In this age of social media, something always seems to be happening and something always seems to be going wrong.

After the 2016 election and now with the recent protests I see students even more divided.

Before social media in the past but we didn’t have the constant flood of news and posts at our fingertips that we have today. This constant state of needing to be in the know has allowed for the organizing of events such as the Women’s March, The March for our lives and the nationwide walkout.

So why are so many students not reacting to recent protests?

While so many protests are going on, many people just aren’t participating. Maria Buri ‘20 feels that this has much to do with the environment of high school.

“High school is super cliquey, I’m friends with a lot of people and I’m in a lot of groups that are super political and so I’m encouraged to go to every single political thing there is in Iowa City, and so although others want to join in and protest they may not have that sort of encouragement and backing so they just decide to not go to the protest,” Buri said.

However, this is rapidly changing because of the wide range of issues being published recently. It is now becoming more widely accepted and encouraged for people to have opinions and political views. This is demonstrated in new forming groups such as Students Against Hate and Discrimination and Students against School Shootings. Yet still, Buri feels that Iowa City is very much a liberal bubble and many still feel that there is no need to talk about many of the problems the nation faces because of the culture of letting it go and saying ‘this will never happen here’.

The recent issues of gun violence in schools have sparked protests nationwide and have directly affected students and have become harder to ignore since school safety is so widely debated. that these recent protests still affect us here at City High, even if it’s happening elsewhere, because it brings all the points of view into our lives and our environment says Shilynn Marshall ‘20.  Another issue for students is not wanting to go because to them it seems like, for example with the walkout many just wanted to skip school and don’t necessarily understand or care about the cause. Students Against School Shootings co-founder Esti Brady ‘20 says.

“I think that it belittles the issue that students are protesting against when students walk out of school,” Brady said.

This leads to students not wanting to protest because they don’t believe it would change anything. Yet the attention that the Never Again protests have sparked companies to cut ties with the NRA and root for change. 

According to, Buri “the true impact of a protest is the way people react to it and the coverage it gets. One of the things that is so important about movements nowadays is that everybody gets involved and protests start across the nation that’s when it affects people and that’s when it’s important.”