CWU has become a regular host of student protests. Following the protest against CWU budget cuts, the Environmental Club hosted a protest called “March for Your Rights”. 

Students as well as citizens of Ellensburg were in attendance. Although the weather was both rainy and windy, participants stayed in attendance and marched from the Wildcat statue to Unity Park. 

On Saturday May 17, around 50 students and faculty gathered around the Wildcat statue to begin the “March for your Rights” protest. A speaker, who was the first to take the microphone, was sophomore environmental science major Max Henyon who thanked everyone for coming and went on to introduce sophomore political science major Dylan Bohannon and mathematics professor Jean Marie Linhart. 

Bohannon started off the speech with the history of our democracy, before going on to mention issues all across America with the current presidential administration along with local issues with Jim Wolhpart and the S&A department decisions. 

“From its very inception, our democracy has been tainted by greed, stained with resistance, by truly giving the people, all people, the rights we need, deserve and have fought and died for, and yet we see how easy it is to sweep all that away,” Bohannon said. “It has been just over 100 days since Donald Trump took office, and already the freedoms and rights we had yesterday no longer exist today. The elephant in the room has decided to stampede like a bowl in a China shop, and we’ve seen integral faculties of government ripped out of our hands. $12 billion from the Department of Education has already evaporated, demolishing mental health programs, 25% of the Department of Health and Human Services staff has been gutted and critical research funding has been tossed away, just as measles has risen, Risen back from the grave, most ghoulish of all, our very neighbors are now being ripped from their homes and sent to concentration camps. Let’s call a spade a spade.” 

Bohannon continued, stating, “Our government has ceased any pretenses about caring for our needs. People can’t afford homes. People can’t afford basic necessities. We eat food poisoned with chemicals that when they make us sick, we can’t afford to get healthy again. Even Washington state, right here, a supposed leftist Haven, has waffled on passing legislation allowing us as students to unionize. But don’t worry, my peers, our glorious leader, Jim Wohlpart gave a $55,000 raise to himself at the expense of our only division one sports team, rugby, our student run newspaper and such is across the arts department. Do we not see that the system is not working? Do we not feel the cogs of the machine beginning to grind us into it? I know many of you do that you recognize something must change. And I ask you what is to be done. I say our solution does not lie in the government, but in our opposition to it.”

Bohannon went on to state his intentions of the protest was to build community. “Ensuring that everyone from communists and anarchists to liberals can unify together and come together under the common cause of fighting Trump and our loss of rights,” Bohannon said. “I sincerely hope that this protest and its outcome leads to either greater change or greater disruption.” Bohannon described protests as “inherently disruptive of the status quo.” 

Mathematics Professor Marie Linhart took the mic next, continuing to encourage students to call their congressmen and senators. Much like Bohannon, Marie Linhart also mentioned the current presidential administration. “I don’t need to tell you that we are in a moment of profound crisis. In four months, we have gone from something that looks like a democracy to something that is unmistakably autocracy, where the President of the United States himself says he’s not certain he needs to support and defend our Constitution. This is a point of profound wrong.” Marie Linhart said. “We are seeing the welfare of the people taking a back seat to the politics of ego and the benefit of billionaires. I think we all know that we are called to act at this time.” 

Marie Linhart placed herself in the shoes of many of the protesters there, stating “I’ve spent a lot of time in the past months wondering what in the heck I should do, and being scared and feeling powerless, which is exactly what they want from us.” She went on to encourage everyone to stand up and be brave. “Let me remind you: When you’re afraid, courage is contagious.” Marie Linhart said. “Every small action that you make, to stand out and stand up for what’s right makes a difference. Other people see you, and other people are emboldened by that cowardice is also contagious. So we must be courageous.”

When asked about what she hoped to accomplish with the protest, Marie Linhart said “I am hoping to get some people making phone calls to their congressmen and senators and also thinking about what other actions they can take to restore the integrity of our constitution.” 

“This protest means a lot to me,” junior anthropologist Runa Green said. “Mainly because it’s a collective group that’s upset about status quo and everything that’s going on in the world, and it can be really alienating when you think something’s wrong with the world and there’s no one around to support that, but there’s a big old group here.”

Ellensburg local Jason Irish noted the importance of protests at a university. “Being loud. Colleges everywhere are a really important aspect of this country and they really represent most of the opinions of the young people of this country, I hope that this adds to the loudness that this country has,” Irish said.

Sophomore Henyon went on to state his intentions for the protest were for people to “state their opinions, no matter who they are, and fight against policies that they feel are unjust.” Henyon went on to express his displeasure with how much the protest changed from what it was. “I love what we’re trying to do with this march,” Henyon said. “But I also had visions of it being more non partisan.”

Around 12:30 p.m., the March for your Rights protest started. With rain falling down soaking the sidewalk and signs, protesters marched on. The march went from the Wildcat statue in front of the SURC building, down University Way, down Main Street to Ellensburg Unity Park in a mile and a half march. Once the group of protesters made it to Unity Park, the Vice President of the Environmental Club Hannah Cambell gave a speech, thanking everyone who made it and introduced “The Black Velvet Band,” an Ellensburg band who they collaborated with.

To prepare, the environmental Club held a meeting for sign making. There were at least ten attendees along with guest speakers from Central Washington Justice for Our Neighbors to inform those present of citizens rights and resources available.

The club is run by students. One being vice president Hannah Campbell. They said, “I know everyone was feeling a lot of concern and fear regarding like, LGBTQ rights, environmental policies. And students right now are currently scared into inaction so they don’t feel like they’re comfortable using their voices or using their First Amendment right to sort of get their message across and to truly march for their rights. So we wanted to provide them an avenue to actually get engaged, to actually become activists, to sort of get their, I guess, dip their toes or whatever, into kind of speaking up for themselves against a harsh country.”