Georgia students sue over blocked protest against insurgent flag

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

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

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

Additionally they allege unfair punishment: College students are banned from wearing Black Lives Matter shirts, but Accomplice flag apparel is appropriate underneath the college’s dress code, the lawsuit says.

The swimsuit faults directors for “deliberate indifference to acts of racial animosity towards black college students perpetrated by white college students and lecturers; as well as the varsity’s viewpoint discrimination in its dress code and the inconsistent administration of disciplinary policies to the detriment of Black college students.”

Joining the students 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 kids, and detained until faculty officers offered her with a letter threatening prison trespassing prices if she was discovered once more on college grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday said the district disputes the allegations but had been advised by lawyers to not get into specifics presently. “The Floyd County college system appears to be like ahead to presenting the info on this example in courtroom,” White instructed The Related Press in a cellphone interview.

Coosa High close to Rome is in the heart of northwest Georgia’s conservative 14th Congressional District, which despatched Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress. About 10% of the school’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 rest are multiracial or another race.

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

When a group of scholars sought to protest the power of their classmates to put on 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 additionally introduced over the intercom that any student protesting or even possessing a flyer saying the protest would be disciplined.

The lawsuit alleges that 4 Black plaintiffs who organized the protest were suspended for five days, while nonblack scholar organizers weren't disciplined. Lawyers additionally allege the preemptive shutdown of the protest and calls for that college students not post on social media violated students’ First Amendment rights. A fifth scholar who was not suspended has also sued.

The swimsuit says costume code rules permitting Accomplice flag apparel but not Black Lives Matter attire are unlawful viewpoint discrimination by a government agency, which also violates the First Amendment. It says the district additionally has violated the scholars’ and fogeys’ proper to equal safety under the 14th Amendment, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Amongst other remedies, the plaintiffs demand that the school district be blocked from further punishing the scholars due to their speech, remove prior punishments from college data and pay cash damages.

Among the lawyers bringing the go well with is Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer looking for the Democratic nomination for lawyer normal in Massachusetts.

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