The SPLC today threatened to file a federal civil rights lawsuit against Brookwood High School in Alabama if the school does not stop censoring student speech in support of LGBT rights and does not rescind a policy barring same-sex couples from attending the prom together.
With a new year upon us, many state legislatures across the country will be convening. Some may attempt to follow in the steps of Alabama by passing harsh, anti-immigrant legislation. Before they do, they should remember Alabama.
When students at Foley Elementary School in Alabama arrived for class one morning in late September, many of the Latino students were crying. It was the first day that portions of Alabama’s anti-immigrant law were in effect.
The most damning proof that Alabama’s anti-immigrant law was born of xenophobia and vile stereotypes comes straight from the mouths of the lawmakers behind it.
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.
A federal judge today temporarily blocked a provision of Alabama’s notorious anti-immigrant law that threatened to push families out of their homes if they couldn’t prove their lawful status.
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.
The federal district court in Montgomery temporarily blocked a section of Alabama anti-immigrant law HB 56 that threatens to push families who cannot prove lawful status out of their homes. A civil rights coalition filed a lawsuit challenging this application of Section 30, which demands ‘papers’ for everyone applying for mobile home tags they need to remain in their homes.
As part of a harsh anti-immigrant law, the Alabama Department of Revenue required people who owned or maintained mobile homes in the state to prove their lawful immigration status before they could pay annual fees for an identification decal required for all mobile homes. The Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies filed a federal class-action lawsuit challenging the immigration check as a violation of the Fair Housing Act that threatened to leave families across the state homeless.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and a coalition of civil rights groups filed a federal lawsuit to challenge a provision of Alabama’s harsh anti-immigrant law that threatens to push people out of their mobile homes.
