Southern Poverty Law Center - Georgia

Walton County (Georgia) School District discrimination complaints

rudy.isaza_2663 — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 13:40:12 +0000

After Georgia’s Walton County School District expelled and referred a Black middle school student with a disability to juvenile court, it denied the student the necessary support and services in its alternative school program, sparking two discrimination complaints by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The ��Խ� filed a state administrative due process complaint and a federal Office for Civil Rights discrimination complaint against the district. The filings say the school district ignored the ��Խ�’s requests to remedy the situation, which saw the Black student disproportionately disciplined and denied support and services necessary due to his disability.

The school expelled the student, E.C., after he was asked by a white student to hand a vape pen to another white student. The two white students involved in the incident, which violated school policy, were not expelled. Only E.C. was referred to a juvenile court for prosecution. He was then denied the necessary support and services in the school district’s online alternative school program, which he struggles to access because of his disability. The ��Խ�’s complaints describes how the school’s unilateral decision against E.C. is discriminatory and retaliatory, creating real-world consequences to E.C.’s ability to access a free appropriate public education and his ability to attend and graduate from college.

The ��Խ� filed a special-education formal complaint against the school district in July with the Georgia Department of Education over these ongoing individual and systemic violations. The Georgia Department of Education ruled in favor of E.C. on every issue alleged in the complaint. It ordered the school district to review and revise its policies, provide training to its special education teachers and administrators, and submit revised policies and training materials to the state for review.

Despite resolution of the complaint, E.C. continues to experience retaliation from the school district as outlined in the latest complaints filed.

Date Filed

October 18, 2024

Court where filed

Georgia Department of Education

Issue Area

Children's Rights

Walton County (Georgia) School District discrimination complaints

Heimel v. Gregg, et. al

rudy.isaza_2663 — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 19:54:42 +0000

With about a month left until the general election in 2024, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU of Georgia, the American Civil Liberties Union and Akerman LLP intervened in a lawsuit filed against election officials in Oconee County, Georgia. In that case, the plaintiff asked the court to stop the local board of elections and registration from registering new voters until it held hearings on approximately 230 voters whose registrations had been challenged in July. The elections board earlier had dismissed the registration challenges of all but two of the voters.

The intervenor’s motion, filed on behalf of Oconee County resident Susan Noakes and Common Cause Georgia, asked the court to dismiss plaintiff Suzannah Heimel’s request for a writ of mandamus and emergency injunction.

On Oct. 8, the court granted the motion, and the case was dismissed, ultimately stopping mass voter challenges and possible voter roll purges.

The court also scheduled a hearing on the intervenor’s arguments that the elections board’s actions violate Georgia law prohibiting challenges of an elector within 45 days of an election.

The case was filed in the Superior Court of Oconee County, State of Georgia.

Date Filed

October 04, 2024

Status

Active

Issue Area

Voting Rights

Voting Rights - GA

Co-Counsel

ACLU Foundation of Georgia, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Akerman LLP

Active Case

Heimel v. Gregg, et. al

Case Number

SUSR024000058-LL

Quinn v. Raffensperger

rudy.isaza_2663 — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 18:21:03 +0000

In 2021, the state of Georgia enacted SB 202, a voter suppression law with provisions allowing state elections officials to usurp the powers of local officials, including the authority to purge individual voters from the list of active, registered voters.

In this 2024 case, two residents of Gwinnett County, the state’s second most populous county and part of the Atlanta metro area, brought a federal lawsuit to force a statewide purge of voters, based on a list of people the plaintiffs claim have moved out of the state.

In October 2024, the ��Խ� filed a motion to intervene in the case on behalf of the GALEO Latino Community Development Fund and Common Cause Georgia. The motion seeks to dismiss the case on the grounds that the National Voter Registration Act prohibits systemic voter removal programs within 90 days of a federal election. The filing also requests a declaration from the court that mass challenges such as those filed in this case are unlawful within the 90-day quiet period before a federal election and that the Georgia secretary of state is prohibited from entertaining such challenges during that window.

The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division.

Date Filed

October 02, 2024

Issue Area

Voting Rights

Voting Rights - GA

Quinn v. Raffensperger

Case Number

1:24-CV-4364-SCJ

Hate Group Urged Georgia Governor to Ban Trans Kids From School Sports

rudy.isaza_2663 — Thu, 22 Aug 2024 20:18:28 +0000

Hatewatch

Anti-��Խ�+ and anti-abortion groups have joined forces with Georgia’s largest association of Baptist churches to sway Gov. Brian Kemp in support of a far-right policy agenda that rolls back the rights of transgender children, according to emails obtained through a public records request.

Hate Group Urged Georgia Governor to Ban Trans Kids From School Sports

In a February 2022 email to Kemp’s office, Cole Muzio, president of the anti-��Խ�+ hate group Frontline Policy Council (FPC), said he believed a state prohibition against transgender children participating in public school sports “is going to be the issue (more than CRT [critical race theory], obscenity, parental rights, etc.) where the Governor needs to devote the most political capital inside the building to bring to fruition.”

Muzio’s email is one of several exchanged between Kemp’s office and a self-described group of “conservative leaders” in the state who held two meetings with the governor – on Feb. 21, 2022, and Feb. 15, 2023. In both cases, the emails show the groups make stripping away transgender rights a top priority. In pursuing their policy goals, they are perpetuating a dangerous trope that ��Խ�+ people, especially trans people and drag performers, are a threat to women and children.

Coordinated lobbying

Hatewatch previously reported on ethics questions raised by Muzio’s interactions with state policymakers without being registered as a lobbyist with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission. From 2017 to 2022, Muzio was registered as a lobbyist for Frontline Policy Action and its progenitor, Frontline Policy Alliance of Georgia. Muzio was not registered as a lobbyist at the time of the February 2023 meeting with Kemp.

The list of proposed attendees at the February 2023 meeting included FPC’s Muzio and Taylor Hawkins, who was registered as a lobbyist for Frontline Policy Council; Tim Head, executive director of Faith and Freedom Coalition; Kevin Cooke of Americans for Prosperity; and Claire Bartlett, executive director of the anti-abortion Georgia Life Alliance. The group also included Mike Griffin of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board (GBMB). A similar but smaller group assembled for the 2022 meeting with Kemp, according to the emails.

In a Feb. 7, 2023, message to Kemp’s office, Griffin said the groups represent the “most conservative organizations. And they are big supporters of the Governor.”

The same email includes a list of priority issues that repeat numerous anti-��Խ�+ and anti-abortion tropes and prioritize government interventions in bodily autonomy including “abortion pill legislation”; banning gender-affirming health care for young people; banning “sex education/discussion” in public schools and making “sex ed opt-in”; and what Griffin referred to as “drag queen harmful to minors legislation.”

The list is similar to the one shared prior to the February 2022 meeting proposed by Muzio, in the same email in which he stated his belief that Kemp should “devote the most political capital” to banning transgender kids from all public school sports. In his email, Muzio says he believes that Kemp is already “out front and leading on much of our agenda” but offers to coordinate with his office to “make sure we are all on the same page regarding these issues.”

Muzio tells Kemp’s scheduler in the Feb. 17, 2022, email that he supports a House bill (which was not assigned a number at the time of the email) sponsored by state Rep. Will Wade, which Muzio said included language that barred trans girls from playing sports in all public schools.

As originally introduced, however, the bill only prohibited teaching “divisive concepts” in public education – a common strategy among conservative legislatures to forbid public schools from teaching such concepts as implicit bias and systemic racism.

According to The Atlanta Voice, Wade’s bill became law after a last-minute amendment was inserted in the Senate to prohibit trans girls from playing sports in high school, but not college. Kemp signed that bill into law on April 28, 2022.

Campaign contributions

State campaign finance disclosures show that on May 17, 2022, Frontline Policy Action spent more than $2,000 on campaign literature and mailers supporting Wade in that year’s Republican Party primary for his 9^th District House seat.

FPC continues to lobby and raise money to oppose ��Խ�+ rights and reproductive health care and to pursue legal actions to bar transgender athletes from college sports.

According to campaign finance records, in 2024, Frontline Policy Action gave $350,000 to Kemp’s Georgians First Leadership Committee to support the campaign of state Supreme Court Justice Andrew Pinson, who was appointed to the court by Kemp in 2022. Less than one week after the donation, Kemp announced that the committee planned to spend $500,000 to elect Pinson, suggesting Frontline’s money made a major impact in a race that was closely tied to restrictions on abortion in the state. Pinson won election to a six-year term in May 2024.

In April 2024, Muzio appeared at a press conference on Facebook to promote a lawsuit filed by anti-trans activist Riley Gaines and others against the NCAA and the University System of Georgia. The lawsuit claims that allowing transgender athletes to compete in school sports violates federal Title IX rules.

In the press conference, Muzio characterized transgender identity as “the left’s ultimate attempt to shake their fist at God” and repeated anti-��Խ�+ pseudoscientific claims that equate transgender identity with mental illness, saying transgender identity is a “fantasy” that can no longer be “indulged.”

“The first gift [God] gave to man was woman,” Muzio said.

Reflecting both the male supremacy and Christian theocracy supporting much of the anti-��Խ�+ movement, Muzio concluded, “We need to make sure that biological reality is enforced all the way through” the public education system.

Illustration at top: Emails exchanged between Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s office and a self-described group of “conservative leaders” include conversations regarding banning transgender kids from all public school sports, and other anti-��Խ�+ policies. (Credit: ��Խ�)

R.G. Cravens

August 22, 2024

In Re: Sandersville Railroad Company's Petition for Approval to Acquire Real Estate by Condemnation

rudy.isaza_2663 — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 19:04:09 +0000

The privately owned Sandersville Railroad Company is threatening to use eminent domain against property owners in a predominantly Black community in Sparta, Georgia, who have refused to sell portions of their land for a rail spur (a separate track that is connected to the main rail line).

The railroad company wants to lay tracks for a spur to serve a nearby quarry that is already a source of contention within the community. Currently living with the quarry’s vibrations and the sounds of trucks transporting rocks nearby, members of the community do not want a train running through their property or near their homes. To make matters worse, eminent domain is a leading cause of land loss and the loss of generational wealth in African American communities.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Economic Justice team has been consulting with and supporting the community’s campaign against the railroad, including highlighting the issue on the ��Խ� website and in national publications.

The ��Խ�’s clients were also featured in a mini-documentary by CBS News titled 40 Acres and a Mule. The railroad has started condemnation proceedings before the Georgia Public Service Commission against property owners who are represented by counsel from the Institute for ��Խ�.

The ��Խ� has intervened in the condemnation proceeding to represent the No Railroad in Our Community Coalition, an unincorporated association of impacted community members.

Date Filed

June 20, 2023

Issue Area

Economic Justice

In Re: Sandersville Railroad Company's Petition for Approval to Acquire Real Estate by Condemnation

Rinderle, et al., v. Cobb County School District, et al.

rudy.isaza_2663 — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 20:16:05 +0000

Katie Rinderle, a fifth-grade gifted specialist in the Cobb County School District in Georgia, was fired from her teaching job in 2023 for reading to her class My Shadow is Purple, an age-appropriate picture book about self-acceptance and navigating gender stereotypes.

In response, Rinderle and other educators are suing the Cobb County School District for discrimination, in the first federal lawsuit challenging classroom censorship policies in Georgia.

The lawsuit describes how the district’s policies on “controversial issues” have been used to unlawfully discipline educators for mentioning ��Խ�+ and gender-nonconforming people and their experiences in the classroom, in violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on behalf of Rinderle; Tonya Grimmke, who is a current Cobb County educator; and the Georgia Association of Educators, which serves more than 1,600 educators in Cobb County Schools.

Rinderle and Grimmke are members of the Georgia Association of Educators and are represented by attorneys from the Goodmark Law Firm, the Law Offices of Gerry Weber, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the National Education Association and the Southern Education Foundation.

The lawsuit challenges the unconstitutionally vague policies used to justify Rinderle’s termination and that discourage educators in the school district from providing inclusive learning environments for their students. The lawsuit states that Rinderle’s termination is illegal retaliation in violation of Title IX, the civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in schools.

The district adopted the policies in response to the passage of HB 1084, HB 1178 and SB 226 – a trio of classroom censorship laws signed by Gov. Brian Kemp in April 2022. These laws were part of a tidal wave of legislation passed across the nation that censors discussions about gender, race and sexual orientation in schools and classrooms. As of Nov. 1, 2023, at least 22 states had passed restrictions on teaching about race and gender.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction blocking the enforcement of the district’s censorship policies, as well as damages and additional relief for Rinderle, including her reinstatement.

Date Filed

February 13, 2024

Status

Active

Issue Area

Children's Rights

Co-Counsel

The National Education Association, Southern Education Foundation, The Goodmark Law Firm and the Law Offices of Gerry Weber.

Active Case

Rinderle, et al., v. Cobb County School District, et al.

Case Number

1:2024cv00656

Grovner, et al. v. McIntosh County, et al.

rudy.isaza_2663 — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 16:44:26 +0000

When an unlawful zoning amendment threatened Georgia’s historic Hogg Hummock community, the Southern Poverty Law Center and its co-counsel filed a complaint challenging the amendment in the Superior Court of McIntosh County.

Hogg Hummock, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is the last intact Gullah-Geechee community in the Sea Islands of Georgia. It is composed of direct descendants of enslaved people who were brought to Sapelo Island from West Africa in 1802. Many of the plaintiffs named in the complaint have held this land in their family for generations and plan on passing it to their children.

However, a zoning amendment approved by the McIntosh County Board of Commissioners would more than double the maximum size of Hogg Hummock homes from 1,400 square feet to 3,000 square feet. The change would encourage more development that would increase property valuations and taxes, creating a disproportionate impact on these descendants. Future construction would also be inconsistent with the current character and infrastructure of the community.

The complaint, filed in October 2023, describes how the zoning amendment violates the U.S. and Georgia constitutions by denying due process and equal protection to the community residents. The ��Խ� raised its concerns to the board of commissioners in a demand letter in August. It outlined how the zoning hearings and meeting process violated the state’s open meeting law, zoning procedures and the county’s civil rights obligations.

In 1994, the McIntosh Code of Ordinances created a historic district to allow continued use and activities of the community on Sapelo Island and to recognize its unique needs related to historic resources, traditional patterns of development, threat from land speculators and housing. 

Date Filed

October 12, 2023

Status

Active

Issue Area

Economic Justice

Co-Counsel

Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore LLP

Active Case

Grovner, et al. v. McIntosh County, et al.

Case Number

SUV2023000144

Barrientos v. CoreCivic

sam.alefsen@splcenter.org — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 15:58:01 +0000

Detained immigrants were forced to work for as little as $1 a day cleaning, cooking and performing maintenance duties at a privately operated immigrant detention center in Stewart County, Georgia, as part of a scheme to maximize its profits, according to a class action lawsuit the Southern Poverty Law Center filed in 2018 against private prison company CoreCivic Inc.

CoreCivic subjects people detained at Stewart Detention Center (SDC) in Lumpkin to a scheme of forced labor. Detained people are deprived of sufficient access to basic necessities like food, clothing, personal hygiene products and phone calls to loved ones, and are threatened with solitary confinement and other punishments for refusing to work. The lawsuit describes how this situation violates federal anti-trafficking laws and unjustly enriches CoreCivic.

CoreCivic’s forced labor scheme creates a lucrative profit scenario for the company: Detained people are forced to purchase basic necessities from the company’s commissary, and the primary way to fund these purchases is by participating in the work program. They are responsible for tasks such as cooking and cleaning – tasks CoreCivic would otherwise have had to hire and pay outside employees to perform.

CoreCivic houses people detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at SDC under a contract with Stewart County. Plaintiff Wilhen Hill Barrientos faced a difficult decision after arriving at the facility in 2015: The asylee from Guatemala could either work for nearly nothing or lose access to basic necessities, safety and privacy.

He was told that if he refused to work, he would be placed in solitary confinement. He also would not have enough money to pay for food or costly phone calls to his family.

Barrientos ultimately worked in the kitchen, cooking meals for up to 2,000 people each day. He regularly worked eight- to nine-hour shifts, and usually received $4 to $5 per day – approximately 50 cents per hour. Since SDC did not have paid kitchen staff other than supervisors, officers usually required Barrientos to work seven days a week, even when he was sick. After he filed a grievance for being forced to work while sick, he was put in medical segregation for over a month.

In 2018, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia denied CoreCivic’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims, and in 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision that federal anti-trafficking laws apply to private ICE detention contractors. After extensive discovery, in June 2022, the plaintiffs moved to certify a class of over 32,000 workers who had participated in SDC’s work program since 2008. In March 2023, the district court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification.

In October 2023 as the case was set to go to trial, a settlement was reached on behalf of Barrientos and the two other named plaintiffs in the case, Keysler Ramón Urbina Rojas and Gonzalo Bermudez Gutiérrez. The settlement agreement contains confidential information about the monetary amounts received by the plaintiffs and is not a public document.

As part of the agreement, CoreCivic will be required to notify all detained immigrants participating in the work program at Stewart of their rights, including their right to refuse to work. The document provided to detained workers, written in both Spanish and English, will state that they can’t be forced to work and have the right to prompt monetary compensation, relevant training, necessary safety equipment and respect from staff.

The ��Խ� represented the plaintiffs with co-counsel Project South, Perkins Coie LLP and Gwyn Newsom.

Date Filed

April 17, 2018

Status

Settled

Issue Area

Immigrant Justice

Plaintiffs

Wilhen Hill Barrientos

Defendants

CoreCivic

Co-Counsel

Project South, Perkins Coie LLP and Gwyn Newsom

Barrientos v. CoreCivic

Emma Koe, et al. v. Caylee Noggle, et al.

rudy.isaza_2663 — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 15:18:30 +0000

After Georgia passed a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender adolescents, the Southern Poverty Law Center and its partners filed a federal lawsuit to block the law from taking effect and seek a court order ruling that the law is unconstitutional.

The law, also known as SB 140, strips parents of their rights to make critical decisions about their child’s health care. It also prohibits medical providers from treating gender dysphoria in adolescents with hormone therapy. The plaintiffs asked that the law be blocked to prevent the government from inserting itself into personal health care decisions that should be made by parents in consultation with doctors and based on the needs and best interest of their children.

While several states, including Arkansas, Alabama, Indiana and Florida, have enacted similar bans that have been blocked by federal courts, Georgia’s law is unique in that it bans one aspect of treatment for gender dysphoria – hormone therapy – while allowing the provision of puberty blockers. However, the two treatments often go hand in hand when providing care for gender dysphoria. Puberty blockers are a short-term treatment that functions as a bridge to the next decision point for parents, youth and their doctors. Allowing transgender adolescents the use of puberty blockers while banning them from receiving hormonal care is constructing “a bridge to nowhere” for these youth, according to advocates for the plaintiffs.

The situation creates an impossible choice for parents, who either must flee the state to ensure their child has access to medically necessary care or discontinue puberty blockers and watch their child suffer untreated gender dysphoria for years.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Date Filed

June 29, 2023

Issue Area

��Խ� Rights

Co-Counsel

The ACLU of Georgia, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and O’Melveny & Myers LLP.

Active Case

Emma Koe, et al. v. Caylee Noggle, et al.

Case Number

1:23-cv-02904-SEG

Crowell, et al., v. Cobb County Board of Elections & Registration, et al.

rudy.isaza_2663 — Mon, 07 Nov 2022 22:07:15 +0000

The Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies filed an emergency lawsuit to ensure that nearly 1,000 absentee voters in Cobb County, Georgia, have enough time to cast their votes in the 2022 midterm elections.

The lawsuit, filed less than 48 hours before Election Day, seeks to send ballots overnight to each of the 1,000 who still need their absentee ballots. It also seeks to move the absentee ballot deadline from 7 p.m. on Nov. 8, Election Day, to Nov. 14, the same deadline for absentee voters in the military and overseas.

Under state law, election officials must send absentee ballots within three days of receiving an application, but the Cobb County Board of Elections & Registration failed to send requested ballots to all voters who requested them. State data shows that up to 250 of the affected absentee voters have voted in person, which still leaves about 750 voters in need of the absentee ballots they requested. The board claimed that they would send ballots overnight, but hundreds of voters who need an absentee ballot still have not received one.

Through Cobb County’s “last call” absentee ballot return program, voters can submit ballots in person at seven libraries throughout the county the day before the election. They can also submit absentee ballots at Cobb County’s main elections office in Marietta on Election Day. Absentee voters who did not receive their ballots can also vote in person at their designated precinct on Election Day.

Before the state’s sweeping anti-voter law passed after the 2020 election, voters could request an absentee ballot 180 days before an election and the county could mail out the ballots 49 days before an election. The law slashed those numbers by about half, to 78 and 29 days, respectively. These shortened windows have unnecessarily burdened elections officials and absentee voters.

Date Filed

November 06, 2022

Status

Closed

Issue Area

Voting Rights

Voting Rights - GA

Co-Counsel

The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, American Civil Liberties Union and Dechert LLP

Crowell, et al., v. Cobb County Board of Elections & Registration, et al.

Case Number

22107734

Southern Poverty Law Center - Georgia

Walton County (Georgia) School District discrimination complaints

Date Filed

Court where filed

Issue Area

Related Documents

Walton County (Georgia) School District discrimination complaints

Heimel v. Gregg, et. al

Date Filed

Status

Issue Area

Related Documents

Co-Counsel

Heimel v. Gregg, et. al

Case Number

Quinn v. Raffensperger

Date Filed

Issue Area

Related Documents

Quinn v. Raffensperger

Case Number

Hate Group Urged Georgia Governor to Ban Trans Kids From School Sports

Hate Group Urged Georgia Governor to Ban Trans Kids From School Sports

Coordinated lobbying

Campaign contributions

In Re: Sandersville Railroad Company's Petition for Approval to Acquire Real Estate by Condemnation

Date Filed

Issue Area

Related Documents

In Re: Sandersville Railroad Company's Petition for Approval to Acquire Real Estate by Condemnation

Rinderle, et al., v. Cobb County School District, et al.

Date Filed

Status

Issue Area

Related Documents

Co-Counsel

Rinderle, et al., v. Cobb County School District, et al.

Case Number

Grovner, et al. v. McIntosh County, et al.

Date Filed

Status

Issue Area

Related Documents

Co-Counsel

Grovner, et al. v. McIntosh County, et al.

Case Number

Barrientos v. CoreCivic

Date Filed

Status

Issue Area

Plaintiffs

Defendants

Co-Counsel

Barrientos v. CoreCivic

Emma Koe, et al. v. Caylee Noggle, et al.

Date Filed

Issue Area

Related Documents

Co-Counsel

Emma Koe, et al. v. Caylee Noggle, et al.

Case Number

Crowell, et al., v. Cobb County Board of Elections & Registration, et al.

Date Filed

Status

Issue Area

Related Documents

Co-Counsel

Crowell, et al., v. Cobb County Board of Elections & Registration, et al.

Case Number