The SPLC will partner with the Native American Disability Law Center in Farmington, N.M., and the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County in West Palm Beach, Fla., as part of a campaign to keep children in school and out of the juvenile justice system.
Every single day, when students walk into school in Birmingham, Ala., they face the threat of being sprayed with pepper spray. In this school system, pepper spray is routinely used as punishment by police officers stationed in schools.
The Southern Poverty Law Center called on the Birmingham, Ala. community to demand that city officials stop allowing police officers to use Mace against students in Birmingham’s public schools.
SPLC deputy legal director Sheila Bedi testified before a national task force about violence and abuse in the juvenile justice system.
The state of Georgia discriminated against students with disabilities by funding public schools through a formula that encouraged schools to unnecessarily segregate students with disabilities to receive greater funding. The Department of Justice launched an investigation after the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a complaint with the department charging the state of Georgia and the Georgia Department of Education with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
The school system in Durham, N.C., has agreed to end discriminatory practices that created a hostile environment for Latino students and prevented them from receiving an adequate public education. The agreement followed a federal civil rights complaint filed by the SPLC on behalf of Latino students.
The state of Florida denied in-state college tuition rates to U.S. citizens living in the state but unable to prove the lawful immigration status of their parents – an unconstitutional policy that more than tripled the cost of tuition. The SPLC filed a federal lawsuit that ended the practice.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has reached an agreement with officials in Forrest County, Miss., that requires the county to improve the inhumane conditions and stop the abuse of children at a detention center where video footage showed children being beaten and hogtied by staffers.
The Southern Poverty Law Center joined a coalition of community advocates in urging Florida counties to resist placing children charged as juveniles in adult jails, a practice that was recently authorized by the Florida legislature.
We all want our schools to be safe and orderly. Our teachers should be able to focus on teaching and our children should be able to focus on learning. Sadly, though, the effort to instill greater discipline in our schools has backfired.
