Georgia students sue over blocked protest in opposition to rebel flag

ATLANTA (AP) — Several Black students who were suspended for attempting to protest Accomplice flag shows at their college in Georgia have filed a federal lawsuit in opposition to their school district and its board members, accusing them of allowing an in depth pattern of racism together with “overt bigotry and animosity by some white students and teachers towards African American college 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 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 scholar who carried what appeared to be a whip and informed a Black student “we used to whip you.”

They also allege unfair punishment: College students are banned from sporting Black Lives Matter shirts, but Accomplice flag attire is suitable below the college’s dress code, the lawsuit says.

The go well with faults administrators for “deliberate indifference to acts of racial animosity towards black college students perpetrated by white students and academics; in addition to the college’s viewpoint discrimination in its gown 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 kids, and detained till college officers introduced her with a letter threatening prison trespassing prices if she was discovered again on faculty grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday stated the district disputes the allegations but had been suggested by lawyers to not get into specifics right now. “The Floyd County college system seems to be forward to presenting the info on this situation in court,” White informed The Associated Press in a phone interview.

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

The lawsuit accuses school officials of making “an environment where sure viewpoints together with white nationalism and white supremacy are permitted however speech of an ideologically completely different viewpoint is expressly prohibited.”

When a group of scholars sought to protest the power of their classmates to put on the Confederate flag on campus, the principal threatened student Deserae Turner that she might be jailed for “instigating a riot,” the lawsuit says. The principal also announced over the intercom that any scholar protesting or even possessing a flyer saying the protest can be disciplined.

The lawsuit alleges that 4 Black plaintiffs who organized the protest had been suspended for five days, while nonblack pupil organizers weren't disciplined. Attorneys additionally allege the preemptive shutdown of the protest and demands that students not publish on social media violated college students’ First Amendment rights. A fifth pupil who was not suspended has also sued.

The go well with says costume code guidelines allowing Confederate flag attire however not Black Lives Matter apparel are unlawful viewpoint discrimination by a authorities agency, which also violates the First Amendment. It says the district also has violated the students’ and parents’ proper to equal safety below the 14th Amendment, in addition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Among different cures, the plaintiffs demand that the school district be blocked from further punishing the scholars due to their speech, remove prior punishments from faculty records and pay cash damages.

Among the lawyers bringing the suit is Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer looking for the Democratic nomination for attorney normal in Massachusetts.

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