Dale Leone is a former Student Government Association (SGA) Vice President. Noa Sigel is an SGA Senator.
Across the country, federal immigration enforcement agents are escalating operations with near-total impunity, shielded by political rhetoric that deliberately obscures the truth. The killing of Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti, shot by a federal immigration agent during a protest against an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation, is the clearest and most horrifying example.
In the days following Pretti’s death, Vice President JD Vance and other Trump administration officials attempted to justify the killing by blaming protesters and local officials, falsely portraying the situation as engineered chaos and shifting explanations as new evidence emerged.
This issue has transcended partisan boundaries and devolved into a crisis of legitimacy. A recent national poll found that 63% of Americans disapprove of ICE’s actions; a striking majority that cuts across party lines. Despite public opposition, ICE continues to expand its presence in communities, often with masked agents, hidden identities and minimal accountability. That disconnect between public opinion and state violence should alarm anyone who believes in democratic governance.
Yet for many students and young people, the primary response has been limited social-media outrage by reposting infographics, sharing headlines and expressing grief online. While emotionally understandable, this kind of engagement often creates the illusion of action without producing material change.
As one Seattle Times opinion piece argues, social-media activism can feel satisfying while leaving the underlying systems of power untouched. Similarly, a 2023 Massachusetts Daily Collegian opinion criticized Instagram activism for replacing real organizing with performative gestures that do not challenge institutions in any meaningful way.
History shows us that movements succeed not by expressing moral clarity alone, but by disrupting the institutions that sustain injustice. The Vietnam War protests are a powerful example. It was not just marches, but prolonged student strikes, such as the 1970 national student strike that forced campus shutdowns and sustained pressure on universities and the federal government that helped force a national reckoning.
That same moral clarity exists today. A recent poll found that many Americans no longer believe aggressive ICE activity makes their communities safer, and instead see it as contributing to instability and fear. The public is ready to question the systems that have allowed things to reach this point. What’s missing is coordinated, disruptive action capable of forcing change.
This is why we need an indefinite nationwide student strike.
There is precedent for this at the University of Massachusetts. In 2007, the Student Government Association passed a resolution calling for a student strike that included boycotting classes and refusing to purchase from the campus store. This was a direct attempt to apply economic pressure on the university. More recently, student journalists have documented UMass’s long history of activism, which has gained national attention and forced institutional responses.
This issue is not foreign to our campus. The university itself has acknowledged that recent federal immigration actions have already affected UMass students on university-sponsored visas, disrupting education and threatening livelihoods. We risk a destructive complicity if we allow the situation to worsen without resistance.
A strike must be indefinite because short, symbolic actions are easy to ignore. Universities and the Trump administration can simply wait out a few days of disruption. An open-ended strike, led through formal governance structures like undergraduate and graduate student governments and coordinated with campuses nationwide, would make business as usual impossible. It would force institutions to confront the moral and political consequences of their silence.
Here at UMass, activist Registered Student Organizations, Cultural Registered Student Organizations and students of conscience must lead the way. They must pressure the Student Government Association to call another student strike, and this action must be coordinated and replicated across campuses nationwide. Not through reposts, nor through statements alone. It must be accomplished through organized, sustained disruption that makes it clear that education cannot continue as normal while state violence persists.
If institutions refuse to act, we must force them to adapt. History shows that when students strike together, they can move the country. The moment demands nothing less.
Dale Leone can be reached at [email protected]. Noa Sigel can be reached at [email protected].
