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March 14, 2018

ATLANTA - The ACLU of Georgia has sent a letter to Cobb County School Superintendent and the principals at Lassiter, Kell, and Sprayberry High Schools in response to reports that the schools may have physically blocked students from leaving school during today's protest against the nationwide school shooting epidemic.

"Schools are not prisons," Sean J. Young, Legal Director of the ACLU of Georgia stated. "Half a century ago, schools tried to prevent students from wearing Freedom Buttons to protest racial segregation until the courts stopped them. History does not look kindly upon those who attempt to silence the voices of the next generation."
"If these reports are true," the ACLU of Georgia letter stated, "it is shocking and unconscionable that you would be so desperate to suppress the First Amendment rights of your students that you would physically lock them into the building-creating an extremely dangerous fire hazard-just to make a point [and would] smack of unconstitutional intent to suppress the expression of speech you do not like in violation of the First Amendment."
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