Georgia students sue over blocked protest against rebel flag

ATLANTA (AP) — Several Black students who have been suspended for attempting to protest Confederate flag displays at their school in Georgia have filed a federal lawsuit against their college district and its board members, accusing them of allowing an intensive 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 Faculty was stifled final fall.

Now, of their lawsuit filed Tuesday against the Floyd County faculty district and its board members, they allege an extensive pattern of racism, together with white college students reenacting the homicide of George Floyd and posting it on social media, and a student who carried what gave the impression to be a whip and informed a Black scholar “we used to whip you.”

They also allege unfair punishment: Students are banned from sporting Black Lives Matter shirts, but Accomplice flag attire is suitable beneath the school’s costume code, the lawsuit says.

The swimsuit faults administrators for “deliberate indifference to acts of racial animosity towards black students perpetrated by white students and academics; in addition to the school’s viewpoint discrimination in its costume code and the inconsistent administration of disciplinary insurance policies to the detriment of Black students.”

Becoming a member of the students as plaintiffs are their moms, Lekisha Turner and Jessica Murray. Murray claims she was pulled over by a police officer after choosing up the suspended kids, and detained till school officials presented her with a letter threatening felony trespassing charges if she was discovered again on faculty grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday said the district disputes the allegations but had been advised by legal professionals to not get into specifics at the moment. “The Floyd County school system appears to be like ahead to presenting the info on this example in court,” White told The Related Press in a cellphone interview.

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

The lawsuit accuses faculty officers of making “an atmosphere where certain viewpoints including white nationalism and white supremacy are permitted but speech of an ideologically completely different viewpoint is expressly prohibited.”

When a bunch of scholars sought to protest the ability of their classmates to put on the Confederate flag on campus, the principal threatened pupil Deserae Turner that she may very well be jailed for “instigating a riot,” the lawsuit says. The principal also introduced over the intercom that any student protesting or even possessing a flyer asserting the protest would be disciplined.

The lawsuit alleges that 4 Black plaintiffs who organized the protest have been suspended for 5 days, while nonblack scholar organizers were not disciplined. Legal professionals also allege the preemptive shutdown of the protest and demands 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 guidelines permitting Accomplice flag attire however not Black Lives Matter attire are unlawful viewpoint discrimination by a government agency, which additionally violates the First Modification. It says the district additionally has violated the students’ and fogeys’ proper to equal protection underneath the 14th Amendment, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Among different remedies, the plaintiffs demand that the college district be blocked from further punishing the scholars because of their speech, remove prior punishments from faculty data and pay cash damages.

Among the many attorneys bringing the suit is Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer in search of the Democratic nomination for lawyer general in Massachusetts.

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