Cobb Schools hires firm to defend map

Jan. 20—The Cobb County School District has hired Cumberland-based Freeman Mathis & Gary to represent the district in an ongoing federal lawsuit over its school board district map passed by the General Assembly last year.

The lawsuit was first filed in the Northern District of Georgia in June by a coalition of civil rights and left-leaning groups, alongside several Cobb parents, alleging the map disenfranchised voters of color.

The map redrawing the boundaries of the seven-member board was supported by its Republicans, who hold a 4-3 majority.

Echoing arguments made by Democratic lawmakers while the map was fiercely debated at the Capitol, the lawsuit accused the maps of "intentionally discriminating against communities of color, particularly Black and Latinx voters, by 'packing' them into a small number of districts to dilute their voting power."

The filers of the lawsuit asked the court to declare Districts 2, 3 and 6 — held by the board's three Democrats — unconstitutional and direct the state to come up with a new map.

"Cobb County has rapidly grown more diverse over the last decade," Rahul Garabadu, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, said at the time. "But instead of celebrating this diversity, the Cobb County School Board has weaponized race to draw a map that purposely diminishes the voices of Black and Latinx voters. Our clients are taking Cobb County to court to fight for maps that represent the interests of all children."

The legal challenge of the maps was made on behalf of several groups, including the League of Women Voters of Marietta-Cobb, the New Georgia Project Action Fund and the Georgia NAACP, along with several Cobb parents, according to the initial filing.

The plaintiffs are represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and the law firm Schulte, Roth & Zabel LLP.

The allegations of racial discrimination have been forcefully rejected by both Republican school board members and state Rep. Ginny Ehrhart, R-west Cobb, who carried the map in the General Assembly.

At the time of the lawsuit's filing, Ehrhart told the MDJ the map complies with the Constitution and Voting Rights Act and ensures "local control, equal representation, and the stability of the district as a whole."

The Cobb Board of Elections was initially named as the defendant in the case. But the elections board has usually presented itself as a neutral party in such lawsuits.

Last month, the school district asked to be added to the case in order to defend itself against the allegations of the lawsuit.

Ben Mathis, managing partner at Freeman Mathis & Gary, said the filers' attempt to sue the Board of Elections was "an obvious backdoor tactic, that they seemingly wanted to reach a result before the school district had any opportunity to defend what had happened.

"They are being sued and accused of racial discrimination, and it's not true. The organizations behind this are partisan, and we believe there's nothing but a partisan motive. They know there's no evidence of any racial discrimination," Mathis said. "...This is not a claim that you normally see, where they're saying there's some technical deficiency in the Voting Rights Act. ... This is just a crass use of the discrimination statute for a partisan purpose.

"The people on the school board have taken so much abuse the last few years, and you can see that in false allegations repeated in the complaint. And it's a privilege to be able to defend them," he added.

Republican Cobb school board member Randy Scamihorn, who was chair of the board when it voted on the maps, told the MDJ the district hired outside counsel "to make sure that the attorneys were well-qualified in that particular area."

Mathis said in his experience, it's common practice for governmental bodies to retain outside counsel in the case of large civil rights litigation.

District spokesperson Nan Kiel referred questions about the contract with Freeman Mathis & Gary to the district's open records officer, and the MDJ has filed a request for the terms and cost of the firm's legal services.

Federal Judge Eleanor Ross, meanwhile, has ordered an eight-month period for discovery in the case beginning Jan. 5 and ending Sept. 5.

Mathis said the implications of the case may be "far-reaching."

"They want to redraw the lines ... it would affect governance of the school district, it could call into question the validity of a lot of things the district does. It's a tremendous distraction," he said.