On Thursday, February 5th, groups of students gathered in front of Baltimore’s City Hall and in other cities across the country. They held handmade signs, chanted slogans, and protested ICE—Immigration and Customs Enforcement—during school hours.
To many adults watching, the scene looked familiar: kids out of class, energized, loud, and convinced they were standing on the “right side” of history. Some applauded. Others shrugged. A few asked the obvious question: why aren’t they in class?
But a better question is this: how did this become normal—and who benefits from it?
This isn’t an indictment of children.
Young people are impressionable. They take the path that’s made available to them. Like water, they flow where resistance is lowest. If there’s a sanctioned way to skip class, avoid homework, and feel morally affirmed at the same time, many will take it. That’s not radicalism—it’s human nature.
The responsibility lies not with 14-, 15-, or 16-year-olds, but with the adults and institutions shaping their behavior.
Here’s the uncomfortable reality: many of these same students are far below grade level in math, reading, and writing. They struggle with basic arithmetic. They can’t analyze a contract. They can’t read the news critically—if they read it at all.
Yet they’re being encouraged to protest federal law enforcement policy.
ICE exists because Congress passed laws and the Constitution grants the federal government authority over immigration. Adults can debate enforcement policy. That’s fair. But pulling kids out of class to chant slogans doesn’t make them more civically engaged—it makes them politically useful and intellectually dependent.
Decades ago, lawmakers warned that ideological subversion wouldn’t come through tanks or invasions, but through culture, education, and youth movements. One such warning stated: “Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under attack.” That was listed as Communist Goal #19.
Whether you agree with the label or not, the pattern is hard to ignore.
What makes today’s protests especially troubling is that many were sanctioned—or quietly approved—by school systems themselves.
Students left campus. Instructional time was lost. Parents were not meaningfully informed. Permission slips were absent.
This wasn’t student rebellion. It was institutional approval.
Another warning from the same era put it this way: “Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations.” That was identified as Communist Goal #17.
This isn’t about accusing today’s teachers of being communists. It’s about recognizing that when schools prioritize activism over academics and unions wield outsized influence over curriculum, the outcome mirrors what was warned about decades ago.
Parents are sidelined. Education is diluted. And schools quietly become political staging grounds.
The irony is that many of these protests target institutions carrying out constitutional authority. ICE does not exist in defiance of the Constitution—it exists because of it.
Yet students are routinely taught that America’s founding framework is outdated, oppressive, or fundamentally flawed. That idea didn’t arise spontaneously either.
Another warning stated: “Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs.” That was Communist Goal #29.
When young people are taught to reject the foundation before they understand it, they don’t become reformers. They become dependents.
If students want to protest, there should be some basic standard for civic participation:
- Pay taxes—or at least understand how they work.
- Pay a bill—or understand responsibility and trade-offs.
- Have a C or better on the most recent math test
- Write one coherent paragraph explaining why you’re protesting and offer a solution beyond a slogan.
Imagine how prepared our youth would be!
Civic engagement without competence isn’t empowerment. It’s performance.
This isn’t about ICE. It’s not about signs. It’s not even about politics.
It’s about whether schools exist to educate citizens or manufacture activists.
When kids are trained to chant before they can calculate, to protest before they can reason, and to oppose authority before they understand it, they don’t grow into free people.
They grow into dependents.
And dependency—intellectual, economic, and moral—has always been the goal of systems that want people to serve the state rather than realize the potential God placed within them.
If we care about the next generation, the answer is simple.
Teach kids how to think. Teach them math. Teach them to read. Teach them responsibility.
The protests can wait. Their future cannot.
