Yet Another Example of Why Lawful DEI Is So Desperately Needed In A Recent Race Discrimination Case We Just Prevailed On In the Eleventh Circuit

In yet another example of why lawful DEI is still desperately needed, in one of our law firm’s many race discrimination cases in south Georgia, the Eleventh Circuit just released this week a decision in favor of Dr. Sherilonda Green, our client who brought race discrimination and retaliation claims against her employer the Charlton County School Board. https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/unpub/files/202413462.pdf

The cover photo above includes our firms’ Of Counsel, Muna Hasan and Esther Graff Radford who originally tried the case with Julie Oinonen years ago down in south Georgia and Chanel Patrick who also assisted in race discrimination cases that have gone before the Eleventh Circuit.

Dr. Green’s litigation originally started as an Open Records Act case we tried several years ago where Julie Oinonen crossed examined the Chairman of the Board of Education for Charlton County Schools getting him to admit that the reason they had never had a Black superintendent (or principal) in over 100 years despite being a 1/3 Black demographic was because that is just the way they’ve always done things. Another Board member testified that he wasn’t even aware of anti-discrimination laws existing. When the very brave and Honorable Chief Judge (who oversaw this bench trial til 10 p.m. that night) https://www.goodgeorgialawyers.com/dr-sherilonda-green-wins-trial-showing-district-violated-open-records-act-in-order-to-hide-evidence-of-race-discrimination/issued an Order allowing us to computer forensically examine all of the Board members personal cell phones finding that the evidence had shown they had engaged in a long history of systematic race discrimination against African Americans, the District would later bring a motion to dismiss on grounds of res judicata in the Southern District of Georgia which was granted and then overturned this week by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals this week.

But here is an every day example of why lawful DEI is needed. https://gae.org/judge-finds-charlton-county-school-system-guilty-willful-contempt-awards-gae-attorney-fees There are school systems that have not hired Black Superintendents or Principals in over hundred years of their entire existence. If this school system was located in lily white Utah they might have an excuse. But there is no excuse when the school district is in a 1/3 Black demographic and an ample amount of highly qualified, highly educated Black educators exist–yet none who can get so much as a job interview. Race discrimination exists in 2026 more than ever for Black women who are being pushed out of the job force due to the racist policies of the current administration. https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2025/08/04/no-friends-in-the-pipeline-why-300000-black-women-were-pushed-out-of-the-workforce/

Worse, when Black women bring race discrimination cases in the Southern District of Georgia, oftentimes—many times the statistics show up to 99 percent of the time–their case gets thrown out on a summary judgment. Even in this case, where her hometown Chief Judge had found actual evidence of systemic race discrimination as to why these powerful Board members were withholding the Open Records, she was still damned if she did or didn’t have such evidence in federal court. Again, why DEI is not only important in the workplace and in academia–but in the judiciary. Implicit bias exists. We need diverse judges. We need diverse workplaces. We need diverse legislatures. We need diverse law schools. All that is put at risk when institutions capitulate to authoritarianism and rollback DEI efforts.

The only way to combat unlawful race discrimination in areas such as south Georgia and beyond is through lawful DEI. This means insuring that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is enforced which prohibits race discrimination and retaliation in the workplace. These laws protect all of us–white, Black, Asian, etc. Regardless of race, these laws protect all of us from our employers unlawfully discriminating against us due to our age, religion, race, disability, gender. Even older white men will be likely discriminated at least once in their lives–we have represented quite a few in age discrimination cases.

The point is: lawful DEI protects us all. It insures employers follow the employment discrimination laws that protect us all.

Now we have written on the topic of DEI before here if you are interested in reading more on the topic concerning a call to action for lawyers: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/call-action-lawyers-defense-rule-law-dei-our-julie-oinonen-syhbe/?trackingId=Xha2Q9NlQImRm2GpK%2BUzTg%3D%3D

In the book “On Tyranny” by Timothy Snyder (renowned American historian, professor, and foremost expert on the rise of authoritarianism) explains that Rule One is Anticipatory Obedience: “Do not obey in advance”. This principle warns that most authoritarian power is voluntarily granted, when individuals and entities anticipate what a repressive government wants and adapt, teaching power what it can do. It advises resisting the urge to conform when academic freedoms and constitutional rights are threatened. Snyder draws on the Nazi rise to power to show how democracy and the rule of law is under attack, which often begins against the academics, the journalists, the law firms, the immigrants, and persons of color.

Lily Zheng writes how so many universities capitulated by rolling back lawful DEI programs stating: “Following the Dear Colleague letter [which the Trump Administration just dropped their appeal to defend], 437 campuses in 48 states and the District of Columbia complied IN ADVANCE by eliminating roles and entire offices, scrapping interventions to improve fairness in hiring, retention, and promotion, and quietly shuttering or defunding community centers; nearly all were legally defensible then and legally defensible now.”

As an alumni board member, Julie Oinonen is proud that her beloved alma mater, Emory University School of Law has a Center for Civil Rights and Social Justice that is called to channel the energy of late civil rights icon and Atlanta long-standing Congressman John Lewis 14H, honoring his legacy through work that keeps his spirit alive. Justice President Leah Ward Sears has a tremendous legacy in Georgia. As President of Emory University we urge her to work to reinstate lawful DEI programs that honor the legacy of our beloved Congressman Lewis and all the others that have bravely trod have come before us. Emory University, particularly with our 11 billion dollar endowment, located in Atlanta, the birthplace of civil rights, has a moral imperative to lead on this issue rather than to capitulate. It is time to reinstate lawful DEI. It is time to exhibit the moral courage this time in history now requires and that our students need as a beacon and guide.

Several years ago Judge Herbert Phipps gave an important talk https://lnkd.in/ediY7J6t where he spoke of the most important trait of a lawyer which is to be courageous and why it is especially important for lawyers to speak up and be courageous now, even if it meant sacrificing popularity or profit. Judge Phipps opined that judges do not have the right to remain silent, as their clients do. To every brave leader who has shaped the arc of the moral universe, we need Justice President Leah Ward Sears for such a time as this, to help us fix this, to reverse the rollback of DEI—to rebuild and reaffirm Emory University’s values of diversity, equity and inclusion. https://lnkd.in/efEzA4ft