Georgia college students sue over blocked protest against insurgent flag

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

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

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

In addition they allege unfair punishment: College students are banned from wearing Black Lives Matter shirts, but Accomplice flag apparel is appropriate below the school’s dress code, the lawsuit says.

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

Joining the students 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 children, and detained until faculty officials presented her with a letter threatening legal trespassing costs if she was discovered once more on faculty grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday said the district disputes the allegations but had been advised by legal professionals to not get into specifics at this time. “The Floyd County school system looks forward to presenting the information on this case in court docket,” White advised The Associated Press in a cellphone interview.

Coosa High near Rome is in the heart of northwest Georgia’s conservative 14th Congressional District, which sent Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress. About 10% of the varsity’s more than 800 college students in grades 8-12 are Black, state enrollment figures show. 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 environment the place sure viewpoints together with white nationalism and white supremacy are permitted but speech of an ideologically totally different viewpoint is expressly prohibited.”

When a gaggle of students sought to protest the power of their classmates to put on the Accomplice flag on campus, the principal threatened pupil Deserae Turner that she may very well be jailed for “instigating a riot,” the lawsuit says. The principal also introduced over the intercom that any student protesting or even possessing a flyer announcing the protest would be disciplined.

The lawsuit alleges that 4 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 put up on social media violated college students’ First Modification rights. A fifth student who was not suspended has also sued.

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

Among different cures, the plaintiffs demand that the varsity district be blocked from additional punishing the scholars because of their speech, take away prior punishments from faculty information and pay cash damages.

Among the many legal professionals bringing the swimsuit is Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer looking for the Democratic nomination for lawyer basic in Massachusetts.

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