Students with disabilities are being denied access to New Orleans public schools and are often pushed into schools unable to provide them with the special education services they deserve under federal law, according to a complaint lodged today by the Southern Poverty Law Center and other advocacy groups.

Seeking to deflect charges of racism, anti-immigration activists have launched a cynical campaign to recruit environmentalists to their cause by blaming immigrants for urban sprawl, overconsumption and a host of other environmental problems, according to a report issued today by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled that a juvenile court judge cannot punish the Southern Poverty Law Center for its advocacy on behalf of a child facing incarceration at the state’s juvenile prison.

Children at a New Orleans elementary school are subjected to unlawful seizures and arrests – including handcuffing and shackling – for minor violations of school rules, according to a SPLC lawsuit filed on behalf of a 6-year-old boy who was brutally handcuffed and shackled to a chair by a school security officer.

A settlement agreement has been approved in a lawsuit filed by the SPLC on behalf of migrant farmworkers who said they were not paid the wages they were owed by subsidiaries of Del Monte Fresh Produce Inc.

The Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) has honored the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance magazine as the 2009 Periodical of the Year in its Distinguished Achievement Award adult category.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) today called on federal officials to end an immigration enforcement agreement with Mecklenburg County, N.C., citing immigration proceedings launched against a man whose actions led to the firing of a police officer accused of sexually assaulting women.