Georgia students sue over blocked protest towards rebel flag

ATLANTA (AP) — A number of Black students who have been suspended for making an attempt to protest Accomplice flag shows at their school in Georgia have filed a federal lawsuit against their faculty district and its board members, accusing them of allowing an extensive sample of racism including “overt bigotry and animosity by some white college students and academics towards African American college students.”

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

Now, in their lawsuit filed Tuesday towards the Floyd County faculty district and its board members, they allege an extensive sample of racism, together with white students reenacting the homicide of George Floyd and posting it on social media, and a scholar who carried what gave the impression to be a whip and informed a Black pupil “we used to whip you.”

Additionally they allege unfair punishment: Students are banned from sporting Black Lives Matter shirts, but Confederate flag attire is suitable underneath the college’s gown code, the lawsuit says.

The suit faults directors for “deliberate indifference to acts of racial animosity towards black college students perpetrated by white students and academics; in addition to the school’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 moms, Lekisha Turner and Jessica Murray. Murray claims she was pulled over by a police officer after selecting up the suspended children, and detained till school officials offered her with a letter threatening legal trespassing prices if she was found once more on faculty grounds.

Superintendent Glenn White on Tuesday stated the district disputes the allegations but had been advised by attorneys to not get into specifics at this time. “The Floyd County faculty system appears forward to presenting the info on this situation in court,” White advised The Associated Press in a cellphone interview.

Coosa High near Rome is within the heart of northwest Georgia’s conservative 14th Congressional District, which sent Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress. About 10% of the varsity’s more than 800 college students in grades 8-12 are Black, state enrollment figures show. About 58% are white, whereas 26% are Hispanic and the the remainder are multiracial or some other race.

The lawsuit accuses faculty officials of creating “an atmosphere where certain viewpoints together with white nationalism and white supremacy are permitted but speech of an ideologically different viewpoint is expressly prohibited.”

When a gaggle of scholars sought to protest the power of their classmates to put on the Accomplice flag on campus, the principal threatened scholar Deserae Turner that she might be jailed for “instigating a riot,” the lawsuit says. The principal also introduced over the intercom that any pupil 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, whereas nonblack scholar organizers weren't disciplined. Legal professionals also allege the preemptive shutdown of the protest and demands that college students not publish on social media violated students’ First Amendment rights. A fifth pupil who was not suspended has additionally sued.

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

Among other remedies, the plaintiffs demand that the school district be blocked from further punishing the scholars due to their speech, take away prior punishments from college records and pay money damages.

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

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