Georgia college students sue over blocked protest towards rebel flag

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

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

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

They also allege unfair punishment: Students are banned from carrying Black Lives Matter shirts, but Accomplice flag attire is appropriate under the college’s gown code, the lawsuit says.

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

Becoming a member of the scholars as plaintiffs are their mothers, 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 offered her with a letter threatening legal trespassing fees if she was found again on school grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday said the district disputes the allegations but had been suggested by legal professionals to not get into specifics at the moment. “The Floyd County faculty system seems to be forward to presenting the info on this situation in court docket,” White advised The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Coosa High 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 present. About 58% are white, while 26% are Hispanic and the the rest are multiracial or some other race.

The lawsuit accuses faculty officials of creating “an atmosphere 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 students sought to protest the ability of their classmates to put on the Accomplice flag on campus, the principal threatened pupil Deserae Turner that she could possibly be jailed for “instigating a riot,” the lawsuit says. The principal also introduced over the intercom that any scholar protesting and even possessing a flyer announcing the protest would be disciplined.

The lawsuit alleges that 4 Black plaintiffs who organized the protest had been suspended for five days, whereas nonblack pupil organizers weren't disciplined. Legal professionals also allege the preemptive shutdown of the protest and calls for that students not submit on social media violated students’ First Amendment rights. A fifth scholar who was not suspended has also sued.

The suit says dress code guidelines permitting Confederate flag attire however not Black Lives Matter attire are illegal viewpoint discrimination by a government agency, which additionally violates the First Amendment. It says the district additionally has violated the students’ and fogeys’ proper to equal protection under the 14th Modification, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Amongst different cures, the plaintiffs demand that the school district be blocked from additional punishing the scholars due to their speech, remove prior punishments from faculty data and pay money damages.

Among the legal professionals bringing the swimsuit is Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer in search of the Democratic nomination for lawyer common in Massachusetts.

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