Coosa High School students in Rome, Georgia, were warned by administrators not to organize a protest against racist actions recently taken by their peers — and when they went forward with their plan anyway, only Black students were punished.
The students planned a protest condemning the school’s failure to discipline a group of white students who had used racial slurs against Black students; days earlier, students had also waved a Confederate battle flag in their direction.
When news of the protest spread during its planning stages, administrators made an announcement over the intercom warning that there would be a police presence at the protest and students who participated would be “disciplined for encouraging unrest,” even if they were just in possession of a flyer for the protest.
Shortly after, the organizers of the protest — a group that included Black, white and Latino students — were called to the office, where they engaged in arguments with administrators. Disciplinary action was handed out in the form of school suspensions, but only the Black students were punished.
“They didn’t suspend me and I was yelling and loud,” said student Lilyan Huckaby. “It’s because I’m white.”
The school sought out the involvement of law enforcement when handing out the disciplinary orders. Some parents of Black students who were suspended said they did not receive word of the disciplinary action until their children were brought home by the sheriff department; one mother said she was told by an officer who pulled her over while she was driving.
Black parents told CBS46 that their children suffered emotional distress from being harassed and called racial slurs by white students. Lekysha Morgan, the mother of three children who were suspended for organizing the protest, said that she had complained to school administrators about racist remarks being made toward her children several times, but the school had never taken any action.
The students still held the protest, even after being suspended.
“I felt really disrespected how the school didn’t do anything about it and when we are not allowed to wear [Black Lives Matter] stuff and they are allowed to carry a racist flag around,” said organizer Deziya Fain, one of the students who was suspended.
“I feel the Confederate flag should not be flown at all,” said organizer Jaylynn Murray. “It is a racist symbol and it makes me feel disrespected.”
Beyond the fact that public school students still have the first amendment right to protest, inequitable punishment toward Black students is not limited to Coosa High School. Data from the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement for the academic year of 2019-2020 showed that Black students in Georgia were far more likely to receive disciplinary action than their white peers.
In Cobb County, Georgia, for instance, Black students only make up 33 percent of the student population — but the report found they accounted for 52 percent of all disciplinary actions taken by school administrators in the county.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 350 new monthly donors in the next 6 days.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy