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Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced that he plans to shift resources from expensive residential facilities to more effective and efficient community-based programs and sanctions that will save the state tens of millions of tax dollars. This is good news for Florida.

A Minnesota school district’s curriculum policy instructs teachers to remain “neutral” on matters regarding sexual orientation, but that’s not what’s been happening.

Fighting Modern-Day Slavery

01/30/2011
With January serving as National Human Trafficking Awareness Month, it’s important to recognize the extent of this horrific practice. Research at the University of California, Berkeley suggests that at any given time in the United States, 10,000 or more people are enduring forced labor.

Tragedy in Arizona

01/10/2011

A year ago, we introduced a new school curriculum, Civil Discourse in the Classroom and Beyond, with this urgent call: "There is a pressing need to change the tenor of public debate from shouts and slurs to something more reasoned." The tragedy in Tucson this weekend reminds us that it's a call that politicians and pundits would do well to heed.

Congressional repeal of the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, which will allow gay men and lesbians to serve in the armed forces without having to hide their orientation, has set off waves of condemnation among anti-gay opponents who predict all measure of doom and disaster for the military and America. Yet it serves us well to recall a decision that put an end to another unjust policy steeped in fear and prejudice rather than fact and logic.

The Family Research Council (FRC), a hate group that spreads demonizing lies about gay men and lesbians, claims that it’s simply a pro-family organization. But don’t gay men and lesbians have families, too? 

Last week Superintendant Paul Pastorek responded to our new report, "Access Denied," which documents the experiences of New Orleans public school students and their families and exposes numerous systemic failures, by calling it an attempt "to influence the state education board."

This week, as we celebrate our nation’s bounty and give thanks for the blessings in our lives, most of us probably won’t think very much about the people who do the backbreaking labor that puts food on our plates. We should.

Given the current epidemic of anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) bullying and related student suicides across the country, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) calls on the Alabama State Department of Education (the SDE) to revise its Model Anti-Harassment Policy (the Model Policy) so that it protects all students, including LGBT students.

As we mark the anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy and remember its victims, the signs of a renewed backlash against the Muslim population are everywhere.