Court hears suspended DeKalb school member’s challenge
Georgia’s highest court on Monday considered the constitutionality of a law used by Gov. Nathan Deal to suspend six members of the DeKalb County school board.
Tom Cox, a lawyer representing suspended board member Eugene Walker, said the 2010 law should be struck down on several grounds.
“It violates the local control of an elected school board,” Cox said. It also allows the suspension and removal of a school board member without the member “ever having been charged with wrongdoing, much less proven to have committed wrongdoing.”
But Stefan Ritter, a state attorney representing Deal and the state Board of Education, told the court’s justices that the General Assembly has enormous power. Unless the statute is arbitrary or has no rational basis, it must stand, he said.
“The statute is about protecting the schools and the children in those schools,” Ritter said.
The court must issue its decision by the end of November.
Walker filed a federal lawsuit against Deal and the Board of Education after the governor issued an executed order on Feb. 25 suspending the six DeKalb school board members.
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Richard Story, who determined the Georgia Supreme Court had not yet addressed the constitutional challenges raised by Walker. For this reason, Story asked the state Supreme Court to answer two questions before he made a final determination in Walker’s case:
- Does the statute violate the state constitution's doctrine that each school system shall be under the control of a local board of education whose members are elected?
- Does the potential removal of school board members under the statute exceed the Legislature's authority to enact general laws regarding local boards of education?
About the Author
Bill Rankin has been an AJC reporter for more than 30 years. His father, Jim Rankin, worked as an editor for the newspaper for 26 years, retiring in 1986. Bill has primarily covered the state’s court system, doing all he can do to keep the scales of justice on an even keel. Since 2015, he has been the host of the newspaper’s Breakdown podcast.
