A federal appeals court says evidence supports a former Cordele city manager's claim that he was fired two years ago because he's white.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals this week rejected a lower court that threw out Roland McCarthy's discrimination lawsuit against the city. They sent the case back to the Albany federal court for another look.
But the appeals court also said McCarthy can't sue city commission chairman Joshua Deriso as an individual.
The 11th-circuit ruling calls the case "a complaint about racial politics in a small town."
The question, judges wrote, is whether the facts support McCarthy's argument that he was fired by a majority-black commission because he's white.
"The lower court said no and dismissed his complaint," the ruling says. "We disagree."
Roland McCarthy served as Finance Director for the City of Cordele from 2017-2021, until the City Commission “unanimously promoted McCarthy” as City Manager.
Seven months into McCarthy's new role, Joshua Deriso began his campaign for chairman of the city commission.
McCarthy's appeal document says during his campaign Deriso made several remarks about his goals to make the City Commission, “an entirely African American Commission” and to “replace Caucasian employees with African Americans.”
On Facebook, he wrote that if elected he planned to replace McCarthy as City Manager with a person of color, preferably a woman, the appeal alleges.
Other posts from Deriso included statements such as, (the) “new City Manager should be Black,” and “Cordele’s heads of Departments are not diverse at all! Structure needs to change . . . More Blacks!!!” the document said.
