{"id":229838,"date":"2025-05-08T01:44:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T01:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/alabama\/federal-lawsuit-claims-chambers-county-valley-officials-sought-to-silence-protest\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T01:44:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T01:44:16","slug":"federal-lawsuit-claims-chambers-county-valley-officials-sought-to-silence-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=229838","title":{"rendered":"Federal lawsuit claims Chambers County, Valley officials sought to silence protest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The ACLU of Alabama on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of two women arrested during a Chambers County School Board meeting in 2023, alleging that the board, City of Valley, multiple officials and police officers violated their constitutional rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The lawsuit also claims that the arrests of Yolanda Ratchford and Tytianna Smith were part of a pattern of behavior by school board and Valley officials meant to silence dissent during a tumultuous time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThese women were exercising their most basic constitutional rights\u2014freedom of speech and peaceful protest\u2014and they were punished for it,\u201d said Alison Mollman, Legal Director at the ACLU of Alabama.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The arrests of Ratchford and Smith came during a school board meeting during a period when the Chambers Board was deciding to close high schools in majority-white Valley and majority-Black LaFayette and consolidate into one school, which would be located in Valley. Parents and school employees in LaFayette were unhappy with the placement of the school and believed they were being unfairly displaced.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A video of the meeting at which the arrests took place is available online. It shows Smith entering the meeting shortly after it began and taking a seat on the floor. When an officer asks her to sit in a chair, a brief argument ensues, but ultimately Smith agrees to move to a chair.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">At that point, both she and Ratchford, who is wheelchair bound, take out sheets of paper that have a photocopied image of late-Rep. John Lewis and the words, \u201cBe Hopeful. Be Optimistic. Get in Good Trouble,\u201d written on them. The officer tells them to put their signs away and that there is a rule against having signs in school board meetings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Smith tells the officer that they are not signs, but regular pieces of paper. The officer tells her that she is disturbing the meeting. When Smith asks if they are breaking the law, the officer replies that they are being disorderly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-6\" style=\"margin: 8px auto; text-align: center; display: block; clear: both;\">\n<div class=\"zox-post-ad-wrap\"><span class=\"zox-ad-label\">Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A short time later, with little other discussion or actions, Smith and Ratchford were arrested for disorderly conduct.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They were acquitted of the charges in court in 2024, with the presiding judge stating that if anyone had engaged in disorderly conduct, it was the officer who arrested them, according to the ACLU.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The lawsuit filed Tuesday claims Chambers County and Valley officials violated the plaintiffs\u2019 fourth and fifth amendment rights and participated in an orchestrated effort to silence protest.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThis case isn\u2019t just about two leaders who were wrongfully arrested,\u201d added Mollman. \u201cIt\u2019s about whether public officials can weaponize law enforcement to silence dissent. Our message is clear: not on our watch.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!-- CONTENT END 1 -->\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ACLU of Alabama on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of two women arrested during a Chambers County School Board meeting in 2023, alleging that the board, City of Valley, multiple officials and police officers violated their constitutional rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act.\u00a0 The lawsuit also claims that the arrests of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":229839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11763],"tags":[20188,36984,85675,11693,15275,11558,13236,32700,11417,8045,19568,4751],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-229838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alabama","tag-aclu","tag-chambers","tag-chambers-county","tag-claims","tag-county","tag-federal","tag-lawsuit","tag-officials","tag-protest","tag-silence","tag-sought","tag-valley"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - 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