Over 100 students walk out of Boston Latin School to voice concerns over response to Israel-Gaza war

Over 100 students walked out of classes at the Boston Latin School Friday afternoon to march and speak in support of the Palestinian people and a lasting ceasefire in the Middle East.

Students at the exam school also shared a few harsh words for school and city officials, who they said worked to suppress their advocacy or otherwise failed to meet the moment.

The diverse crowd from Boston’s largest and best-known public high school followed local college students in staging a controversial protest of an increasingly unpopular war.

The walkout began at 12:45 p.m., 90 minutes before the school day typically ends at the Latin School. On the steps of the old school building on Avenue Louis Pasteur, organizers — mostly from Arab and Muslim student organizations — called attention to ongoing U.S. support for an Israeli military campaign that has claimed at least 13,300 Palestinian lives since Oct. 7, when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people.

As protesters marched around the school building and Harvard Medical School, students still in class craned their heads out of the windows on the upper floors.

Meanwhile, those outside repeated chants that some have deemed threatening or antisemitic, including “globalize the intifada,” or uprising, and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

But as the march ended one hour later at nearby Evans Way Park, one student-organizer defended the use of that latter slogan, saying it is a call for full equality in the region.

A pair of Boston Police officers, some district officials and a handful of teachers were present during the demonstration. The event was relatively sedate — though at one point, students were confronted by an adult bystander who shouted, “More hummus, less Hamas,” adding Israel is “not going anywhere.” He was quickly told to move along by city police, while students called out “Shame!” in reply.

School district officials had advance knowledge of the protest. In a written statement Friday, Boston Public Schools spokesman Max Baker said the district is "committed to ensuring that all our students feel heard and supported, and have trusted adults they can turn to when they are upset or have questions about the world around them.”

But march organizers argued that teachers and administrators at the Latin School have discouraged Muslim and Arab students from starting a fundraiser for Gazan families affected by bombings and an ongoing blockade, as well as from using a planned “Human Rights Day” to discuss the conflict with teachers and peers.

Organizers also named individual teachers who, they alleged, threatened to penalize students who participated in Friday's walkout. Finally, they asked for Boston’s city council to call for a permanent ceasefire to replace the weeklong one that ended in the hours before their protest began.

WBUR reached out to school officials about those allegations but did not immediately receive a response.

Participating students were asked to stick signs into the wintry earth of Evans Way Park bearing the surnames of Gazan families that have lost at least two members since Oct. 7.

No formal disciplinary consequences are expected for the roughly 120 students who participated in Friday's rally, per district officials.

At the park, Latin School senior Krystal Gentle of Roxbury read a poem she wrote called “That is Palestine,” which called attention to the human stories inside Gaza, including damaged hospitals and mothers and fathers grieving the loss of their children.

Gentle said she wrote the poem the day before. “When you’re passionate about something, it just comes to you — you don’t have to waste too much time,” she said.

As the rally concluded around 2 p.m., students joined from other nearby public high schools, including the O’Bryant School of Math and Science in Roxbury and the New Mission High School in Hyde Park.

Student-organizers called on all of those present to attend a general pro-peace rally planned for Saturday in Copley Square, as well as a meeting of the Latin School council on the evening of Dec. 6. They then set off on a final march around the nation’s oldest school just as the rest of their classmates were dismissed.