Civil rights claims brought by five Black students at a northwest Georgia high school after four of them were suspended in connection with an anti-racism protest have been trimmed by a federal judge, who has kept alive part of their case against the Floyd County School District.
A dozen Coosa High School students were suspended in the fall of 2021 for being involved in a protest against multiple incidents of racism against Black students at the school. The protest was held across the street from the school on a Friday and caused about two thirds of students to miss class, the district said.
Before the protest, a white student had told three of the plaintiffs that they were slaves and used other racial slurs against them, case records show. Another plaintiff was called a monkey while eating a banana and her hair was compared to worms and snakes, according to the lawsuit.
It was alleged that white students often wore Confederate paraphernalia, the judge noted in an Aug. 14 order. She said a plaintiff claimed that the high school’s assistant principal had told them that the Confederate flag “wasn’t hate towards anyone and it didn’t make students feel uncomfortable,” but was “for heritage.”
Racist social media posts by Coosa High students included one showing a male student kneeling on the neck of a classmate” in a supposed George Floyd re-enactment,” the school district acknowledged in a case filing. It said the male student was suspended after making another racist social media post.
The Black students who, with their mothers, sued the school district in May 2022 , lodged five claims under federal law. They alleged the district exhibited race bias when it disciplined Black students for engaging in free speech while allowing other students to perpetuate racism.
Black students in northwest Georgia file suit alleging discrimination The district asked the judge in December to dismiss the claims, arguing that the plaintiffs had failed to show it violated federal law. It claimed the suspension of students involved in the October 2021 protest was reasonable, given their disruptive behavior and failure to follow school procedure.
In her Aug. 14 order, U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May tossed three of the claims but allowed two to proceed to trial. She also ordered mediation in the case.
May found that the district was not deliberately indifferent to student-on-student harassment, though it could have done more to stem racism. She said some disciplinary decisions by school officials “may reflect poor judgment,” but that “each time a specific instance of harassment was reported to teachers or other officials, there was a school response.”
The judge said the four plaintiffs who were suspended appeared to have been disciplined in response to their actions, not because of their race. She noted that five white students and one Hispanic student were also suspended in connection with the protest, while at least one Black student who attended was not suspended.
A jury should decide if the district violated free speech law by suspending students involved in the planning of the protest, the judge held. She said whether the district improperly enforced its dress code by forcing Black students to change out of “Black Lives Matter and George Floyd shirts” while allowing white students to wear “Confederate flag attire” is also a matter for a jury.
Harry Daniels, an attorney for the students, said the administrators at Coosa High and the Floyd County School District have turned a blind eye to racism, defended racists and punished Black students.
“Whether it’s in the classroom or the boardroom, racists and bullies have no place in our schools,” Daniels said in an Aug. 15 news release. “After all, it’s 2024 not 1964.”
The school district declined to comment on the case.
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