The U.S. Department of Justice plans to sue Georgia after failing to come to an agreement over a state-run school network for students with behavior disabilities, .
A year ago, the Justice Department notified the state that the Georgia Network for Therapeutic and Educational Support, or GNETS, was illegally segregating students with disabilities and providing them an inferior education. Georgia did eventually shut down nine dilapidated buildings, the newspaper reported, but after eight months of negotiations, the state and federal officials weren鈥檛 able to agree on whether the system itself was a segregated placement.
Vanita Gupta, the head of the Justice Department鈥檚 civil rights division, that 鈥渨e have determined that we must pursue the United States鈥� claims in federal court to vindicate the rights of thousands of affected students with behavior-related disabilities across Georgia.鈥�
GNETS is the only statewide network of 鈥減sychoeducational鈥� schools for children with behavioral and emotional disabilities. In a published in May, the Journal-Constitution found that black students are assigned at 鈥渧astly disproportionate rates鈥� to the network. GNETS schools also use restraint and seclusion far more often than the state鈥檚 other schools鈥攖he newspaper found more than 10,000 incidents of restraint since 2014.