Expel Them All

Following Audrey Hale’s March 27 massacre of three students and three adults at a Christian school in Nashville, three Tennessee state lawmakers staged a protest in the state Capitol on March 30.

They approached the well in the legislative chamber, where they led protesters in the galleries in pro–gun control chants. The demonstration disrupted deliberations on an education bill, and the speaker of the Tennessee House called an hour’s adjournment. 

The legislature expelled two of the members, State Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, who are black; a third, Rep. Gloria Johnson, is white and was not expelled. Critics suggested the difference in treatment is rooted in racial prejudice; the single legislator who voted to expel Jones and Pearson but not Johnson cited the fact that the expelled members used megaphones in the chamber as the distinction behind his vote.