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 nation’s 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, children’s rights, economic justice, immigrant justice, LGBTQ rights, and mass incarceration.
We have also filed amicus “friend-of-the-court” briefs to support litigation from other organizations that are doing similar work.
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee
Arizona Republican Party v. Democratic National Committee In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in two voting rights cases that threaten to weaken Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), which helps ensure voters and communities of color have equal access to the ballot and political participation. The SPLC and others…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
Republican National Committee v. State Election Board
As Georgia voters cast early ballots in the state’s January 2021 U.S. Senate runoff elections amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a Republican Party lawsuit was filed to, among other issues, close ballot drop boxes after business hours. The SPLC filed an amicus brief with other voting rights groups in support of defendants. The plaintiffs’ suit sought…
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- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
- LGBTQ Rights
Ashley Diamond v. Timothy Ward, et al.
After a historic legal settlement over abusive conditions facing incarcerated transgender people in Georgia prisons, Ashley Diamond, a Black transgender woman, re-entered the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) in 2019 only to encounter similar unconstitutional conditions, sparking a lawsuit on her behalf by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Center for Constitutional Rights. The…
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- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
Southern Poverty Law Center v. Ron Abernathy
After the sheriff of Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, failed to release public records about COVID-19 within the county jail, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit against the sheriff for violating the Alabama Open Records Act. The lawsuit was filed four months after the SPLC requested the public health information essential for the protection…
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- Ending Unjust Imprisonment
Immigrant Defenders Law Center v. Mayorkas
In October 2020, the Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies filed a new challenge to the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which had forced over 60,000 asylum seekers into precarious, life-threatening situations in Mexico and deprived them of access to legal assistance and other tools needed to meaningfully present their asylum claims. The…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
Harris v. State of Alabama
Alabama resident Angelique Harris attempted to register to vote over the course of several years but was unlawfully denied by her county registrars due to a failure of state law to clarify how out-of-state and federal felony convictions are to be treated for determining voting eligibility. The Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies represent…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
Parham v. Watson
The Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies challenged the constitutionality of Mississippi’s burdensome absentee ballot requirements to ensure all voters have the opportunity to cast a ballot during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the November 2020 general election. The federal lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District for the Southern District of Mississippi with Lawyers’…
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- Dismantling White Supremacy
- Workers’ Rights
Antonio-Benito v. Lowry Farms, Inc.
The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of migrant workers who have faced rampant wage theft by a major farm labor contractor, Lowry Farms, Inc. The guest workers planted sugarcane on farms throughout Louisiana and received pay well below what was required under the law after leaving their homes and…
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- Strengthening Democracy & Voting Rights
Community Success Initiative v. Moore
North Carolina required people with previous felony convictions to pay legal financial obligations before they could vote – a practice that disenfranchised thousands of people, predominately people of color. The law was challenged by North Carolinians with prior felony convictions and advocacy groups as a violation of The SPLC and its allies filed an amicus…
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- Eliminating Poverty and Economic Inequality
NAACP, et al. v. DeVos, et al.
In July 2020, federal officials issued an illegal rule that would siphon over $1 billion in emergency aid from public schools to private schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies filed a lawsuit challenging the rule issued by U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and the Department of Education.…