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Hate & Extremism

Date Filed

September 06, 2011

In the early morning hours of June 26, 2011, a black man was attacked in the parking lot of a Jackson, Miss., motel and then fatally run over by a truck. The Southern Poverty Law Center joined Mississippi attorney Winston J. Thompson III, in filing a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the man’s family. The civil lawsuit accused seven white teenagers of deliberately setting out to harass a black person.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

September 08, 2010

Public schools in Jackson, Miss., often failed to provide students with disabilities the services mandated by federal law and needed for these students to succeed in the classroom. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a formal complaint on behalf of these students with the Mississippi Department of Education, which found the district had violated major components of the federal law that ensures students with disabilities receive a free and appropriate public education.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

March 10, 2010

Mississippi's mental health system is failing children from low-income households. The state fails to invest in community-based services and instead pumps the bulk of its resources into ineffective, expensive institutions. Parents are often forced to choose between hospitalizing their children or foregoing mental health services altogether.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

December 14, 2009

Hinds County School District officials violated the constitutional rights of a 10th–grader who was expelled for throwing a penny that landed on his school bus driver. The expulsion and subsequent assignment to an alternative school threatens to derail the academic and athletic career of the 16-year-old boy, a good student who dreamed of a collegiate basketball scholarship.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

July 11, 2007

The Southern Poverty Law Center filed suit on behalf of mentally ill girls living at the Columbia Training School who were shackled, physically and sexually abused, and provided with inadequate mental health treatment.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

May 30, 2007

The Holmes County School District in Mississippi was systematically violating the rights of students with disabilities by failing to provide them with the educational services required under federal law. The district has agreed to a plan that will help ensure students with disabilities are identified and given educational services required under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

April 13, 2004

At Columbia Training School, one of Mississippi's abusive juvenile prisons, a policy made it nearly impossible for injured children to speak with attorneys who are willing to help.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

December 15, 2003

Originally filed in 1975, this class action lawsuit is aimed at improving the education provided to thousands of Mississippi schoolchildren with educational disabilities.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

February 10, 1982

The Southern Poverty Law Center sought a permanent injunction in 1982 to stop operators of the church-run Bethesda Home for Girls from physically and emotionally abusing the "wayward" girls sent to them for care and instruction.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

February 04, 1975

Although this constitutional challenge to horrific conditions at a juvenile center was filed by other lawyers in 1975, the Center and the Mississippi Center for Justice took over in 2003 to enforce a judgment that had been ignored for more than 25 years.

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