The East Ramapo Central School District in New York must pay more than $5 million in attorneys’ fees, expert witness fees, and costs to a local branch of the NAACP and four voters who successfully sued it for diluting Black and Latino residents’ votes, a federal court in New York ruled.
The fee decision by Judge Cathy Seibel of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, docketed Wednesday, comes after an appellate ruling Jan. 6 affirming the win for the Spring Valley Branch of the NAACP and the voters. The district’s at-large election system kept minority-preferred candidates out of office in violation of the Voting Rights Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said.