Georgia students sue over blocked protest towards rebel flag

ATLANTA (AP) — A number of Black college students who have been suspended for making an attempt to protest Accomplice flag shows at their college in Georgia have filed a federal lawsuit towards their college district and its board members, accusing them of permitting an intensive sample of racism together with “overt bigotry and animosity by some white college students and teachers in opposition to African American college students.”

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

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

They also allege unfair punishment: College students are banned from wearing Black Lives Matter shirts, but Confederate flag apparel is suitable underneath the college’s costume code, the lawsuit says.

The swimsuit faults directors for “deliberate indifference to acts of racial animosity toward black students perpetrated by white college students and teachers; as well as the school’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 selecting up the suspended kids, and detained till faculty officials presented her with a letter threatening criminal trespassing expenses if she was discovered once more on school grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday said the district disputes the allegations but had been suggested by attorneys to not get into specifics at the moment. “The Floyd County college system appears ahead to presenting the facts on this case in courtroom,” White instructed The Related Press in a cellphone interview.

Coosa High close to 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 varsity’s more than 800 college students in grades 8-12 are Black, state enrollment figures show. About 58% are white, whereas 26% are Hispanic and the the rest are multiracial or some other race.

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

When a group of students sought to protest the power of their classmates to wear the Confederate flag on campus, the principal threatened scholar Deserae Turner that she might be jailed for “instigating a riot,” the lawsuit says. The principal additionally introduced over the intercom that any scholar protesting and even possessing a flyer announcing the protest could be disciplined.

The lawsuit alleges that 4 Black plaintiffs who organized the protest had been suspended for 5 days, while nonblack student organizers weren't disciplined. Lawyers also 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 pupil who was not suspended has also sued.

The suit says gown code rules permitting Accomplice flag apparel however not Black Lives Matter apparel are illegal viewpoint discrimination by a authorities agency, which additionally violates the First Modification. It says the district additionally has violated the students’ and parents’ right to equal protection underneath the 14th Modification, in addition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Among different remedies, the plaintiffs demand that the school district be blocked from further punishing the students because of their speech, remove prior punishments from faculty data and pay money damages.

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

___

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