Mustang, Oklahoma school district suspended 122 students for ICE-protest walkout, harsher than peer districts' response

On Feb. 5, 2026, roughly 122 students at Mustang Public Schools in Mustang, Oklahoma, received in-school suspensions after participating in an unsanctioned, student-led walkout protesting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's mass-deportation enforcement, staged near the district's performing arts center. In-school suspension removes a student from their normal classroom to complete coursework separately. The district's own discipline manual makes truancy punishable by detention, suspension, or other consequences; Superintendent Charles Bradley's administration chose suspension — the harshest option — for the walkout's participants rather than the lighter alternatives the same policy permits.

The Mustang walkout was one of several student protests against ICE enforcement that spread across Oklahoma high schools that month. Other districts responding to the same wave imposed markedly lighter consequences for the identical unexcused-absence conduct: Bixby Public Schools told families an absence would still count against attendance but would not be marked unexcused; Norman Public Schools and Santa Fe South marked participating students absent without suspending them; and Moore Public Schools warned only that participation "can result in possible suspension." Of the districts covered in this reporting, Mustang was the only one that actually suspended students en masse for taking part.

Gov. Kevin Stitt publicly thanked Bradley by name for the suspensions, posting on social media: "Young Oklahomans: Free speech is sacred, but truancy robs your future. Stay in school, build skills, and make your voice heard responsibly." Republican state lawmakers separately pressed for the teaching licenses of any educator found to have organized the walkouts to be revoked; State Superintendent Lindel Fields and Secretary of Education Dan Hamlin reviewed the allegations and said they found no evidence that any Mustang staff member helped plan or organize the protest. The district maintained that "no student was disciplined for the content of their speech or viewpoint" and that the suspensions were solely for unexcused absences and missed instructional time.