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Children's Rights

Date Filed

December 01, 2010

Students in Birmingham, Ala., schools were sprayed with pepper spray as punishment for routine offenses. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of district students to end the practice and other abusive and unconstitutional behavior.

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.

Immigrant Justice

Date Filed

June 06, 2005

A group of foreign guestworkers lured from Mexico and Guatemala to plant pine trees for Eller and Sons Trees, Inc., one of the nation’s largest forestry contractors, were not paid the wages they had earned. The Southern Poverty Law Center sued the Franklin, Ga., company on behalf of the workers, winning a record $11.8 million judgment in October 2012..

Children's Rights

Date Filed

April 28, 2011

Latino students in Durham, N.C., public schools were subjected to pervasive discrimination throughout the school district. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. The SPLC eventually reached an agreement with the Durham Public Schools system to end discriminatory practices that created this hostile environment for Latino students.

Immigrant Justice

Date Filed

January 07, 2011

Since 2007, the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office in Nashville, Tenn., had the power to enforce immigration law through the federal 287(g) program, even though the metropolitan government designated the Nashville Police Department as the primary law enforcement agency. The Southern Poverty Law Center joined a federal lawsuit to end the 287(g) agreement because it violated state and local laws.

Children's Rights
Landmark Case

Date Filed

September 08, 1971

In the early 1970s, several private segregated academies were allowed to use public recreational facilities in Montgomery, Ala., for football and baseball games – a practice that meant taxpayers were subsidizing these all-white schools as the public school system was being integrated. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal lawsuit that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court finding the city’s practice unconstitutional.

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.

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.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

May 17, 2012

African-American students and students with disabilities in Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish Public Schools were disproportionately referred to alternative school, where they often languish for months or even years before returning to regular classes. These students often were referred to alternative schools for minor misconduct, such as disrespectful behavior, use of profanity, disrupting class and horseplay.

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