A former metro Atlanta police officer who says he was fired for opposing his department's diversity hiring initiatives urged a federal judge Monday to buck a recommendation that his suit be spiked, arguing his complaints about the "hot issue" constituted protected speech on a matter of public interest.

Counsel for Barry Honea — a white former city of Lawrenceville officer — told U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Geraghty that while his complaints about a purported push to hire more women and people of color were related to his personal advancement, he was engaging with a robust political discourse around the issue.

Honea's attorney Larry Allen Pankey added that the Lawrenceville police department reinforced the notion that the topic was one of public importance by aggressively promoting its efforts to diversify the force.

"This was a hot issue," Pankey said, pushing back on a federal magistrate judge's recommendation that the suit be dismissed. "... They're trumpeting the diversity they're going after, but it's hurting the white males."

Monday's oral arguments on the city's motion to dismiss came about four months after a federal magistrate judge said that Honea, a nearly 15-year veteran of the department, had failed to allege an actionable claim for discrimination or retaliation.

Honea sued the city of Lawrenceville, along with former Police Chief Tim Wallis, Mayor David Still, and city manager Chuck Warbington in 2023 over his termination two years prior. He alleged that city and department officials developed an unconstitutional plan to promote and hire less deserving non-white and female candidates, while sidelining "mid-level, stagnant" officers like Honea.

Among the moves Honea protested was the promotion of the "completely unqualified" Tawnya Gilovanni to the department's command staff, complaining to other superiors that the role had effectively been created for her. He said that after Gilovanni became Honea's direct supervisor, she accused him of gunning for her job, and later engineered bogus charges that he was stealing company time, which ended with his ouster.

Gilovanni, for her part, later accused high-level department officials of sexual harassment, leading to Wallis' firing for allegedly failing to put to a stop to it, according to a lawsuit he filed against the city.

In July, U.S. Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas said in a report and recommendation that Honea's First Amendment retaliation claim should fail, because his allegedly protected speech had little to do with public discourse.

"Everything about Honea's speech — the content, the form, and the context — all point to the conclusion that Honea 'spoke out' as an employee with a private grievance, rather than as a concerned citizen," Judge Salinas wrote.

As to Honea's gender and race discrimination claims, the judge found that Honea had little more than an allegation that, because of the department's diversity push, it necessarily wanted to force him out.

"Honea has the burden to plead facts that, when pieced together, create a convincing mosaic of circumstantial evidence showing discrimination. Here, the mosaic that Honea paints is insufficient to that task," she added.

Andrew Kim, representing the city, likewise urged Judge Geraghty on Monday to "disregard all legal conclusions masquerading as facts," and said Honea's gripes about the hiring practices were little more than garden variety workplace issues.

"The First Amendment does not protect employees complaining about their supervisors," Kim said.

But despite Judge Geraghty's stated sentiment that she agreed with Judge Salinas that Honea didn't appear to have been treated any differently than his fellow officers, his attorney Pankey said the court should take another look at the allegations that other employees were having sex on the job or otherwise flouting the rules.

"Other people are doing funny things in this police department," he said, adding of the charges against his client, "This is entirely concocted. It's not true."

Judge Geraghty declined to issue an immediate ruling on the motion to dismiss.

Honea is represented by Larry Allen Pankey of Pankey & Horlock LLC.

The city and its officials are represented by Andrew Kim and Kenneth G. Menendez of Freeman Mathis & Gary LLP.

The case is Honea v. City of Lawrenceville et al., case number 1:23-cv-01070, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.