Federal Appeals Court Revives Former Cordele Manager’s Anti-Discrimination Suit Against the City

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.

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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.

It also alleges on Facebook Live, Deriso promised to make all department heads Black, replacing White predecessors if necessary.

Deriso was elected chairman of the commission in Nov. 2021.

In December, before Deriso took the oath of office, the outgoing commissioners voted to renew McCarthy’s employment as City Manager for another year.

McCarthy’s renewed contract stated, that if he was fired during his term, he would “be entitled to all compensation including salary, accrued vacation, and sick leave” through the end of 2022.

On January 4, 2022, after new commissioners were sworn in, McCarthy was fired as city manager and replaced by Angela Henderson Redding—a Black woman.

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The three who voted to oust McCarthy are Black. The one commissioner who voted to keep McCarthy is White.

Deriso and Commissioner Royce Reeves, one of the Black commissioners who voted to fire McCarthy, told McCarthy before the vote “they were replacing him with an African American candidate.”

McCarthy asked Deriso and Reeves whether he could at least return to his former position as City Finance Director. Deriso and Reeves told McCarthy “that would not be possible” because he does not “look like them,” according to a court document.

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