Georgia students sue over blocked protest against rebel flag

ATLANTA (AP) — Several Black students who have been suspended for making an attempt to protest Confederate flag displays at their college in Georgia have filed a federal lawsuit against 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 academics against African American students.”

The students, joined by their moms as plaintiffs, already made news when their protest at Coosa High School was stifled final fall.

Now, in their lawsuit filed Tuesday against the Floyd County college district and its board members, they allege an intensive pattern of racism, including white students reenacting the murder of George Floyd and posting it on social media, and a scholar who carried what seemed to be a whip and told a Black scholar “we used to whip you.”

They also allege unfair punishment: College students are banned from sporting Black Lives Matter shirts, however Accomplice flag attire is acceptable beneath the school’s dress code, the lawsuit says.

The suit faults directors for “deliberate indifference to acts of racial animosity towards black students perpetrated by white students and academics; in addition to the college’s viewpoint discrimination in its costume code and the inconsistent administration of disciplinary policies to the detriment of Black students.”

Becoming a member of the scholars 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 children, and detained till school officers offered her with a letter threatening prison trespassing costs if she was found once more on faculty grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday mentioned the district disputes the allegations however had been advised by legal professionals to not get into specifics at this time. “The Floyd County college system looks ahead to presenting the info on this situation in court,” White instructed The Related Press in a phone interview.

Coosa High near 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 more 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 another race.

The lawsuit accuses college officers of making “an environment the place sure viewpoints together with white nationalism and white supremacy are permitted but speech of an ideologically totally different viewpoint is expressly prohibited.”

When a bunch of students sought to protest the flexibility 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 also introduced over the intercom that any scholar protesting or even possessing a flyer announcing the protest would be disciplined.

The lawsuit alleges that four Black plaintiffs who organized the protest were suspended for five days, whereas nonblack scholar organizers weren't disciplined. Attorneys additionally allege the preemptive shutdown of the protest and calls for that students not put up on social media violated students’ First Amendment rights. A fifth scholar who was not suspended has also sued.

The suit says gown code rules permitting Confederate flag attire however not Black Lives Matter attire are unlawful viewpoint discrimination by a government company, which also violates the First Modification. It says the district additionally has violated the students’ and oldsters’ proper to equal protection beneath 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 additional punishing the students because of their speech, take away prior punishments from faculty data and pay cash damages.

Among the legal professionals bringing the swimsuit is Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer seeking the Democratic nomination for lawyer normal in Massachusetts.

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