A gay former development director for the city of College Park filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the city and three council members he claims fired him because he is white.

Christopher Jones, whose contract with College Park was not renewed in April 2004, has said his sexual orientation also played a role in his termination. But Jones said he and his lawyers decided not to pursue a sexual orientation lawsuit because they “just wanted to get the case filed” some 15 months after Jones was terminated.

“I’m happy that resolution will be coming and that the record will be set straight, not only for me, but also for the citizens of College Park who have supported me,” Jones said.

According to the lawsuit, filed July 8 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Jones’s termination “was part of a policy and practice to replace white municipal department heads with African-Americans and to hire only African-Americans or non-white employees for available positions.”

In addition to the city of College Park, the suit names council members Tracey Wyatt, Charles Phillips and Cynthia Jones as defendants. The three are African Americans. Jones asks for back pay and unspecified monetary damages in the suit.

College Park officials declined to comment on the lawsuit.

“This is a personnel matter that is pending litigation, and with that being the case the city does not have a comment at this time,” said Zenzi Whitsett, public information officer for College Park.

On April 19, 2004, Wyatt, Phillips and Jones voted against renewing Jones’s contract as development director, despite praise from those who credited Jones with turning around College Park’s dilapidated Main Street and other successful developments in the city. College Park is south of Atlanta near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Council member Rusty Slider, who is white, voted against Jones’s firing. College Park Mayor Jack Longino, who is white and a Jones supporter, told Southern Voice in April 2004 that Jones’ work for College Park deserved “an A+.”

But Wyatt was elected in November 2003 amid complaints that as development on Main Street boomed, the city lacked affordable housing options for many of its nearly 20,000 residents, 65 percent of whom are black.

The lawsuit alleges that Wyatt told Jones he was “not the right representative for the City of College Park” because he was white and the city has a majority African-American population.

“This new council member [Wyatt] throughout his campaign said he wanted to change the direction of development in the city,” Jones said shortly after being fired in April 2004. “He felt a white male could not represent a city that was 80 percent black.

“And he had a very strong religious conviction against gays that was very clear,” Jones said then.

Jones filed his lawsuit against College Park after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission notified him April 11 that he could proceed with his racial discrimination complaint.

There is neither a state nor a federal law that prohibits employees from being fired because they are gay. But since Jones was a government employee, he could have filed a lawsuit protesting his sexual orientation being used to punish him, said Greg Nevins, a senior staff attorney in the Atlanta office of Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, a gay legal group.

“Public employees have made many successful claims that their firing violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution, and lots of courts have held that’s a valid claim,” Nevins said. “When the government takes an action, it’s subject to the constraints of the Constitution, and the government can’t deny people equal protection under the law.”

Such equal protection lawsuits have been filed and won in states including Ohio, New York and Washington, Nevins said.

Jones said Tuesday that he and his lawyers, Arch Stokes and John Hunt, considered filing a lawsuit based on sexual orientation discrimination, but decided against it in order to focus on the racial discrimination claim.

“While it is challenging that sexual orientation can’t be included, the day will come when [being fired on the basis of sexual orientation] will be illegal as well,” said Jones, who is now working as an independent economic development consultant.