“Approximately 1,000 protestors gathered for the Stand for All Students rally outside the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics Thursday night to protest the U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who was invited to talk at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum.

The purpose of the demonstration was to express unity in supporting all students, in addition to resisting the school privatization agenda of the DeVos administration, said Gillian Mason, co-interim director for Massachusetts Jobs with Justice, prior to the Stand for All Students rally.

‘The message is that we here in Mass[achusetts] stand by our schools and we stand by our students,’ Mason said. ‘That means students of color, that means students who are trans students, that means survivors of campus sexual violence. We are all in this together. And because we stand for every student, we are ready to get up and fight for it.’”