Georgia college students sue over blocked protest against rebel flag

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

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

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

Additionally they allege unfair punishment: College students are banned from sporting Black Lives Matter shirts, however Confederate flag apparel is acceptable below the school’s costume code, the lawsuit says.

The go well with faults directors for “deliberate indifference to acts of racial animosity toward black students perpetrated by white students and teachers; in addition to the varsity’s viewpoint discrimination in its costume code and the inconsistent administration of disciplinary insurance 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 kids, and detained till school officials offered her with a letter threatening legal trespassing charges if she was discovered again on college grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday stated the district disputes the allegations but had been advised by lawyers to not get into specifics at this time. “The Floyd County faculty system seems ahead to presenting the facts on this situation in courtroom,” White instructed The Associated Press in a phone interview.

Coosa Excessive 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 varsity’s more than 800 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 faculty officials of making “an environment where sure viewpoints including white nationalism and white supremacy are permitted however speech of an ideologically different viewpoint is expressly prohibited.”

When a group of students sought to protest the ability of their classmates to put on the Accomplice 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 scholar protesting or even possessing a flyer saying the protest could be disciplined.

The lawsuit alleges that four Black plaintiffs who organized the protest had been suspended for 5 days, while nonblack pupil organizers weren't disciplined. Attorneys also allege the preemptive shutdown of the protest and calls for that students not submit on social media violated students’ First Amendment rights. A fifth pupil who was not suspended has additionally sued.

The go well with says dress code rules permitting Confederate flag apparel but not Black Lives Matter attire are illegal viewpoint discrimination by a government company, which additionally violates the First Modification. It says the district also has violated the scholars’ and fogeys’ proper to equal safety beneath the 14th Amendment, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Amongst other remedies, the plaintiffs demand that the varsity district be blocked from additional punishing the scholars because of their speech, remove prior punishments from faculty records and pay cash damages.

Among the legal professionals bringing the go well with is Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer seeking the Democratic nomination for legal professional general in Massachusetts.

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