The Southern Poverty Law Center and other organizations and individuals have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the redistricting of Cobb Board of Education seats.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia in Atlanta, claims that legislators used race as “a predominant factor” in redrawing the seven school board posts, diluting black and Hispanic voting power in Cobb County.
The suit alleges that the board’s four white members “forged ahead with a secretive map-drawing process to maintain their tenuous majority over the Board’s three Black members.”
But the only defendants named are the Cobb Board of Elections and Registration and director Janine Eveler.
Cobb government spokesman Ross Cavitt told East Cobb News that Daniel White, the Cobb Elections attorney, was not aware of the lawsuit.
The suit (you can read it here) is asking the court to declare that the redrawn posts 2, 3, and 6 violate the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution and to order an interim redistricting plan for those three seats.
Late last year, the board’s Republican majority approved maps that were later introduced by Cobb Republican lawmakers and that were passed by a GOP-majority Georgia legislature in February.
Those new lines pushed three seats entirely into the South Cobb area, including Post 6, which currently includes the Walton and Wheeler attendance zones.
The new lines, which go into effect in January, cut out the East Cobb area of that post, which solely includes the Smyrna-Vinings-Cumberland area.
Post 2 and Post 4 also are in the South Cobb area, and along with Post 6 have are represented by three black Democrats.
One of them is Charisse Davis, who was elected in 2018 to serve Post 6. She is not seeking re-election this year.
Nor did Jaha Howard of Post 2, who ran in the Democratic primary for Georgia school superintendent last month.
The new maps split East Cobb into two districts: Post 4, held by two-term Republican chairman David Chastain and that includes the Kell, Lassiter and Sprayberry clusters; and Post 5, held by Republican vice chairman David Banks, which comprises the Pope, Walton and Wheeler clusters.
Chastain is up for re-election this year and in November will face Democrat Catherine Pozniak.
“Ultimately, the Board and General Assembly enacted a redistricting plan that whitewashed the northern, eastern, and western districts by packing Black and Latinx voters into the Challenged Districts, as a last-ditch effort to limit the power of their emerging political coalition,” read the lawsuit.
“The Plan is a product of the Board’s pattern and practice over the last several years to impose policies that disproportionately and negatively impact students of color and their families.”
The lawsuit also catalogues a number of conflicts on the Cobb school board along racial lines over the last three years, and concerns from black legislators about the redistricting proposals that they may violate the federal Voting Rights Act.
“As shown in the maps [above] which reflect Black and Latinx voting age population figures by voting district utilizing 2020 census data, the majority of Cobb County’s Black and Latinx communities live in the southern half of the County, while most of the County’s white population lives in the north,” according to the lawsuit.
Other plaintiffs include the Galeo Latino Community Development Fund, the New Georgia Project Fund, the League of Women Voters of Marietta-Cobb and some Cobb school parents in those three posts.
Other legal groups involved in filing the suit include the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, the ACLU Foundation of Georgia and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law.
This story will be updated.
Related posts:
- National Merit Scholarship winners include Pope, Sprayberry students
- Rocky Mount, Tritt students receive Kiwanis ‘Silver Pen’ awards
- Inspiring Cobb seniors include Lassiter, Walton, Wheeler students
- Cobb schools announced 2022 valedictorians and salutatorians
- Cobb school board approves FY 2023 budget, Wheeler renovations
- Preliminary work underway for new Walton sports complex
- 4 East Cobb students earn $2.5K National Merit Scholarships
- U.S. News ranks 6 East Cobb High schools among nation’s best
- 13 Wheeler HS students win scholarships in AVID program
- Kell HS senior earns $30K ‘For Atlanta’ scholarship
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