Georgia college students sue over blocked protest against rebel flag

ATLANTA (AP) — Several Black students who were suspended for trying to protest Confederate flag displays at their faculty in Georgia have filed a federal lawsuit against their faculty district and its board members, accusing them of permitting an intensive sample of racism together with “overt bigotry and animosity by some white college students and academics in opposition to African American students.”

The students, joined by their mothers as plaintiffs, already made news when their protest at Coosa Excessive Faculty was stifled final fall.

Now, of their lawsuit filed Tuesday in opposition to the Floyd County school district and its board members, they allege an intensive pattern of racism, including white students reenacting the homicide of George Floyd and posting it on social media, and a pupil who carried what seemed to be a whip and told a Black scholar “we used to whip you.”

Additionally they allege unfair punishment: College students are banned from sporting Black Lives Matter shirts, but Confederate flag attire is appropriate below the varsity’s costume code, the lawsuit says.

The suit faults directors for “deliberate indifference to acts of racial animosity toward black students perpetrated by white students and teachers; in addition to the college’s viewpoint discrimination in its gown 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 choosing up the suspended kids, and detained until faculty officers presented her with a letter threatening felony trespassing prices if she was found once more on school grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday stated the district disputes the allegations however had been suggested by legal professionals to not get into specifics presently. “The Floyd County school system appears ahead to presenting the information on this situation in courtroom,” White told The Related Press in a telephone interview.

Coosa Excessive close to Rome is within 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 another race.

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

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

The lawsuit alleges that four Black plaintiffs who organized the protest have been suspended for 5 days, while nonblack student organizers were not disciplined. Lawyers additionally allege the preemptive shutdown of the protest and demands that students not post on social media violated college students’ First Amendment rights. A fifth scholar who was not suspended has also sued.

The swimsuit says dress code guidelines permitting Confederate flag attire however not Black Lives Matter attire are unlawful viewpoint discrimination by a government agency, which additionally violates the First Amendment. It says the district additionally has violated the students’ and oldsters’ right to equal safety below the 14th Amendment, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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

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

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