Georgia college students sue over blocked protest against rebel flag

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

The scholars, joined by their moms as plaintiffs, already made information when their protest at Coosa Excessive School was stifled final fall.

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

Additionally they allege unfair punishment: College students are banned from wearing Black Lives Matter shirts, however Accomplice flag attire is suitable under the school’s gown code, the lawsuit says.

The go well with 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 college’s viewpoint discrimination in its costume code and the inconsistent administration of disciplinary policies to the detriment of Black college students.”

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

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday stated the district disputes the allegations but had been suggested by attorneys to not get into specifics at this time. “The Floyd County faculty system seems ahead to presenting the facts on this situation in courtroom,” White instructed The Related Press in a phone interview.

Coosa High near 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 college’s more than 800 college students in grades 8-12 are Black, state enrollment figures present. About 58% are white, while 26% are Hispanic and the the remainder are multiracial or some other race.

The lawsuit accuses college officers of making “an environment the place sure viewpoints together with 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 flexibility of their classmates to wear the Confederate flag on campus, the principal threatened scholar Deserae Turner that she could possibly be jailed for “instigating a riot,” the lawsuit says. The principal also introduced over the intercom that any pupil protesting and even possessing a flyer announcing the protest would be disciplined.

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

The suit says costume code rules permitting Accomplice flag attire however not Black Lives Matter attire are unlawful viewpoint discrimination by a authorities agency, which additionally violates the First Amendment. It says the district also has violated the scholars’ and fogeys’ right to equal protection beneath the 14th Amendment, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Among other cures, the plaintiffs demand that the varsity district be blocked from further punishing the students due to their speech, remove prior punishments from school data and pay cash damages.

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

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