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| Excerpts from the August 11, 2000 Legal Brief
Claiming the May 25, 2000 Transfer of the Plaintiffs
Was Illegal and Should Be Immediately Voided
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Background
On May 24, 2000, the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library's Board of Trustees approved the involuntary transfers of approximately two dozen Central Library employees to undefined new assignments at various branch facilities. After joining a group of library employees who then filed a grievance with the county government, nine Central Library managers or subject specialists who had been transferred also filed a federal lawsuit (U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, Civil Action No. 100-CV-2071) on August 11, 2000. The lawsuit claimed that the Library Board of Trustees and the Library Director violated their constitutional rights in that the Board and Library Director planned and implemented the May 24th transfers.
The plaintiffs' case was summarized in the legal brief submitted to the court asking for an immediate ruling that would void the plaintiffs' May transfers until the trial could be conducted on the plaintiffs' claims. Excerpts of the plaintiffs' lawyers' brief are published here at AFPLWATCH.com for the information of interested library users, library staff, and the professional library community.
On August 30, 2000,the court heard arguments based on the brief.
Excerpts from the Text of the Legal Brief
...There is overwhelming, direct evidence that the [Atlanta-Fulton Public Library] Board and [Library Director Mary Kaye] Hooker's [May 2000] reassignment plan was based solely, and impermissibly, upon racial and gender criteria. The purpose of the reassignment plan was to reduce the number of white female managers and maximize the number of African-American managers and supervisors at the Central Library in order to achieve racial "equity" at that location.
Hooker and the Board, particularly Board Chairman William McClure ("McClure") and Board member Mary Jamerson Ward ("Ward"), believed that too many white females were in supervisory and managerial positions at the Central Library.
Accordingly, Hooker and the Board initiated a plan to remove the white females from their supervisory and managerial positions at the Central Library and to replace them with African-Americans and men. This plan was formed after Hooker and Ward commissioned reports profiling the race and gender of every supervisor and manager within the Atlanta-Fulton County Library Systems. These reports focused on the Central Library.
On December 30, 1999, Hooker wrote Bob Brandeis, Fulton County Personnel Director, that "I have been directed to provide a system-wide listing of all Afro-American Children's librarians, all Afro-American Library Managers and Administrators. I am also to provide the same information on all Afro-American Managers at Central Library."...
Ward went even further. At a...Board meeting, Ward claimed that "there [were] too many white faces in management at the Central Library" (see July 22, 2000 Letter from Former [Library] Board Member Nancy H. Puckett...). In an attempt to justify her statement, Ward directed the [library] staff to compile a list of the management personnel at the Central Library by race and gender....
On January 4, 2000 a document entitled "Branch and Unit Management by Race" was published....At the [January 6 Board] meeting [according to the Board's minutes], Ward raised her concern...that "the Central Library...has in it a white dominated administration."...McClure "agreed with Ms. Ward and stated this [was an] issue" that the Board must address....McClure further "stated Mrs. Ward's point is well taken and asked that the Personnel Committee put the issue of the Central Library high on their agenda."
Thereafter, the Board and Hooker created a plan that would reassign white female personnel, including Plaintiffs, away from the Central Library. This was done so that more African-Americans and males would be placed in upper-level positions at the Central Library. The Board and Hooker fully understood the illegality of their plan....
Hooker realized the potential problems with the reassignment plan in an April 13, 2000 "urgent" memorandum to McClure...:
"As we discussed, I advised Fulton County Personnel Department of the proposed re-organization. Because the potential for significant problems was identified by Personnel, I recommend that the Personnel Committee [of the] Board of Trustees refrain from advancing the re-organization until each transfer and re-assignment is reviewed and evaluated."
No such review or evaluation was ever conducted prior to the reorganization....
Hooker's concern of what these "significant problems" were was made clear when [also on April 13] she forwarded [to] the Board a series of articles concerning "reverse discrimination."...
On April 17, 2000, Fulton County attorney June D. Green placed Hooker and the Board on notice that their reassignment plan was potentially illegal....[Green's] letter stated:
"This will memorialize our telephone conversation of April 14, 2000. In that conversation you advised me that you had spoken to Bob Brandes of the Fulton County Personnel Department, and he advised you that the reorganization that has been proposed by the Library Board of Trustees will likely violate Fulton County Personnel Policies and Procedures. You specificially mentioned race, age, and gender discrimination and unfair demotion. Although you asked for legal guidance, I advised you that it would be hard to give legal advice in a vacuum and that you should put your concerns in writing and attach a copy of the proposed reorganization."
...McClure remained undaunted. On April 17, 2000, McClure wrote Hooker the following:
"After reviewing your memorandum of April 13, 2000, which recommended not advancing the plans for reorganization, I am requesting that you proceed with the development of the comprehensive reorganization plan, in accordance with the timeline you established of April 2000. Your memo clearly establishes that we are not currently able to determine if a "potential for significant problems" exist, since you have not defined the new duties and responsibilities for any potential person to be reassigned." (See April 17, 2000 Letter from McClure to Hooker....)
...On May 22, 2000, only three days before the announced reassignments, Green again "strongly advised" Hooker and McClure that in light of the potential illegality of the reassignments to (1) make sure that the reassignments did not constitute demotions, (2) make sure that no Personnel rules and regulations were violated, and (3) "review these personnel transactions with the Fulton County Personnel Director prior to making any personnel change" prior to implementing the reassignment plan. (See May 22, 2000 Letter from Green to Hooker....) The Board and Hooker disregarded Green's advice. Instead,
Hooker bowed to McClure's request and proceeded with the reassignments....These reassignments constituted demotions to positions outside Plaintiffs' job classifications....Plaintiffs were reassigned in violation of articulated Atlanta-Fulton County Public Library procedures and in violation of Fulton County policies and procedures. They were reassigned based solely upon their race and gender. [Footnote in the brief: ...The documentary evidence...unequivocally shows racial discrimination. However, it is clear, based upon the persons who assumed [the] Plantiffs' responsibilities once they were reassigned, [upon] the "gender" classifications of the January 4, 2000 ["Breakdown by Race and Gender] memorandum, and [upon] statements of McClure and others, that [the] Plaintiffs were discriminated against because of their gender as well. For example, McClure, while [visiting] the Central Library [on one occasion], stated that he needed to "get rid of all the old, white women" that were working there.] Seven of the eight [later, eight of the nine] Plaintiffs, white women, were reassigned simply so that African-Americans and men could take their positions....[The other Plaintiff, an African-American librarian] was reassigned solely because...[in 1998 as President of the Library Staff Association] she [had] organized an effort to remove the Board.
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...The law on the issues of "reverse discrimination" and "affirmative action" by State and local governments has garnered substantial attention from the Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit and Georgia District Courts in recent years....These courts have uniformly struck down raced-based "affirmative action" programs promulgated by state and local governments. These courts have found that such programs act to deprive citizens, such as [these] Plaintiffs, of their equal protection rights. In the past year alone, the Southern District of Georgia struck down the University of Georgia's affirmative action admittance program that gave preference to males and minorities, as is alleged in this case, over white females....This Court [the U.S. Federal District Court for the Northern District of Georgia] has recently struck down Fulton County's unconstitutional affirmative action program that gave preference to minority and female contractors in securing Fulton County contracts....[The Library Board's and the Library Director's] program of reassigning white females simply to increase the numbers of African-Americans and males working at the Central Library is...patently unconstitutional.
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Plaintiffs' actions were explicitly motivated to remove "old white women" from the Central Library. This type of blatant discrimination violates Plaintiffs' equal protection rights.
Based on the facts set forth above, and based upon the overwhelming caselaw in support of Plaintiffs' position, Plaintiffs have a strong likelihood of succeeding on the merits of this case....
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Respectfully submitted this 11th day of August, 2000 [by] Michael J. Bowers, Kelly Jean Beard, and Christopher S. Anulewicz [for the firm of] Meadows, Icter & Trigg....Atlanta, Georgia...Attorneys for the Plaintiffs.
Results of the Preliminary Injunction Hearing
Stating that the plaintiffs are likely to prevail when they present their evidence at
their trial, the judge decided that the Plaintiffs' had not convinced her beyond any doubt
that they would be irreparably harmed if the judge did not order an injunction before the
trial could be conducted. The judge then denied the plaintiff's request for a preliminary
injunction and scheduled the trial for December 11, 2000. Shortly before the trial was scheduled
to take place, the defendants asked the judge to dismiss the case, claiming (among other things)
that the Library Board cannot be sued. The judge, in a December 1, 2000 ruling, denied that claim
but postponed the trial so the defendants could appeal her decision. The appeal was subsequently
denied by the Appeals Court, and the trial was scheduled for December 2001, then rescheduled for January 2002.
Information about the results of the trial and any
subsequent rulings and appeals will be posted to AFPLWATCH.com's Home Page.
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