About 200 students marched to Ashland Plaza urging passage of Oregon’s Climate Resilience Superfund bill while speaking out against federal immigration enforcement crackdowns
By Steve Mitchell, Ashland.news
About 200 Ashland High School students walked out of class on Friday, Jan. 30, to speak out on state climate change legislation and in protest of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Organized by Rogue Climate, a Southern Oregon nonprofit, the students marched from the high school to Ashland Plaza, in part to urge Oregon lawmakers to pass the Climate Resilience Superfund bill in the 2026 Oregon Legislative Session, which begins Monday, Feb. 2.
The bill would require the largest out-of-state fossil fuel companies to pay for the climate damages caused by their emissions between 1994 and 2024. Currently, Oregonians bear the cost of disaster recovery, relief, and prevention, according to proponents of the bill.
The aim is to shift the financial burden onto the fossil fuel corporations most responsible. Money collected from those companies would support wildfire resilience efforts across Oregon.
Amara Lowe, president of the high school’s Black Student Union, said climate change disproportionately harms marginalized communities and that big oil companies must be held responsible.
“The average Oregonian should not have to suffer because of big oil. It is time for those polluters to answer for the damage they have caused and be held accountable for what they have done and what they haven’t done,” she said.
Indeed, companies including ExxonMobil, Chevron, and roughly 50 other major oil, gas, and coal producers are linked to 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions over the past decade, according to a 2024 Carbon Majors report.
Sage Thatcher, an event organizer, pointed out the local realities of climate change, including unseasonal weather and wildfire damage the region has endured.
“We’re standing here in Ashland in weather that doesn’t feel like winter at all,” Thatcher said. “That’s why we’re here.”
Keeya Wiki, an Ashland High School senior and event organizer, told the group that Friday’s demonstration was a call to action.
“I encourage you all to use your voice like you are today,” she said.
She said people should call their local representatives to demand action and reform.
“We need our leaders to fund efforts that support and uplift our community,” Wiki said, “not shake the hands of the greedy and the wealthy.”
The walkout was part of the “Make Polluters Pay campaign’s National Week of Action.” Along with Ashland, South Medford, Crater, and Eagle Point High Schools held separate rallies on Friday, according to a Rogue Climate news release.
A letter sent from Ashland High School administrators to student parents and guardians said that, “While we understand that students may wish to express their views, we want to ensure families are informed in advance. Please note that any student who leaves campus to participate in this walkout will be marked unexcused for the duration of the time they are out of class. This is consistent with district attendance policy.
“Our primary concern is student safety. Staff cannot accompany or supervise students who choose to leave campus during the school day.”
Rogue Climate will hold a “multigenerational” rally from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Jan. 31, at Vogel Plaza in Medford.
ICE protest
As multiple nationwide organizations called for businesses to close and for students to walk out of schools, the students also protested the federal immigration enforcement crackdowns across the country, which have led to the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
Lily Glosser, an Ashland High School junior, said that as the daughter of an immigrant mother, what is happening should never be the standard or the norm.
“I will be educating myself,” she said. “I will be participating in activism. I will be speaking out and spreading the word. I will not sit by and do nothing.”
What the country has gone through has been too heavy to bear for those in vulnerable communities.
“This is my life, my mother’s life,” she said. “These are the lives of all those in America and those across the world who have to deal with oppression.”
She said she has felt herself “shaking” because she has been “frozen in fear,” that federal agents might take her mother.
Now, she said, people are being killed.
As someone who passes as white, she said she would use her privilege to speak out against discrimination and violence against the climate, and the “people of the United States of America.”
As the rally came to a close, organizers thanked participants and emphasized the importance of protesting peacefully, especially when facing counter protesters. Organizers from the Friday rally said neither the march from the high school nor the gathering at the demonstration drew counter protesters.
Email Ashland.news associate editor Steve Mitchell at [email protected].
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