Three black students from Effingham County School District (GA) have filed a Civil Rights lawsuit against the district for “deliberate indifference to acts of racial animosity” toward Black students. The lawsuit also alleges school administrators participated in “an egregious pattern of deliberately ignoring complaints” and showed indifference toward harassment among students.
Excerpts from the lawsuit:
- Engaged in an egregious pattern of deliberately ignoring complaints from Plaintiffs and other black students.
- Demonstrated a deliberate indifference to peer-to-peer harassment about repeated Incidents of racial intimidation and bigotry.
- two students scrawling racial epithet across lockers in the baseball locker room; a noose being hung in the football locker room;
- students wearing Confederate flag attire;
- a white student wearing a full Hitler costume during spirit week after obtaining prior approval from a teacher;
- white students’ open use of racial slurs including “ni****”;
- overtly racist remarks by a white teacher and open
- notorious display of Confederate flags in the building.
Other allegations:
- School’s dress code and disciplinary policies create an atmosphere where certain viewpoints including white nationalism and white supremacy are permitted but speech of an ideologically different viewpoint is expressly prohibited.
- School officials permit the wearing of any and all Confederate flag apparel but simultaneously prohibit the wearing of any and all “Black Lives Matter” or related thematic messaging (e.g. a shirt with Black Love).
