Civil rights case docket
Summaries of our current and historical civil rights cases.
A rich history of litigating important civil rights cases.
Our cases have smashed remnants of Jim Crow segregation; fought against voter suppression; destroyed some of the nationās most notorious white supremacist groups; and upheld the rights of minorities, children, women, people with disabilities, and others who faced discrimination and exploitation. Many of our cases have changed institutional practices, stopped government or corporate abuses, and set precedents that helped thousands.
Currently, our litigation is focused on several major areas: voting rights, childrenās rights, economic justice, immigrant justice, LGBTQ rights, and mass incarceration.
We have also filed amicus āfriend-of-the-courtā briefs to support litigation from other organizations that are doing similar work.
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
Case
Ayota v. Fall
The Southern Poverty Law Center and civil rights groups filed an emergency lawsuit after Cobb County, Georgia, election officials failed to send out more than 3,000 absentee ballots to voters ahead of a Nov. 5, 2024, deadline to return their ballots by mail. TheĀ emergency complaintĀ by the SPLC, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU…
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- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
Case
Walton County (Georgia) School District discrimination complaints
After Georgiaās Walton County School District expelled and referred a Black middle school student with a disability to juvenile court, it denied the student the necessary support and services in its alternative school program, sparking two discrimination complaints by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC filed a state administrative due process complaint and a…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
- Voting Rights ā GA
Case
Heimel v. Gregg, et. al
With about a month left until the general election in 2024, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ACLU of Georgia, the American Civil Liberties Union and Akerman LLP intervened in a lawsuit filed against election officials in Oconee County, Georgia. In that case, the plaintiff asked the court to stop the local board of elections…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
- Voting Rights ā GA
Case
Quinn v. Raffensperger
In 2021, the state of Georgia enacted SB 202, a voter suppression law with provisions allowing state elections officials to usurp the powers of local officials, including the authority to purge individual voters from the list of active, registered voters. In this 2024 case, two residents of Gwinnett County, the stateās second most populous county…
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- Dismantling White Supremacy
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Case
Nancy Tray, et al. v. Florida State Board of Education, et al.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and its partners filed a lawsuit on behalf of parents of public school students facing discrimination under a state law that fails to provide them with a process for appealing decisions banning books from school libraries despite providing an appeals process for parents seeking such bans. This unequal law was…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
- Voting Rights ā AL
Case
Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, et al. v. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, et al.
In March 2024, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed Senate Bill 1 (SB 1), a sweeping new voter suppression law that targets, restricts and severely punishes civic engagement efforts that encourage voting and enable access to the ballot box. The following month, a coalition of civil rights, voting rights and disability rights organizations filed a federal…
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- Eliminating Poverty
Case
Johnson v. Grants Pass
With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to deliver the most significant ruling in 40 years on the rights of people experiencing homelessness, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed an amicus brief defending their rights. The amicus brief was filed in Johnson v. Grants Pass, which alleges that a public sleeping/camping law used against people experiencing…
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- Dismantling White Supremacy
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Case
Rinderle, et al., v. Cobb County School District, et al.
Katie Rinderle, a fifth-grade gifted specialist in the Cobb County School District in Georgia, was fired from her teaching job in 2023 for reading to her class My Shadow is Purple, an age-appropriate picture book about self-acceptance and navigating gender stereotypes. In response, Rinderle and other educators are suing the Cobb County School District for…
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- Dismantling White Supremacy
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- LGBTQ Rights
Case
Wood, et al. v. Florida Department of Education, et al.
After a Florida law blocked transgender and nonbinary teachers from using the pronouns and titles that best express themselves, the Southern Poverty Law Center and its partners filed a lawsuit on behalf of three teachers challenging the anti-LGBTQ+ statute. The lawsuit describes how the ban, also known as Subsection 3, unlawfully discriminates on the basis…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
- Voting Rights ā FL
Case
Caicedo, et al. v. DeSantis
On Aug. 9, 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, suspended Monique Worrell, a Democrat, from her elected position as state attorney for Orange and Osceola counties because of his opposition to her criminal legal reforms and a general hostility toward elected Democrats. Worrellās reforms included measures supported by her constituents, such as curtailing the…