united-states education
Do schools have a choice in punishing students who participate in a coordinated protest walkout?
<p>There is going to be a National School Walkout on March 14 and several other days in the United States.</p>

<p>Can schools legally allowed to punish or discipline to an extent different from what is defined by their policies, just because it is a protest/walkout or that it agrees with their political opinions?</p>

<p>In this situation, my school is a public government school.</p>

<p>Private schools can mostly do as they wish. Government schools have to follow constitutional provisions that pertain to government action. The most basic relevant principle is the Equal Protection Clause, which forbids a state from denying a person the equal protection of its laws. The government cannot limit First Amendment rights to one group, because they espouse a viewpoint that isn't in line with the ruling party's beliefs. The law is to be enforced in a viewpoint-neutral fashion, not selectively (e.g. <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-2036.ZS.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Good News Club v. Milford High</a>, <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/473/788.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense</a>, <a href="https://openjurist.org/985/f2d/94/dwares-v-city-of-new-york" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Dwares v. New York</a>). </p>

<p>This does <em>not</em> mean that a policy, once stated, must always be enforced. School districts typically have policies defining unexcused absences and penalizing students for having too many of them. These policies are usually indirectly or directly compelled by state law, such as <a href="http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=28A.225.010" rel="nofollow noreferrer">RCW 28A.225.010</a>. This law even-handedly allows all religious excuses, and no political ones. Again, it is not required that unexcused absences for political reasons always be punished. But the decision to punish cannot be based on the particular viewpoint being expressed. If a district generally does rigorously punish political absences for right-leaning causes, it cannot rigorously ignore political absences for left-leaning causes. </p>
