochet regime. Students criticized profit-based models and advocated for free public education, clashing repeatedly with police聽during the two-year period during which, at times, tear gas and water cannons were employed against them.
Although the significant changes the students requested never came to fruition, they were successful in causing a shakeup in the administration, including the minister of education.
2013: Black Lives Matter demonstrations
After the 2013 acquittal of the man who killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black youth shot in a Florida suburb, a wave of "I am Trayvon Martin" protests spread across the United States. In Miami-Dade County,聽 reported student walkouts following the verdict, with other schools reporting similar protests.
The movement, which became , captured the world's attention聽as news reports of police brutality and systematic racism continued to surface.
2013: Student debt protests at New York universities
In the wake of the Great Recession and subsequent Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, a group of students in 2013聽 held by New York University's Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM). The students were protesting the student debt incurred to attend the school. Over the next six years, SLAM continued holding rallies that grew in size, incorporating neighboring New York universities and gaining national attention.
In 2018, one student reported being聽, who allegedly said his financial aid would be in jeopardy if he didn't quit protesting. This prompted a new wave of demonstrations. The cancellation聽of some student debt was just one of many topics tackled in the first few months聽of the Biden administration.
2014: Jadavpur University protests against sexual violence
After a female student was molested on campus in 2014, students began protesting at Jadavpur University in Calcutta, India. When their requests for an investigation were not met, they encircled several administration officials, including the vice-chancellor, in a practice known as "gheraoing" (essentially encircling a person or group of people).
Police arrived and split them up violently, using batons, and allegedly molested some women protesters. The brutal police response set off another wave of protests that lasted four more months,聽. After some students' "fast until death," the vice chancellor resigned.
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2014: Hong Kong's Umbrella Revolution
A group of student activists in 2014 led a strike in an election for the city's highest executive. Organizers set up protests聽outside Hong Kong's Central Government Complex and Tamar Park while 13,000 students assembled at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Dense parts of the city, including Admiralty, Causeway Bay, and Mong Kok, were occupied for聽79 days.听
Police unleashed a brutal response聽that included tear gas, beatings, and alleged involvement by triad gangsters. A local news station captured a four-minute police beating of a pro-democracy Civil Party member, prompting further demonstrations and unrest.
During the clearance, protesters used umbrellas to defend themselves, and photos that emerged earned them the nickname "Umbrella protesters." As a result of the demonstrations, Hong Kong police became more aggressive in their tactics, imprisoning numerous participants. The student movement was聽.
2016: Uganda's Makerere University protests
When lecturers went on strike over budget cuts in August 2016 at Makerere University鈥攖he 鈥擴ganda's central government threatened the school with closure; however, educators voted to continue demonstrating, and many students marched in solidarity.
However, the vote angered other students, who argued that staff should seek solutions that would not force the school to shut down. Tensions escalated, and on Nov. 1, President Yoweri Museveni closed the prestigious university "indefinitely." As this was unfolding, military police raided the home of a local king in Kasese, slaughtering more than 100 people, including children.
These separate issues converged, bringing student unrest to a new level and inciting violence and the destruction of property. The school remained closed for nearly four weeks before an agreement was reached.
2016: 'Love Trumps Hate' student rallies
After Donald Trump was elected U.S. president in 2016, students nationwide walked out of classes and organized protests聽against the soon-to-be leader, who they said promoted hateful rhetoric. Using the hashtag #lovetrumpshate鈥攁 reference to one of Hillary Clinton's campaign slogans鈥攖housands of student marches took place throughout the country following the election.
The student protests paved the way for the post-inaugural 2017 Women's March鈥攖he聽.
2017: #MeToo movement against sexual harassment
Although social activist Tarana Burke first coined the phrase in 2006, it wasn't until actor Alyssa Milano tweeted on Oct. 15, 2017, that the #MeToo hashtag became a viral women's movement.
The tweet, which was posted 10 days after The New York Times published a story on sexual harassment allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein, sparked student demonstrations worldwide. As allegations against other men unfolded,聽 of the movement, particularly on college campuses.
2018: 'March For Our Lives' against gun violence
Students staged a walkout two days after a mass shooter killed 17 students聽at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida,聽on Feb. 14, 2018.
A tearful speech on Feb. 17 by survivor Emma Gonz谩lez went viral, launching a nationwide student movement for gun control. Twenty students at Marjory Stoneman founded an organization called Never Again MSD and began planning a rally they dubbed "March For Our Lives."
The event took place on March 24 in Washington聽D.C., along with more than 800 related marches across the United States. With a turnout of between 1 and 2 million people, it was one of the聽.
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2019: Global climate strikes
Students were at the forefront of across and all 50 states in 2019, inspired by Swedish then-teenage activist聽Greta Thunberg. Experts who study social protests noted that these protests were different than those of the past due to the .
2020: Protests against police brutality
across the United States after a viral video showed the , but those weren't the only reactions. Because the country was also facing the coronavirus pandemic, some chose the digital realm to 聽about violence instigated by law enforcement.
2021: #FeesMustFall movement in South Africa
More than two decades after the end of apartheid, students in South Africa protested in 2021聽to ask the government to even the playing field with , to give lower-income South Africans聽more professional options. Protests ramped up after a .听
