There’s no place in America for workplace discrimination of any kind. But, incredibly, a half century after our nation outlawed discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities and women, it’s still legal in most states for employers to hire or fire a person solely because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Today, by passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), the U.S. Senate took a historic step toward ending this outrage.
Based on a “manifesto” the suspect was carrying, the fatal shooting of a TSA officer at Los Angeles International Airport last Friday appears to be another in a long series of domestic terrorism incidents linked to far-right extremism. Read a compendium of such plots and attacks since Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.
Paul Anthony Ciancia’s language and references in his 'manifesto' seemed to put him squarely in the conspiracy-minded world of the antigovernment “Patriot” movement. The attack comes at a time when the Patriot movement has been growing by leaps and bounds, from some 149 groups in 2008 to 1,360 last year, according to counts by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Alabama’s vicious anti-immigrant law, which passed in 2011 amid warnings that it was unconstitutional, has been effectively gutted by an agreement the SPLC and other civil rights groups have reached with the state to permanently block key provisions of the law – adding Alabama to a list of states that have seen their anti-immigrant laws stopped by federal lawsuits.
Students across America today are participating in Mix It Up at Lunch Day, an event that fights bullying and reduces bias by breaking down racial and social barriers in the one place in school where they’re most obvious – the lunchroom.
In Alabama, African-American children who were orphaned or neglected were routinely sent to live at a “reform school” for juvenile offenders, because state-licensed homes were segregated and few would accept black children. An early SPLC lawsuit changed that practice, opening the doors of such homes to all children in need.
Students at more than 6,000 schools across the country will participate in the 12th Annual Mix It Up at Lunch Day event on Oct. 29 – double the number of schools that officially participated in the program last year.
A coalition of human rights groups is calling on members of Congress and other public officials not to speak at the upcoming Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., because the event host and its key co-sponsor – the Family Research Council (FRC) and the American Family Association (AFA) – have long records of vilifying the LGBT community and spreading other forms of bigotry.
As House Democrats introduced immigration reform legislation this week, the Southern Poverty Law Center urged lawmakers to protect the human and civil rights of vulnerable low-skill workers as they consider ways to bring 11 million immigrants out of the shadows.
The SPLC filed a federal lawsuit today against the town of Shannon, Miss., its mayor and its aldermen for unjustly denying a business license to a bar catering to the LGBT community.
