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Immigrant Justice
Landmark Case

Date Filed

June 08, 2015

South Carolina denied in-state college tuition rates to U.S. citizens living in the state but unable to prove the lawful immigration status of their parents – an unconstitutional policy that more than tripled the cost of tuition. The SPLC filed a federal lawsuit to end the practice.

Children's Rights

Date Filed

November 16, 2010

Staff members at the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in Mississippi abused their authority by selling drugs to the youths in their care, brutally beating them and even engaging in sexual relationships with them. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the teenagers and young men held at the facility. A groundbreaking settlement agreement was reached that will ensure children and teens incarcerated in Mississippi will no longer be housed in the privately run prison or subjected to brutal solitary confinement.

Immigrant Justice

Date Filed

March 06, 2015

After an exclusive island resort near Charleston, South Carolina, cheated Jamaican guest workers out of their wages over three years, the SPLC sued the resort, which had earned accolades from travel publications and boasted a golf course that hosted the 2012 PGA Championship. 

LGBTQ Rights

Date Filed

February 19, 2015

After a transgender woman in the custody of the Georgia Department of Corrections was denied medically necessary treatment and sexually assaulted by other inmates at a men’s prison, the SPLC filed a federal lawsuit demanding prison officials provide safe placement for the prisoner and medically necessary care, including hormone therapy. The suit also sought an end to prison policies that deny transgender inmates such medical treatment.

Immigrant Justice
Active Case

Date Filed

September 01, 2015

Mexican guest workers hired by a contractor with more than $9 million in state contracts to maintain the shoulders and medians of rural Mississippi roadways were cheated out of their wages. A federal lawsuit on behalf of six workers alleged that the contractor broke federal racketeering laws....

Economic Justice
Active Case

Date Filed

September 08, 2015

The city of Alexander City, Alabama, operated a modern-day debtors’ prison for at least a decade by arresting and jailing low-income people unable to pay their fines and court costs for traffic tickets and misdemeanors.

In a town where almost 30 percent of the population lives below the...

Immigrant Justice

Date Filed

October 08, 2014

Gulf Coast seafood company R&A Oysters failed to properly pay guest workers it recruited to the United States on temporary H-2B work visas.

The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal lawsuit in 2014 on behalf of a group of migrant workers the company hired to shuck and process...

Criminal Justice Reform

Date Filed

January 17, 2016

A minor at the Sumter Correctional Institution in Florida was brutally beaten and raped as part of a prison initiation ritual that was ignored by a guard. The SPLC and its co-counsel filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the youth to end the culture of brutality at the prison, which houses...

Immigrant Justice

Date Filed

April 27, 2016

Georgia discriminated against immigrants by enforcing an unconstitutional policy that directed state officials to deny driver’s licenses to people based on their past – rather than current – immigration status.

The Southern Poverty Law Center and Atlanta immigration attorney Justin W....

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