Skip to main content Accessibility
Showing 183 Results
Children's Rights

Date Filed

June 12, 2012

North Carolina’s Wake County Public School System denied Spanish-speaking parents the opportunity to participate in their children’s education. The school system provided school notices, such as notices of long-term suspensions and special education materials, in English to English-speaking parents but failed to provide this information to Spanish-speaking parents in Spanish – discriminating against these students and violating state and federal law. The Southern Poverty Law Center and Advocates for Children’s Services, a project of Legal Aid of North Carolina, filed a complaint against the school district with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. This complaint resulted in the school district agreeing to develop a plan to ensure Spanish-speaking parents have the opportunity to participate in their child’s education.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

July 10, 2012

Almost two years after finding that Mississippi’s Jackson Public School District violated federal special education law, the Mississippi Department of Education had failed to hold the district accountable and ensure that its students with disabilities were receiving services required by federal law. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal class action lawsuit in 2012 against the department on behalf of these students.

Date Filed

July 26, 2012

The Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry in North Carolina failed to provide female veterans with the same job training classes male veterans received through the organization’s federally funded programs. Instead, female veterans were offered classes such as knitting, art therapy, yoga, meditation, how to de-clutter your room, self-esteem and Bible study. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a sex discrimination complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor against the organization.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

August 07, 2012

African-American students in several Florida school districts were subjected to harsh disciplinary policies at a far higher rate than their white classmates. These students were often subjected to long-term suspensions, expulsions and even arrested at school for relatively minor misconduct.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

August 22, 2012

Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish Public School System failed to provide adequate translation and interpretation services for Spanish-speaking parents with limited English proficiency and created an environment hostile to Latino students. The school system provided school notices in English to English-speaking parents but failed to provide this information to Spanish-speaking parents in Spanish – discriminating against these students and violating state and federal law. The SPLC filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice, resulting in a settlement agreement between the school system and federal authorities.

Criminal Justice Reform
Immigrant Justice

Date Filed

September 19, 2012

Vermilion Parish (La.) Sheriff Michael Couvillon refused to turn over public records related to the detention of individuals suspected of being undocumented. The SPLC requested the records under the Louisiana Public Records Act to determine if the sheriff’s office was holding immigrants in jail for prolonged periods of time due to unconstitutional racial profiling.

LGBTQ Rights

Date Filed

September 26, 2012

Brian Edwards and Tom Privitere were shocked to discover that an anti-gay hate group took their engagement photo and used it in political mailers to attack a Colorado lawmaker in 2012 for supporting same-sex civil unions. The SPLC and its allies filed a federal lawsuit against the group, Public Advocate of the United States, for misappropriating the likeness and personalities of the couple. It also charged that the group infringed on the photographer’s exclusive right to the photo.

Immigrant Justice

Date Filed

October 09, 2012

After Alabama’s anti-immigrant law took effect, the U.S. Department of Justice obtained public school attendance records and found a decline in Latino student attendance. The Southern Poverty Law Center requested the same data to determine the law’s impact on Latino students’ access to a public education. The SPLC filed a lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Education after being denied the public records.

Immigrant Justice

Date Filed

October 22, 2012

In the spring of 2009, the U.S. Secretary of Labor suspended regulations for the H-2A guestworker program that would have slashed wages for guestworkers and U.S. workers alike. A federal court blocked the secretary’s suspension on the day it was to go into effect after a group of guestworker employers filed suit. The Southern Poverty Law Center intervened in the case on behalf of U.S. farmworkers and H-2A guestworkers to seek to recover the higher wages they would have earned under the suspension.

LGBTQ Rights
Landmark Case

Date Filed

November 27, 2012

Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) fraudulently claimed to provide services that “convert” people from gay to straight. These services, known as conversion therapy, have been discredited or highly criticized by all major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional counseling organizations. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against the New Jersey conversion therapy organization for fraudulent practices. The lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey in 2012, charged that JONAH, its founder and a counselor violated New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act by claiming that their counseling services could cure clients of being gay.

Pages