In April 2021, the Florida Legislature enacted the Combating Violence, Disorder and Looting and Law Enforcement Protection Act, also known as HB 1. Gov. Ron DeSantis and other leading proponents of HB 1 were explicit: HB 1 was a direct response to – and a means to oppose – the summer 2020 Black...
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A sweeping new anti-immigrant law – SB 1718 – took effect in Florida on July 1, 2023. The law harms Florida immigrants and their families and seeks to target and intimidate immigrant families in every facet of their lives. The SPLC and its legal partners filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the...
After Georgia voters turned out in record numbers for the 2020 presidential election and U.S. Senate elections in early 2021, state legislators passed a sweeping – and unconstitutional – voting law that threatened to massively disenfranchise voters, particularly voters of color. The SPLC and its...
After Georgia passed a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender adolescents, the Southern Poverty Law Center and its partners filed a federal lawsuit to block the law from taking effect and seek a court order ruling that the law is unconstitutional.
The law, also known as SB 140,...
In Cullman County, Alabama, hundreds of people are routinely jailed before trial due to their inability to pay a bail bond for their release. The Southern Poverty Law Center and its partners intervened in a federal class action lawsuit to end the practice.
The lawsuit describes how the...
After the Abbeville City Council in Louisiana chose to use a district map that denies equal representation to voters, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Vermilion Parish NAACP to block use of the map.
The federal lawsuit describes how the council-approved...
Content warning: The following case summary contains graphic descriptions of a mother almost dying during childbirth.
Ashley Caswell filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in Alabama after her constitutional rights were violated when a notorious county jail restricted her...
After Alabama’s attorney general threatened to criminalize people helping pregnant Alabamians access legal abortion care in other states, The Lawyering Project, joined by the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the attorney general from making good on his threat...
After Louisiana lawmakers passed legislation to prevent the bail bond industry from paying refunds after overcharging people for more than a decade, the Southern Poverty Law Center and its co-counsel filed a lawsuit.
New Orleans bail bond companies faced the possibility of paying millions...
More than a century ago, Mississippi adopted a state constitution that was specifically intended to prevent formerly enslaved people and their descendants from gaining political influence, in part by blocking their access to the ballot box. A provision of that 1890 constitution – a lifetime...
