Harriet Cleveland lost her job at a daycare during the height of the recession. Unable to find steady work, Harriet tried to make ends meet by babysitting the children of friends and family and renting out rooms in her home. After doing everything she could, including pawning her car, Harriet ended up facing foreclosure and declared bankruptcy. During this time she had been unable to pay years old traffic tickets. In August, while babysitting her infant grandson, the Montgomery police came and arrested Harriet at her home. The Montgomery Municipal Court ordered her to serve 31 days in jail.
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An Alabama law gave tax breaks to families transferring their children to successful schools, discriminating against impoverished students in the state’s Black Belt region who were trapped in failing schools. The SPLC asked a federal court to permanently block the Alabama Accountability Act, saying the law violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause because it impermissibly created two classes of students assigned to failing schools – those who can escape them because of their parents’ income or where they live and those who cannot.
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An Alabama law that gives tax breaks to families transferring their children to successful schools discriminates against impoverished students in the state’s Black Belt region who are trapped in failing schools, according to a federal lawsuit filed today by the SPLC.
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Alabama’s Tallapoosa County Probate Office has ended its illegal practice of denying marriage licenses to people unable to provide proof of immigration status – a decision that closes a case the Southern Poverty Law Center brought against the office in 2012.
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In what is believed to be a first in Alabama, a judge in Mobile County, Alabama has granted standard visitation rights to a lesbian mother without any overnight restriction on unmarried partners.
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The SPLC praised Alabama’s top public school official for taking action today to ensure students are not blocked or discouraged from enrolling because they lack a Social Security number, a U.S. birth certificate or a parent with a state driver’s license.
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An agreement with Mobile County Public Schools in Alabama will reduce out-of-school suspensions for minor misbehavior and provide alternative forms of discipline – steps that will resolve a 2011 federal lawsuit filed by the SPLC on behalf of seven students.
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The U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to hear Alabama’s appeal of a court decision that blocked part of its anti-immigrant law is further proof that immigration enforcement is not a duty of the states, but the federal government which must pass comprehensive immigration reform.
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The Southern Poverty Law Center joined poultry workers, advocates and others gathered outside U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt’s district office in Gadsden, Ala., today to urge him to block new poultry industry regulations that threaten the health and safety of workers and consumers across the country.
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The SPLC today urged Alabama’s top public school official to address the widespread failure of schools and districts to comply with state and federal law when they request Social Security numbers for enrollment – a practice that chills enrollment of immigrant students in public schools.
