Instituto Politécnico Nacional in the context of Tlatelolco massacre

The Mexican Movement of 1968, also known as the Mexican Student Movement (Movimiento Estudiantil) was a social movement composed of a broad coalition of students from Mexico's leading universities that garnered widespread public support for political change in Mexico. A major factor in its emergence publicly was the Mexican government's lavish spending to build Olympic facilities for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. The movement demanded greater political freedoms and an end to the authoritarianism of the PRI regime, which had been in power since 1929.

Student mobilization on the campuses of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, National Polytechnic Institute, El Colegio de México, Chapingo Autonomous University, Ibero-American University, Universidad La Salle and Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla, among others created the National Strike Council. Its efforts to mobilize Mexican people for broad changes in national life was supported by many sectors of Mexican civil society, including workers, peasants, housewives, merchants, intellectuals, artists, and teachers.

The National Strike Council, the Consejo Nacional de Huelga (CNH) was created on August 2, 1968, composed of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN), El Colegio de Mexico, the School of Agriculture of Chapingo, the Universidad Iberoamericana, the Universidad La Salle and other universities in Mexico.

It was created in response to developments against the student community, such as the intervention of the army in a confrontation between students of the Vocational School #2 (IPN) and the preparatory high school "Isaac Ochenterena" incorporated to the UNAM, in which several students from both schools were detained and the destruction caused by a bazooka used by the army at the entrance of the high school at the Colegio de San Ildefonso.