AUSTIN (KXAN) – Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Friday he is directing the Texas Education Commissioner to investigate student-led protests against recent immigration enforcement actions. The student walkouts happening across the state come less than a week after federal agents were seen on video fatally shooting Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
Students at multiple Central Texas schools, including several Austin Independent School District campuses, organized walkouts during school hours on Thursday and Friday. Videos of the demonstrations at Rouse High School in Leander and Austin ISD’s McCallum, Crockett, Akins and LASA campuses have been circulating online.
A group of Rouse High School students and parents hold a rally against ICE operations on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (KXAN ...A group of Rouse High School students and parents hold a rally against ICE operations on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (KXAN Photo/Frank Martinez)
In response to one X post, saying, “Austin ISD let kids out of school, with a police escort to, protest ICE at the Capitol” – Abbott responded, “AISD gets taxpayer dollars to teach the subjects required by the state, not to help students skip school to protest.”
AISD shared in letters to parents and on social media that the walkouts were not sponsored or endorsed by the school. In the message, the district said it would not stop students from participating and had officers present to assist with security.
The district also said any students who missed class or were late would be counted as absent or tardy.
“Our students are exercising their right under the First Amendment, and their parents have been notified. No absence will be excused,” the district wrote on X.
The 1969 landmark Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District took on the question of whether schools could prohibit students from protesting during school hours.
The case looked at a group of students who were suspended when they wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. The 1969 decision upheld 7-2 that students retain their First Amendment rights in public schools and found that schools could not censor student speech unless it “materially disrupts” the educational process.
“It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gates,” Justice Abraham Fortas wrote in the court’s majority opinion. Justice Hugo Black wrote in his dissent, “taxpayers send children to school on the premise that, at their age, they need to learn, not teach.”
