Georgia students sue over blocked protest against rebel flag

ATLANTA (AP) — Several Black students who were suspended for making an attempt to protest Accomplice flag displays at their faculty in Georgia have filed a federal lawsuit towards 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 in opposition to African American college students.”

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

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

They also allege unfair punishment: College students are banned from carrying Black Lives Matter shirts, but Confederate flag apparel is appropriate under the varsity’s costume code, the lawsuit says.

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

Joining the scholars as plaintiffs are their mothers, Lekisha Turner and Jessica Murray. Murray claims she was pulled over by a police officer after selecting up the suspended youngsters, and detained till school officers introduced her with a letter threatening criminal trespassing fees if she was discovered again on faculty grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday said the district disputes the allegations however had been suggested by legal professionals to not get into specifics presently. “The Floyd County faculty system seems ahead to presenting the info on this example in courtroom,” White advised The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Coosa Excessive near 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 more than 800 students in grades 8-12 are Black, state enrollment figures show. About 58% are white, whereas 26% are Hispanic and the the remainder are multiracial or some other race.

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

When a gaggle of students sought to protest the power of their classmates to wear the Confederate flag on campus, the principal threatened student Deserae Turner that she could be jailed for “instigating a riot,” the lawsuit says. The principal additionally announced over the intercom that any student protesting or even possessing a flyer asserting the protest would be disciplined.

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

The swimsuit says dress code guidelines allowing Confederate flag attire but not Black Lives Matter attire are illegal viewpoint discrimination by a government company, which additionally violates the First Amendment. It says the district additionally has violated the students’ and parents’ proper to equal protection beneath the 14th Amendment, in addition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Among different treatments, the plaintiffs demand that the school district be blocked from further punishing the scholars due to their speech, take away prior punishments from college information and pay money damages.

Among the legal professionals bringing the go well with is Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer looking for the Democratic nomination for legal professional normal in Massachusetts.

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