Georgia students sue over blocked protest in opposition to rebel flag

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

The scholars, joined by their moms as plaintiffs, already made information when their protest at Coosa High College was stifled last fall.

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

They also allege unfair punishment: Students are banned from carrying Black Lives Matter shirts, but Accomplice flag apparel is appropriate beneath the varsity’s dress code, the lawsuit says.

The swimsuit faults administrators for “deliberate indifference to acts of racial animosity toward black students perpetrated by white students and lecturers; in addition to the school’s viewpoint discrimination in its gown code and the inconsistent administration of disciplinary insurance policies to the detriment of Black college students.”

Becoming a member of the students 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 youngsters, and detained until faculty officials introduced her with a letter threatening legal trespassing costs if she was found again on school grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday said the district disputes the allegations however had been advised by attorneys to not get into specifics presently. “The Floyd County school system seems ahead to presenting the details on this example in court docket,” White instructed The Associated Press in a cellphone interview.

Coosa High close to Rome is within the heart of northwest Georgia’s conservative 14th Congressional District, which despatched Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress. About 10% of the college’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 rest are multiracial or some other race.

The lawsuit accuses school officials of creating “an atmosphere 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 flexibility of their classmates to put on 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 also announced over the intercom that any pupil protesting and even possessing a flyer announcing the protest would be disciplined.

The lawsuit alleges that four Black plaintiffs who organized the protest have been suspended for 5 days, while nonblack scholar organizers were not disciplined. Legal professionals also allege the preemptive shutdown of the protest and calls for that college students not publish on social media violated students’ First Modification rights. A fifth student who was not suspended has also sued.

The suit says costume code rules permitting Accomplice flag attire however 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 students’ and oldsters’ proper to equal safety below the 14th Amendment, in addition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Amongst different remedies, the plaintiffs demand that the college district be blocked from further punishing the scholars because of their speech, remove prior punishments from faculty records and pay money damages.

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

___

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