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Children's Rights

Date Filed

November 16, 2010

Staff members at the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in Mississippi abused their authority by selling drugs to the youths in their care, brutally beating them and even engaging in sexual relationships with them. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the teenagers and young men held at the facility. A groundbreaking settlement agreement was reached that will ensure children and teens incarcerated in Mississippi will no longer be housed in the privately run prison or subjected to brutal solitary confinement.

Features and Stories
November 10, 2010

The Louisiana Recovery School District (RSD) will make important policy revisions that will protect New Orleans students from abusive restraints, handcuffing and shackling. These reforms result from a settlement reached in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana.

Children's Rights
Active Case

Date Filed

October 26, 2010

Students with disabilities were denied access to New Orleans public schools and often pushed into schools that failed to provide them with a free and appropriate education as required by federal mandate.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and a coalition of advocacy groups first filed an...

Features and Stories
October 26, 2010

The Southern Poverty Law Center, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCRUL), the Community Justice section of the Loyola Law Clinic in New Orleans, and the Southern Disability Law Center filed a federal civil rights lawsuit today against the Louisiana Department of Education (LDE) on behalf of all New Orleans students with special needs. The lawsuit details LDE’s systemic failures to ensure that students with disabilities have equal access to educational services and are protected from discrimination.

Features and Stories
September 14, 2010

Middle schools across the country are suspending children with alarming frequency, particularly in some large urban school districts, where numerous schools suspend a third or more of their black male students in a given year, according to a new study by education researchers Daniel J. Losen and Russell Skiba, and published today by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

Children's Rights

Date Filed

September 08, 2010

Public schools in Jackson, Miss., often failed to provide students with disabilities the services mandated by federal law and needed for these students to succeed in the classroom. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a formal complaint on behalf of these students with the Mississippi Department of Education, which found the district had violated major components of the federal law that ensures students with disabilities receive a free and appropriate public education.

Publication
September 01, 2010

This report seeks to answer the issues of efficacy and fairness in the use of out-of-school suspension, the usage of which has increased dramatically as a form of discipline. In part, the higher use of out-of-school suspension reflects the growth of policies such as "zero tolerance," an approach to school discipline that imposes removal from school for a broad array of school code violations - from violent behavior to truancy and dress code violations.

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