ACLU files federal lawsuit against Chambers County Board of Education
The Chambers County Courthouse as seen on Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023 in Lafayette, Ala. ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against the Chambers County Board of Education on behalf of two teachers who were wrongfully arrested in 2023.(Stew Milne for Alabama Reflector)
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Alabama filed a federal lawsuit in May against the Chambers County Board of Education on behalf of two teachers who were wrongfully arrested in 2023.
According to the lawsuit, Yolanda Ratchford and Tytianna Smith held letter-size papers at a Chambers County Board of Education meeting picturing John Lewis reading 'Good Trouble.'
'Silently holding pieces of paper is not a crime. What happened to Ms. Ratchford and Ms. Smith is a clear and shocking abuse of power,' said Alison Mollman, legal director at the ACLU of Alabama. 'These women were exercising their most basic constitutional rights—freedom of speech and peaceful protest—and they were punished for it.'
According to a May press release, the complaint includes claims under the First and Fourth Amendments, the Americans with Disabilities Act and Alabama common law.
The litigation, filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, is to get Ratchford and Smith compensated for the harm they endured while in police custody. She said Ratchford is wheelchair bound and was not given access to a toilet while in police custody. A judge ruled the two teachers were not guilty of disorderly conduct.
Messages seeking comment from Chambers County Board of Education and the Valley Police Department were left Tuesday.
As of Tuesday, the defendants have not responded to the lawsuit through the court.
According to a press release, the silent protest was part of ongoing community opposition to the school board's plan to consolidate the county's two public high schools into a new facility located in Valley, a predominantly white city, which would displace Black students and educators from LaFayette.
Mollman said the merging of the two schools would cause issues with commuting for Black students that live in spread out county and they would get a different education in the city.
'When you're going a few miles down county roads, it's much different than going down I 65 or 85 you know, at 80 miles an hour. And so that's part of the issue,' Mollman said in an interview in May.
The merging of the two schools, Mollman said, would put the Black students at a disadvantage because they would no longer be with their teachers.
'Many of those teachers were black, and so it's not just the bussing times. It's also where those students are going to be placed, who they're going to be taught by, and how that's going to be different, how they're going to be differently situated than from their white peers.'
'A judge determined that they were not guilty of those offenses, and made comments to the effect that if anyone was disorderly in the incident, it was law enforcement,' she said.
For the past 50 years, the Chambers County School District has been under a federal desegregation order. A federal judge ruled that both Valley and Lafayette high schools must be combined into one Chambers County High School. A new consolidated high school is set to be built this year, according to WTVM.
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Jim Banks (R-Ind.), David Petraeus, Mike Gallagher, Rolf Dobelli, Corinna Hoyer, Ralph Büchi, Anne Neuberger, Julius Genachowski, Paul Nakasone, Heather Podesta, Juleanna Glover, Alan Fleischmann and Dafna Tapiero, Dmitri Alperovitch, Bruce Andrews, Anne Brady Perron, Sheel Tyle, Mark Vlasic, Jonathan Silver, Tomicah Tillemann, Raj Kumar, Ed Luce, Gary Knell, Afsaneh Beschloss, David Bohigian, Doug Rediker and Heidi Crebo-Rediker, Peter Cherukuri, David Feith and Amy Dacey. — SPOTTED last night at Elephant and Castle at Article III Project's 'Bold and Fearless Judges' event hosted by Mike Davis, who did a hit on Fox News in the middle of the event, and Otto Heck: Todd Blanche, David Warrington, Harmeet Dhillon, Andrew Ferguson, Emil Bove, Michael Thielen, Mia Heck, Ryan Giles, Lanny Davis, Gene Hamilton, Gary Lawkowski, Mark Paoletta, Steve Kenny, Gineen Bresso, Bill McGinley, Tom DeMatteo, Stanley Woodward, Patrick Davis, Lee Holmes, Kat Nikas, Aakash Singh, Sam Adkisson, Gates McGavick, Chad Gilmartin, Don McGahn, Terry and Katie Schilling, Bill and Katie Lane, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves and Ted Groves, Arthur Schwartz, Jessie Jane Duff, Derek and Liz Lyons, Derrick Anderson, Megan Owen, Alida Kass, Graziella Pastor, Stuart McCommas, Brendan Chestnut, Dan Burrows, Kenny Cunningham, Jeff Clark, Lee Holmes, John Bachman, Mike Carter and Alex Swoyer. — SPOTTED at the Picnic Theatre Company's performance of 'Heaven Can Wait' at Tudor Place last night: Steve Rochlin, Christina Sevilla, Sara Cook, Bruce Kieloch, David White, Kimball Stroud, Michael Isikoff, Mary Ann Akers, David Corn, Amy Argetsinger, Indira Lakshmanan, Raquel Krahenbuhl, Riikka Hietajarvi, Nancy Bagley, Soroush Shehabi, Erica Payne, Gene Haigh, Julia Cohen, Neil Barrett, Puru Trivedi, Nova Daly, Kevin Rooney, Antonio Olivo, Amirah Sequeira, Chris Fowler, Alexa Newlin, Jennifer Grinspoon, Daniela McInerne, Dan Burrows and Hugo Verges. TRANSITION — Damian Williams is joining Jenner & Block as partner. He previously was at Paul Weiss and is a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. More from WaPo HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M) … former VP Mike Pence … Wendy Sherman … Bloomberg's Catherine Lucey … Netflix's Adonna Biel … SKDK's Stephanie Reichin ... Myra Adams … Christina Animashaun … FGS Global's Lars Anderson … Covington & Burling's Dan Erikson … former Reps. Alex Mooney ( and Susan Wild (D-Pa.) … Paul Kelly of the Livingston Group … retired Coast Guard Vice Adm. Brian Peterman … Jerry White … Nathasha Lim Symanski … Chrissy Barry of the House Homeland Security counterterrorism subcommittee … Microsoft's Kaitlin Kirshner Haskins … Jessie D'Angelo … Haley Dorgan … Elizabeth Thorp … Chris Ortman … Javier de Diego … KHQ's Bradley Warren … Dave Abrams THE SHOWS (Full Sunday show listings here): POLITICO 'The Conversation with Dasha Burns': Rahm Emanuel. ABC 'This Week': Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy … House Speaker Mike Johnson. Panel: Chris Christie, Donna Brazile and Reince Priebus Fox News 'Sunday Morning Futures': Interior Secretary Doug Burgum … Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) … Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) … Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). CNN 'State of the Union': Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) … Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) … Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.). Panel: Bakari Sellers, Xochitl Hinojosa, Kristen Soltis Anderson and Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.). MSNBC 'The Weekend: Primetime': Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) … New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani … South Carolina State Rep. Keishan Scott. NBC 'Meet the Press': Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) … Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) … Olivia Munn. Panel: Leigh Ann Caldwell, Sara Fagen, Symone Sanders Townsend and Melanie Zanona. CBS 'Face the Nation': Kevin Hassett … Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) … Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texa) … Janti Soeripto … Anthony Salvanto. NewsNation 'The Hill Sunday,' guest-anchored by Blake Burman: Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) … Rep. Sarah Elfreth (D-Md.) … Neil Bradley. Panel: Kellie Meyer, Tyler Pager, Jason Willick and John Tamny. FOX 'Fox News Sunday': Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) … Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas). Panel: Mary Katharine Ham, Josh Kraushaar, Marc Thiessen and Juan Williams. CNN 'Inside Politics Sunday': Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.). Panel: Astead Herndon, Olivia Beavers and Jeff Mason. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@ or text us on Signal here. Playbook couldn't happen without our editor Zack Stanton, deputy editor Garrett Ross and Playbook Podcast producer Callan Tansill-Suddath.
