Georgia students sue over blocked protest against rebel flag

ATLANTA (AP) — Several Black students who have been 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 permitting an extensive pattern of racism together with “overt bigotry and animosity by some white college students and teachers towards African American college students.”

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

Now, of their lawsuit filed Tuesday in opposition to 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 gave the impression to be a whip and advised a Black student “we used to whip you.”

They also allege unfair punishment: College students are banned from sporting Black Lives Matter shirts, however Confederate flag apparel is suitable under the college’s dress code, the lawsuit says.

The swimsuit 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 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 choosing up the suspended kids, and detained until school officers introduced her with a letter threatening prison trespassing costs if she was found once more on school grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday stated the district disputes the allegations however had been suggested by lawyers to not get into specifics at this time. “The Floyd County faculty system seems to be ahead to presenting the facts on this case in court docket,” White told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

Coosa Excessive near Rome is in the 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 present. About 58% are white, while 26% are Hispanic and the the remainder are multiracial or another race.

The lawsuit accuses faculty officers of making “an environment the place certain viewpoints including white nationalism and white supremacy are permitted however speech of an ideologically completely 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 student Deserae Turner that she could possibly be jailed for “instigating a riot,” the lawsuit says. The principal also introduced over the intercom that any student protesting and even possessing a flyer asserting the protest could be disciplined.

The lawsuit alleges that four Black plaintiffs who organized the protest have been suspended for 5 days, while nonblack scholar organizers weren't disciplined. Legal professionals 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 scholar who was not suspended has additionally sued.

The swimsuit says costume code guidelines allowing Confederate flag attire however not Black Lives Matter attire are illegal viewpoint discrimination by a authorities agency, which additionally violates the First Modification. It says the district also has violated the scholars’ and fogeys’ right to equal protection beneath the 14th Amendment, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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

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

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