Georgia college students sue over blocked protest towards insurgent flag

ATLANTA (AP) — A number of Black students who were suspended for trying to protest Confederate flag displays at their college in Georgia have filed a federal lawsuit towards their school district and its board members, accusing them of permitting an in depth sample of racism including “overt bigotry and animosity by some white college students and teachers in opposition to African American college students.”

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

Now, in their lawsuit filed Tuesday against the Floyd County school district and its board members, they allege an extensive pattern of racism, including white college students reenacting the murder of George Floyd and posting it on social media, and a scholar who carried what gave the impression to be a whip and instructed 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 appropriate under the school’s dress code, the lawsuit says.

The suit faults directors for “deliberate indifference to acts of racial animosity towards black college students perpetrated by white students and lecturers; as well as the college’s viewpoint discrimination in its gown code and the inconsistent administration of disciplinary policies to the detriment of Black 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 children, and detained till faculty officers offered her with a letter threatening prison trespassing expenses if she was discovered again on college 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 school system appears to be like forward to presenting the details on this example in courtroom,” White advised 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 sent Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress. About 10% of the varsity’s greater than 800 college students in grades 8-12 are Black, state enrollment figures present. About 58% are white, whereas 26% are Hispanic and the the remainder are multiracial or some other race.

The lawsuit accuses faculty officers of creating “an environment the place sure viewpoints including white nationalism and white supremacy are permitted but speech of an ideologically different viewpoint is expressly prohibited.”

When a group of scholars sought to protest the power of their classmates to wear the Accomplice flag on campus, the principal threatened student Deserae Turner that she might be jailed for “instigating a riot,” the lawsuit says. The principal additionally announced over the intercom that any pupil protesting or even possessing a flyer saying the protest would be disciplined.

The lawsuit alleges that 4 Black plaintiffs who organized the protest have been suspended for 5 days, whereas nonblack student organizers were not disciplined. Lawyers additionally allege the preemptive shutdown of the protest and demands that college students not publish on social media violated college students’ First Modification rights. A fifth scholar who was not suspended has additionally sued.

The swimsuit says gown code guidelines permitting Accomplice flag apparel but not Black Lives Matter apparel are illegal viewpoint discrimination by a authorities agency, which also violates the First Amendment. It says the district additionally has violated the scholars’ and parents’ proper to equal protection under the 14th Amendment, in addition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Amongst other remedies, the plaintiffs demand that the college district be blocked from additional punishing the students due to their speech, remove prior punishments from college records and pay cash damages.

Among the attorneys bringing the swimsuit is Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer in search of the Democratic nomination for lawyer common in Massachusetts.

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