Alabama’s absentee ballot program is inaccessible to blind voters and voters with print disabilities. It requires those voters to secure another person’s assistance to complete their absentee ballot – forfeiting their right to vote privately and independently.
The SPLC and its co-counsel...
After a state commission moved a judgeship from a diverse Jefferson County community to majority-white Madison County, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the move.
The lawsuit was filed by...
The state of Florida in 2022 enacted House Bill 1557, commonly referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K-3 and restricts such discussions for students through grade 12 based on undefined standards of appropriateness. The...
In August 2020, Neville Christopher Brooks, a legal permanent U.S. resident from Jamaica, was unlawfully detained by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) in Florida — not for any alleged criminal activity or for any legitimate immigration enforcement concerns but solely because he was born...
The Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies filed an emergency lawsuit to ensure that nearly 1,000 absentee voters in Cobb County, Georgia, have enough time to cast their votes in the 2022 midterm elections.
The lawsuit, filed less than 48 hours before Election Day, seeks to send...
During 2022, Florida established a “Relocation Program” for the “transport of unauthorized aliens from the state.” The Southern Poverty Law Center and its partners filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Section 185...
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...
Decades of research and experience have led to a consensus among mental health practitioners throughout the nation that intensive home- and community-based mental health services are much more effective and less expensive than institutionalizing children and youth who have ongoing mental health...
When the school board in Orange County, Florida, planned to sell property that was the site of a historic school for Black children in one of the country’s oldest Black communities, a local preservation association represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center filed suit against the school...
After Mississippi enacted a law that violates the right of residents with disabilities to receive voting assistance from the person of their choice, the Southern Poverty Law Center and its partners challenged the law in federal court.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Disability Rights...
