A group of Black high school students in Rome, Georgia was suspended from school for planning a demonstration to protest racial harassment, CBS 46 reports. However, their white and Hispanic classmates who also planned the protest went undisciplined.
According to CBS, four white students at Coosa High School waved a Confederate flag and hurled racial slurs during “Farm Day” for the school’s spirit week. On Oct. 7, a group of students approached school administrators to report the incident. According to reports, Black students who were at the meeting were suspended from school for two weeks, while their white and Hispanic classmates were not.
One white student who was at the meeting, Lilyan Huckaby, told CBS 46 that she was “yelling and loud” at administrators but was not suspended.
“All the African Americans, they suspended them, and they didn’t suspend them,” she told reporter Hayley Mason, motioning toward the other white and Hispanic protesters.
The protest carried out as planned, but Newsweek reports that school administrators recruited police officers to patrol the event and said participating students would be “disciplined for encouraging unrest.” Some parents of the Black students also told the outlet they were notified about their children’s suspension from sheriff’s deputies who visited their home. One mother even said a deputy pulled her over while she was driving to deliver the news.
Lekysha Morgan, whose three children were suspended, said she’s repeatedly complained about the “emotional distress” they’ve endured from being called racial slurs at the school. She said administrators have yet to take action.
Many parents reportedly attended the demonstration in support of their children. The students were suspended for two weeks, meaning they will be forced to miss their homecoming.
“I feel the Confederate flag should not be flown at all. It is a racist symbol and it makes me feel disrespected,” one student who helped organize the protest, Jaylynn Murray, said.
“I felt really disrespected how the school didn’t do anything about it, and when we are not allowed to wear BLM stuff, and they are allowed to carry a racist flag around,” another added.