Georgia college students sue over blocked protest in opposition to insurgent flag

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

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

Now, in their lawsuit filed Tuesday towards the Floyd County college district and its board members, they allege an extensive pattern of racism, including white college 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 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 Confederate flag attire is appropriate below 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 students and academics; in addition to the varsity’s viewpoint discrimination in its gown 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 selecting up the suspended kids, and detained till school officials presented her with a letter threatening legal trespassing prices if she was discovered again on college grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday said the district disputes the allegations however had been advised by attorneys to not get into specifics at this time. “The Floyd County school system looks forward to presenting the facts on this example in court docket,” White told The Related Press in a phone interview.

Coosa High near Rome is in the coronary heart of northwest Georgia’s conservative 14th Congressional District, which sent 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, while 26% are Hispanic and the the remainder are multiracial or some other race.

The lawsuit accuses faculty officials of making “an environment where sure viewpoints including 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 power of their classmates to wear the Accomplice flag on campus, the principal threatened pupil Deserae Turner that she might be jailed for “instigating a riot,” the lawsuit says. The principal additionally announced over the intercom that any scholar protesting or even possessing a flyer asserting the protest could be disciplined.

The lawsuit alleges that four Black plaintiffs who organized the protest were suspended for five days, whereas nonblack student organizers weren't disciplined. Lawyers additionally allege the preemptive shutdown of the protest and demands that students not publish on social media violated students’ First Modification rights. A fifth student who was not suspended has additionally sued.

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

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

Among the attorneys bringing the go well with is Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer searching for the Democratic nomination for legal professional basic in Massachusetts.

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