Georgia students sue over blocked protest in opposition to insurgent flag

ATLANTA (AP) — A number of Black students who were suspended for attempting to protest Confederate flag shows at their school in Georgia have filed a federal lawsuit towards their faculty district and its board members, accusing them of allowing an extensive pattern of racism including “overt bigotry and animosity by some white college students and lecturers against African American students.”

The students, joined by their mothers as plaintiffs, already made news when their protest at Coosa High School was stifled last fall.

Now, of their lawsuit filed Tuesday against the Floyd County college district and its board members, they allege an extensive sample of racism, including white college students reenacting the murder of George Floyd and posting it on social media, and a scholar who carried what seemed to be a whip and advised a Black scholar “we used to whip you.”

Additionally they allege unfair punishment: Students are banned from wearing Black Lives Matter shirts, but Confederate flag apparel is appropriate under the school’s gown code, the lawsuit says.

The swimsuit faults directors for “deliberate indifference to acts of racial animosity toward black students perpetrated by white college students and lecturers; as well as the school’s viewpoint discrimination in its gown code and the inconsistent administration of disciplinary insurance policies to the detriment of Black college students.”

Joining the students as plaintiffs are their mothers, Lekisha Turner and Jessica Murray. Murray claims she was pulled over by a police officer after choosing up the suspended children, and detained until college officers introduced her with a letter threatening criminal trespassing charges if she was discovered again on college grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday stated the district disputes the allegations however had been advised by attorneys to not get into specifics presently. “The Floyd County college system appears to be like ahead to presenting the facts on this situation in court,” White informed The Associated Press in a cellphone interview.

Coosa High close to Rome is in the heart of northwest Georgia’s conservative 14th Congressional District, which despatched Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress. About 10% of the school’s greater than 800 college students in grades 8-12 are Black, state enrollment figures show. About 58% are white, while 26% are Hispanic and the the remainder are multiracial or another race.

The lawsuit accuses school officials of making “an environment where certain viewpoints together with white nationalism and white supremacy are permitted but speech of an ideologically different viewpoint is expressly prohibited.”

When a group of students sought to protest the ability of their classmates to put on the Accomplice flag on campus, the principal threatened scholar Deserae Turner that she could possibly be jailed for “instigating a riot,” the lawsuit says. The principal additionally announced over the intercom that any pupil protesting or even possessing a flyer asserting the protest can be disciplined.

The lawsuit alleges that four Black plaintiffs who organized the protest were suspended for 5 days, whereas nonblack pupil organizers were not disciplined. Attorneys additionally allege the preemptive shutdown of the protest and calls for that students not submit on social media violated students’ First Modification rights. A fifth scholar who was not suspended has also sued.

The go well with says gown code rules allowing Confederate flag attire but not Black Lives Matter apparel are unlawful viewpoint discrimination by a authorities company, which additionally violates the First Modification. It says the district additionally has violated the scholars’ and oldsters’ proper to equal safety beneath the 14th Modification, in addition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Among different treatments, the plaintiffs demand that the college district be blocked from additional punishing the scholars because of their speech, remove prior punishments from college data and pay money damages.

Among the lawyers bringing the suit is Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer seeking the Democratic nomination for lawyer normal in Massachusetts.

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Comply with Jeff Amy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jeffamy.