Groups say they’ll sue Georgia over ‘divisive concepts’ ban

ATLANTA — Education and civil rights groups said Friday that they will sue to overturn Georgia’s law banning the teaching of certain racial concepts, claiming it violates First Amendment rights to free expression and 14th Amendment rights to equal protection. The Southern Poverty Law Center, the National Education Association and the Georgia Association of Educators sent a notice to Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr notifying Carr of their intent to sue in federal court. “Like many educators in Georgia, I can’t figure out what I can or can’t teach under the law, and my school district’s administrators don’t seem to understand the law’s prohibitions either.” Other Georgia laws pushed through this year in a flurry of conservative election-year activity included allowing the state athletic association to ban transgender girls from playing high school sports, codifying parental rights, forcing school systems to respond to parental challenges of books and increasing tax credits for private school scholarships. “Efforts to expand our multicultural democracy through public education are being met with frantic efforts in Georgia to censor educators, ban books, and desperate measures to suppress teaching the truth about slavery and systemic racism,” Georgia Association of Educators General Counsel Mike McGonigle said in a statement.