Georgia students sue over blocked protest in opposition to rebel flag

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

The students, joined by their mothers as plaintiffs, already made information when their protest at Coosa High College was stifled final fall.

Now, in their lawsuit filed Tuesday against the Floyd County faculty district and its board members, they allege an extensive 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 appeared to be a whip and instructed a Black scholar “we used to whip you.”

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

The suit faults administrators for “deliberate indifference to acts of racial animosity toward black college students perpetrated by white students and academics; in addition to the school’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 students as plaintiffs are their moms, Lekisha Turner and Jessica Murray. Murray claims she was pulled over by a police officer after choosing up the suspended youngsters, and detained till school officers presented her with a letter threatening criminal trespassing charges if she was discovered once more on college grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday stated the district disputes the allegations however had been advised by attorneys to not get into specifics presently. “The Floyd County faculty system seems forward to presenting the facts on this case in court,” White told The Related Press in a cellphone interview.

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

The lawsuit accuses college officers of creating “an environment where certain viewpoints together with white nationalism and white supremacy are permitted however speech of an ideologically totally different viewpoint is expressly prohibited.”

When a gaggle of scholars sought to protest the power of their classmates to put on the Confederate flag on campus, the principal threatened scholar Deserae Turner that she could be jailed for “instigating a riot,” the lawsuit says. The principal also introduced over the intercom that any pupil protesting and even possessing a flyer asserting the protest could be disciplined.

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

The suit says dress code guidelines allowing Accomplice 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 additionally has violated the scholars’ and oldsters’ proper to equal safety below the 14th Amendment, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Among different cures, the plaintiffs demand that the school district be blocked from further punishing the students due to their speech, remove prior punishments from college information and pay cash damages.

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

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