Students on strike. legal rules in the matter of academic strike. Challenges and opportunities in the new Organic Law of the University System

Abstract

As long as they are not employees, the students do not have their right to strike recognized. The regulation of student strikes should be conceptualized as a form of unconventional political participation or as boycott. It is articulated according to educational level and is characterized by dispersion: right of assembly and collective absence from class in secondary education, studied in the regional regulations; and academic strike in the university environment, analyzed in the internal regulations of each university. Recently, the Organic Law 2/2023, of March 22, of the University System has been approved, which recognizes at the state level the right of the students to academic strike. This article critically reflects on the content, scope and effects of the academic strike, whose intellectual scheme is identical to the strike, as well as the debates about its future.