Georgia college students sue over blocked protest towards insurgent flag

ATLANTA (AP) — Several Black college students who have been suspended for attempting to protest Accomplice flag displays at their school in Georgia have filed a federal lawsuit in opposition to their school district and its board members, accusing them of allowing an in depth sample of racism together with “overt bigotry and animosity by some white college students and academics in opposition to African American college students.”

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

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

They also allege unfair punishment: Students are banned from wearing Black Lives Matter shirts, but Confederate flag apparel is appropriate below the school’s dress code, the lawsuit says.

The suit faults administrators for “deliberate indifference to acts of racial animosity towards black college students perpetrated by white students and academics; as well as the varsity’s viewpoint discrimination in its costume code and the inconsistent administration of disciplinary insurance policies to the detriment of Black 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 youngsters, and detained till college officials introduced her with a letter threatening felony trespassing expenses if she was discovered once more on school grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday said the district disputes the allegations but had been advised by legal professionals to not get into specifics right now. “The Floyd County college system appears ahead to presenting the details on this example in court,” White advised The Associated Press in a phone interview.

Coosa High near Rome is within 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 show. About 58% are white, while 26% are Hispanic and the the rest are multiracial or another race.

The lawsuit accuses school officers of creating “an atmosphere where sure viewpoints including 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 put on the Accomplice flag on campus, the principal threatened student 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 saying the protest would be disciplined.

The lawsuit alleges that 4 Black plaintiffs who organized the protest were suspended for five days, whereas nonblack scholar organizers were not disciplined. Lawyers also allege the preemptive shutdown of the protest and demands that students not put up on social media violated students’ First Amendment rights. A fifth pupil who was not suspended has also sued.

The suit says dress code rules allowing Confederate flag attire however not Black Lives Matter apparel are illegal viewpoint discrimination by a government agency, which also violates the First Amendment. It says the district additionally has violated the students’ and oldsters’ proper to equal safety beneath the 14th Amendment, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Among different cures, the plaintiffs demand that the college district be blocked from additional punishing the scholars because of their speech, remove prior punishments from college information and pay money damages.

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

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