SHS students stage walkout, protest sexual harassment and abuse

A couple hundred Scottsbluff High School students walked out the front doors of the school Thursday, April 14, in a planned protest. The students waved signs with phrases like “No means no” and “Blame the system, not the victim.”

The students, led by a handful of organizers, put together a peaceful walkout in just 24 hours to protest sexual harassment and abuse, according to one of the organizers.

SHS senior and co-organizer Annabelle Jamison said, “Me and two other friends started this yesterday, during second period, and by lunch, it was everywhere. I ran to everybody in my theater room, and I was like, ‘We’re doing a walkout. Something has got to change. It’s April; it’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month. We got to do something.’ … By lunch yesterday, it was around the entire school that we were doing a walkout in protest of sexual assault, and it just blew up and it is beyond amazing what we did.”

School administration also had caught wind of the upcoming protest and had conversations with some of the students and organizations involved in planning the walkout to figure out what was going on.

“I met with a couple of student organizations ... and discussed just what the concerns were and how we can do better as a school,” SHS Principal Justin Shaddick said. “I think our students feel very strongly that they want to create a safe environment, a place where students can feel at ease reporting incidents, and how we handle those incidents on more of a delicate basis and show more support for victims. And through those conversations, I think a lot of positive can come from our policies and educating our students. I think there’s a lot of educating that still needs to be done.”

A letter from Shaddick went home to parents Wednesday night, stating that the school did not condone the event and that students who participated would be counted as absent.

“While we honor our students’ rights to peacefully demonstrate,” the letter read, “Scottsbluff High School does not support or endorse student walkouts as they pose a substantial disruption to the learning environment and a student’s individual learning, as well as student safety may be compromised. … As a school, we would prefer to seek positive, educational and proactive solutions in place of student protests/walkouts.”

Jamison said the protest was in response to different incidents that have happened at SHS and other schools.

“There have been a few incidents — not just at the school, but a few other schools — where they’ve kind of just swept some of the sexual assault things underneath the rug,” she said. “…A few of my friends who started coming up and telling me stories about some things that happened (to them), and it’s happened to me a few times, so I just wanted to do something.”

Despite the letter, hundreds of students participated in the demonstration, with faculty, staff, security and a couple of police officers on scene. A few victims of sexual assault or abuse shared their stories, disclosing to the hundreds of people there the trauma they had undergone. Others got up to encourage victims to not give up hope and to come to them if they need someone to talk to.

“We wanted to do something that showed people that they weren’t alone anymore, and that it’s not OK to just brush it off,” Jamison said. “This is our life, and we should be able to speak up and feel comfortable and not feel so alone.”

The protest remained peaceful throughout, and SHS senior Keara Sell, who was among those protesting, said she was proud of her schoolmates.

“I was nervous at first. I thought with so many people coming out … ‘What if someone does something and we get shut down?’” she said. “I am amazed by the maturity level of the people who came out and the speeches that were given. It just went better than I could have ever hoped.”

Shaddick said he was also pleased with the way the protest was handled.

“The biggest thing we wanted to prevent was victimizing more students by naming names and targeting individuals. Those were two of our big things — no violence and no naming of names or targeting students,” he said. “I’m very impressed that our students did not take part in that, and they’re very good about shutting down anything that they thought might be viewed as targeting other students.”

Sell said the protest was not directed at any one place or person.

“It was just a simple protest to show that, due to something that’s happened in our school, that — it’s not against our school; it’s not against a specific person — it’s to show that here at SHS, we don’t accept that kind of behavior, and we’re going to stand with the people it happens to and we won’t ignore it.”

Shaddick said a student committee will be formed to discuss these topics, review policies and look at “what education can we bring in for students and provide education so students are more aware of the issues surrounding our school and our community.”

For Sell and many others, the protest confirmed support for those who experience abuse.

“I just want people to know that at Scottsbluff High School, we are a family and a community, and while we may have some people who act poorly and make horrible, horrible decisions, the rest of us are going to come together and support the people who are harmed, and we will stand for each other, and we want to make change happen.”

According to social media postings from students, Thursday’s walkout had been spurred by a student’s allegations that she recently had been sexually assaulted by a male student.

Scottsbluff Police Capt. Brian Wasson confirmed that police have investigated the allegations and forwarded a report to the Scotts Bluff County Attorney’s Office.

Investigators have recommended that charges be filed against the male student, he said. A search of online court records did not indicate any charges had been filed yet.

Maunette Loeks, Star-Herald, contributed to this report.

*This article was first published in the Scottsbluff Star-Herald on April 14, 2022.

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