Georgia college students sue over blocked protest in opposition to insurgent flag

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

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

Now, of their lawsuit filed Tuesday against the Floyd County school district and its board members, they allege an intensive sample of racism, including white college students reenacting the homicide of George Floyd and posting it on social media, and a pupil who carried what appeared to be a whip and advised a Black student “we used to whip you.”

Additionally they allege unfair punishment: College students are banned from carrying Black Lives Matter shirts, but Accomplice flag attire is suitable under the varsity’s dress 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 lecturers; in addition to the school’s viewpoint discrimination in its dress code and the inconsistent administration of disciplinary policies to the detriment of Black students.”

Joining the scholars as plaintiffs are their mothers, Lekisha Turner and Jessica Murray. Murray claims she was pulled over by a police officer after selecting up the suspended youngsters, and detained until school officers introduced her with a letter threatening felony trespassing prices if she was found again on college grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday said the district disputes the allegations but had been suggested by legal professionals to not get into specifics at this time. “The Floyd County faculty system appears to be like ahead to presenting the info on this case in court docket,” White advised The Associated Press in a phone 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 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 another race.

The lawsuit accuses school officials of making “an environment where sure viewpoints together with white nationalism and white supremacy are permitted however speech of an ideologically completely different viewpoint is expressly prohibited.”

When a gaggle of students sought to protest the ability of their classmates to wear the Accomplice flag on campus, the principal threatened pupil Deserae Turner that she could be jailed for “instigating a riot,” the lawsuit says. The principal also introduced over the intercom that any student protesting or even possessing a flyer asserting the protest would be disciplined.

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

The go well with says dress code guidelines permitting Accomplice flag apparel but not Black Lives Matter attire are unlawful viewpoint discrimination by a authorities company, which additionally violates the First Modification. It says the district additionally has violated the students’ and parents’ proper to equal protection beneath the 14th Amendment, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Among different treatments, the plaintiffs demand that the college district be blocked from additional punishing the students due to their speech, take away prior punishments from college data and pay cash damages.

Among the lawyers bringing the go well with is Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer in search of the Democratic nomination for attorney basic in Massachusetts.

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