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Children's Rights

Date Filed

June 22, 2021

Under Florida’s Baker Act, thousands of children each year are taken from their classrooms and transported – handcuffed and in the back of police cars – to psychiatric facilities without their parents’ input or consent and sometimes over their objections. There, they can be held for up to 72...

Children's Rights

Date Filed

April 16, 2021

After Florida teacher Amy Donofrio refused a request by school officials to remove a Black Lives Matter flag hanging outside her high school classroom, she was reassigned to nonteaching duties and banned from her school’s campus. The Southern Poverty Law Center and its co-counsel, Scott • Wagner...

Children's Rights

Date Filed

July 22, 2020

In July 2020, federal officials issued an illegal rule that would siphon over $1 billion in emergency aid from public schools to private schools amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies filed a lawsuit challenging the rule issued by U.S. Secretary of Education...

Children's Rights

Date Filed

May 10, 2019

On behalf of six students at the Sophie B. Wright Charter School in Orleans Parish, La., the SPLC sought an injunction in state court to halt disciplinary actions resulting from a senior prank. Following a water balloon fight that caused no serious injuries, the students were suspended for five...

Children's Rights

Date Filed

July 12, 2018

Florida’s Constitution Revision Commission, an entity created every 20 years to revise the state’s laws, attempted to place a constitutional amendment on the state’s 2018 ballot that would have eliminated the duties of school boards to regulate public schools in their districts, including...

Children's Rights

Date Filed

May 18, 2017

As part of budget cuts across state departments, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant ordered nearly $20 million in funding cut from public schools in February and March of 2017.

The SPLC filed a suit, on behalf of two legislators, contending that the governor lacked authority for the action...

Children's Rights

Date Filed

September 26, 2014

After a Florida pre-kindergarten program refused to assist a 3-year-old girl with type 1 diabetes by monitoring her glucose levels, the SPLC filed a lawsuit on behalf of the child. Reflecting a statewide problem faced by many children with diabetes, the lawsuit describes how the program violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by refusing to accommodate the student’s needs. A settlement agreement was reached to ensure the pre-kindergarten program will take steps to ensure it does not discriminate against children with diabetes.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

February 13, 2014

Two North Carolina school districts discriminated against immigrant children by denying, delaying or discouraging their enrollment, incidents that appeared to be symptomatic of a larger problem in school districts across the state. The SPLC filed a federal civil rights complaint on behalf of two children who encountered discrimination by school officials.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

August 19, 2013

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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