A federal judge has denied a request by the Birmingham Police Department in Alabama to dismiss a lawsuit the Southern Poverty Law Center filed against the department for its brutal use of pepper spray against the city’s public school students.
The SPLC today welcomed the U.S. Department of Justice’s decision to intervene in an SPLC civil rights lawsuit challenging the brutality and inhumane conditions at the Orleans Parish Prison in New Orleans.
A juvenile detention center in Hattiesburg, Miss., has made “little or no headway” in addressing the dangerous conditions that led to an SPLC lawsuit – even though nearly a year has passed since officials settled the suit with promises to stop the abuse and neglect of children, a court-appointed monitor has found.
The belief that corporal punishment is a difficult, but necessary practice continues to persist in a minority of Florida school districts. It persists, even as administrators who support it say they are aware of its potential to damage children and that it may spark lawsuits. It persists even though corporal punishment has been found to increase youth hostility, antisocial behavior, and the likelihood that a child will drop out of school.
Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish Public School System failed to provide adequate translation and interpretation services for Spanish-speaking parents with limited English proficiency and created an environment hostile to Latino students. The school system provided school notices in English to English-speaking parents but failed to provide this information to Spanish-speaking parents in Spanish – discriminating against these students and violating state and federal law. The SPLC filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice, resulting in a settlement agreement between the school system and federal authorities.
More than a year ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center described in a federal lawsuit how students in Alabama’s Mobile County public schools are suspended for minor infractions for months at a time without the constitutionally required notice and hearing.
African-American students in several Florida school districts were subjected to harsh disciplinary policies at a far higher rate than their white classmates. These students were often subjected to long-term suspensions, expulsions and even arrested at school for relatively minor misconduct.
When 11-year-old J.B. was caught with a cell phone in class, the student received a five-day suspension. The school district in Okaloosa County, Fla., meted out the harsh punishment because the incident was considered “inappropriate behavior.”
Almost two years after finding that Mississippi’s Jackson Public School District violated federal special education law, the Mississippi Department of Education had failed to hold the district accountable and ensure that its students with disabilities were receiving services required by federal law. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal class action lawsuit in 2012 against the department on behalf of these students.
The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal lawsuit today against the Mississippi Department of Education for failing to ensure that students with disabilities in the Jackson Public School District receive the education and services required by federal law.
