The San Jose Mercury News reports:
Four Albany High School juniors punished for their roles in a racist Instagram posting incident have sued the school district and administration, alleging their free speech rights were violated and that they were subjected to public ridicule, shaming and violence.
In addition to damages, the boys have asked a federal judge to grant a preliminary injunction removing any disciplinary action from their academic records, stopping any further disciplinary hearings until the lawsuit is resolved, and allowing them to make up any missed work during their suspensions. The four plaintiffs, all of whom commented on or “liked” the controversial photos published online, allege they were made to line up on campus and face a gauntlet of insults by their peers before one of their parents stopped the exercise.
“They engaged in conduct protected by the First Amendment, and shouldn’t suffer due to engaging in not-pleasant speech but constitutionally protected speech,” the boys’ attorney Alan Beck said. “Ultimately, this is primarily about getting them back in school. The real issue is these kids have been out of school for several weeks now.”
On March 20, students told teachers about another student’s Instagram account on which racist memes were posted. Some students were alleged to have posted comments on the photos and several others had “liked” the images, which were of 11 mostly female students (all but one a person of color) and the school’s African-American girls basketball coach.
According to school officials, parents and students, the images included nooses drawn around necks of those photographed and side-by-side photos of the girls and apes.
All students associated with the account were suspended, many for as long as five days, according to the lawsuit, which claimed administrators lengthened the suspension without proper authority.
“This action arises out of a private online discussion between friends that the Albany School system has pried into without authority,” the complaint alleges. “All conduct at issue in this matter occurred off school property, were conducted off school hours, and were otherwise completely unrelated to school activity.”
There's much more:
In their lawsuit, the boys described the weeks following the Instagram photo controversy as district-sanctioned “public shaming.”
On March 28, Williams sent out “a series of poorly thought out and incendiary emails” to students, parents and the community, calling the plaintiffs and other students “racists” and “harmers,” and creating a community uproar, according to the complaint. The emails included information about separate incidents on campus including seven students who had allegedly been exchanging Nazi salutes in the hallways, as well as an unsubstantiated report of a noose found in a nearby park, according to the lawsuit.
After their suspensions concluded, the four boys allege they were forced to take part in several “healing” exercises.
“The plaintiffs and the other suspended students were forced to march through the high school and were lined up in full view of all or most of the student body,” according to the lawsuit. “School administrators allowed the student body to hurl obscenities, scream profanities, and jeer at the plaintiffs and the other suspended students, who were all not allowed to leave what the school considered an act of ‘atonement’ but was rather a thinly veiled form of public shaming.”
A parent eventually convinced administrators to stop the event, the plaintiffs allege.
On March 30, the plaintiffs and other suspended students attended another “restorative justice” session where a few hundred protesters gathered outside. They allege administrators failed to get sufficient security to escort them out of the building, leading to two suspended students being physically assaulted, with one suffering a broken nose, the lawsuit alleges.
The school that promotes violence!
