When the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, returned to school several weeks after a deadly shooting, they were met with new safety tactics that school administrators had agreed upon — mandatory see-through backpacks and identification badges.
Students were outraged. One student from Parkland told CNN, “It feels like jail, being checked every time we go to school.”
Photo courtesy of ABC YouTube
The anger towards the new security implementation stems from the feeling that it’s not making a difference. Many of the Parkland survivors have been advocating strongly for stricter gun control laws following the February 14 incident. The clear backpacks and IDs feel like a cheap way to get out of those changes in legislation.
Some students would prefer to have the school bring in metal detectors and wands that are used in airports, sports stadiums, and concert venues in order to take true strides in security. Students pointed out the fact that the clear backpack doesn’t accomplish anything by lining their backpack with tissue paper, as one such student did, so as to prohibit any views inside.
It was also pointed out that guns could be hidden inside folders or binders that metal detectors would be able to identify.
Photo courtesy of Woke Sloth
Female students, in particular, are angry at the sense of violation these backpacks evoke, having to deal with their peers seeing their feminine hygiene products in their bags on top of the trauma of returning to a building their peers were killed inside of.
The Parkland students and activists are not taking these new security measures lying down, however. Plenty have turned the backpacks into political statements, using Twitter chiefly to get their message out.
Delaney Tarr, a senior at Marjory Douglas, posted a photo of her bag with an orange price tag on it, tagging Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. The $1.05 price tag, which many students have adopted onto their bags, is a form of political protest against politicians like Rubio who accept money from the National Rifle Association, rather than valuing students’ lives.
“This backpack is probably worth more than my life,” Carmen Lo, senior, displayed on her backpack in a photo.