CONTACT:
Stacie Burgess, Lawyers’ Committee Director of Communications and External Affairs
202-662-8317 (office); 202-445-6101 (mobile)
sburgess@lawyerscommittee.org
Toi Hines, Georgia State Conference of the NAACP
404-577-8977 (office)
office@naacpga.org
Voters allege that the School Board District Boundaries Violate the Voting Rights Act
Washington, D.C. – The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (Lawyers’ Committee), the law firm Carlton Fields, and Jerry Wilson, Esq., filed a lawsuit yesterday on behalf of the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP and two voters in Emanuel County, Georgia, alleging that the current district boundaries for the Emanuel County School Board violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, alleges that the current map of the districts for the Emanuel County School Board impermissibly dilutes the voting strength of African-American voters in the County by “packing” them into one district. The School Board has seven members, each of whom represents a different, single-member district within the county. Under the district map that went into effect for the School Board in 2012, African Americans of voting age are distributed in such a way as to comprise 81 percent of the voting-age population in one of these seven districts, and a minority in all of the other six. The complaint alleges that the School Board map could, and should, be drawn to include a second district in which African Americans are a majority.
African Americans make up one-third of the county’s voting-age population, and close to half of the students in Emanuel County are African American, yet there has never been more than one African American member on the School Board at one time. The only African American candidates who have ever been elected to the School Board were elected from the single district with a majority of African-American residents, although African-American candidates have run in other districts.
“The Emanuel County School Board plays a vital role in the lives of students, and their families, and, for too long, African-American voters in Emanuel County have been denied the opportunity to have adequate representation on the School Board,” said Ezra Rosenberg, co-director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers’ Committee.
“This is a part of our ongoing post-Shelby election administration monitoring across Georgia,” said Francys Johnson, Statesboro civil rights attorney and Georgia NAACP state president.
“This case is illustrious of the fact that freedom is a constant struggle. In Georgia’s rural town and counties to large cities, there has been a steady chipping away of the gains achieved under the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act and the redistricting process has been a major tool of retrogression. The NAACP will mortgage every asset we have to defend the unfettered access to the ballot. It was paid for with the blood, sweat and tears of our ancestors – it’s sacred.”
To read the full complaint, please click here.
About the Lawyers’ Committee
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (Lawyers’ Committee), a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, was formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to involve the private bar in providing legal services to address racial discrimination. Formed over 50 years ago, we continue our quest of “Moving America Toward Justice.” The principal mission of the Lawyers’ Committee is to secure, through the rule of law, equal justice under law, particularly in the areas of fair housing and community development; employment; voting; education; environmental justice; and criminal justice. For more information about the Lawyers’ Committee, visit www.lawyerscommittee.org.
About the Georgia NAACP
THE GEORGIA NAACP is the State’s oldest and largest civil and human rights organization. With an unbroken presence in urban centers and rural counties, from the mountains to the coast since 1917, the NAACP advances the mission of eliminating racism through public policy advocacy, direct action, and litigation.
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