Will Nevada students face consequences for protesting ICE?

An advocacy organization says schools can’t discipline students simply for participating in a walkout. Standard absence rules apply, admin say.

Many Nevada students have walked out of class in response to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations. Will they face any consequences for doing so?

American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada Executive Director Athar Haseebullah said generally, students’ First Amendment rights are protected. However, one of the most prominent examples of case law that upholds students’ freedom of speech, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, deals with activity within school grounds. Walkouts, which occur off campus, are in a sort of gray area.

But Haseebullah argues that doesn’t give school administrators a free pass to discipline those students differently than they would students who are tardy or absent for other reasons.

“If they end up treating it differently, and that, I think, is grounds for litigation,” Haseebullah said.

During one of these walkouts in Reno last month, Debbie Smith CTE Academy students explained why they were speaking out against Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) actions in Minnesota that resulted in two fatal shootings.

“I think a lot of people in our country are not getting their constitutional rights of due process, and I think that’s wrong,” senior Atticus Mahr told The Indy as he was walking with an American flag draped across his shoulders.

Another senior, Briana Mondragon, said she wanted to advocate for people who can’t speak out.

“I feel like people should always have freedom of speech,” she said.

These anti-ICE walkouts are the latest example of American student activism. Other prominent examples include sit-ins organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee formed by Black college students during the 1960 Civil Rights Movement and the March for Our Lives protests advocating for gun control legislation following the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting in 2018.

The Clark County School District (CCSD) and Washoe County School District (WCSD) both said in statements last month that students who participated in the walkouts would be marked tardy or absent, in accordance with Nevada law, depending on how long they are out of class. The absences could be considered unexcused.

CCSD said in a Feb. 6 statement it doesn’t have a record of the number of protests or participants. Officials added that the district has provided school administrators with guidance and support on how to ensure student safety and minimize learning disruptions during student protests.

WCSD, which has an enrollment of about 60,000, said more than 13,000 students who were scheduled to attend a class at 11 a.m. or later had an unverified absence on Jan. 30, a day when organizers nationwide called for protests against ICE. The district notes that an unverified absence does not necessarily indicate participation in a walkout and could be due to an unrelated circumstance, such as an illness.

The districtwide absence rate for that day, 23 percent, was higher than two typical Fridays earlier in this school year, between 6 percent to 7 percent. The absence rate among high school students for Jan. 30 was 46 percent compared with the typical rate of 14 percent to 16 percent, and 33 percent for middle school students compared with the typical rate of 3 percent to 4 percent.

WCSD didn’t specify what schools the absent students were from. District officials said in a Friday statement there are no reports of students disciplined for engaging in a walkout.

The ACLU of Nevada has a form on its website where students can report whether they’ve been disciplined for engaging in First Amendment activity.

Read the rest of this article, which was shared with Noticiero Móvil, over at The Nevada Independent. This story was reported by Rocío Hernández and originally published on February 9, 2026.