A new study released today urges the closure of the Alabama Department of Youth Services’ Chalkville facility and the DYS-contracted Working on Womanhood program. The study determined that girls held at these juvenile facilities, many of whom are the victims of abuse, would fare much better in their own communities, where they would receive better rehabilitative services.
With a new year upon us, many state legislatures across the country will be convening. Some may attempt to follow in the steps of Alabama by passing harsh, anti-immigrant legislation. Before they do, they should remember Alabama.
Georgia continues to unjustly target immigrants through shameful and un-American tactics. Those tactics are illuminated by new regulations proposed by the state’s Immigration Enforcement Review Board (IERB) – rules that propel the state further in the wrong direction.
Criminalization of ordinary school misbehavior is not uncommon at the Jefferson Parish Public School System, located in the New Orleans suburbs. In fact, it’s the norm – and African-American students are disproportionately targeted for arrest. The SPLC filed a federal civil rights complaint on behalf of four African-American students who faced mistreatment at the hands of police officers stationed in Jefferson Parish schools.
More than 1,500 guestworkers owed back wages by an Arkansas agricultural company will be paid a total of $1.5 million in a settlement with the SPLC – one of the largest agreements ever reached against a single employer of foreign guestworkers.
The SPLC has asked a federal court to force Jackson Public Schools to turn over key documents describing the practice of handcuffing students in an alternative school to a pole for hours at a time as punishment for minor infractions.
A retrospective of some of the Southern Poverty Law Center's work in 2011.
A federal district court today temporarily blocked major parts of South Carolina’s anti-immigrant law as a result of a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies challenging the law as unconstitutional.
A federal judge set a historic legal precedent by granting class action status to a human trafficking lawsuit involving more than 350 Filipino teachers – a decision likely to benefit countless other human trafficking victims in the future.
When students at Foley Elementary School in Alabama arrived for class one morning in late September, many of the Latino students were crying. It was the first day that portions of Alabama’s anti-immigrant law were in effect.
