In 2019, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission violated Florida’s open meetings laws, effectively denying high school students and youth advocates the right to speak before the commission, which was created to investigate system failures in the 2018 school shooting at...
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The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of migrant workers who have faced rampant wage theft by a major farm labor contractor, Lowry Farms, Inc. The guest workers planted sugarcane on farms throughout Louisiana and received pay well below what was required under...
The Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies challenged the constitutionality of Mississippi’s burdensome absentee ballot requirements to ensure all voters have the opportunity to cast a ballot during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the November 2020 general election.
The federal...
In October 2020, the Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies filed a new challenge to the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which had forced over 60,000 asylum seekers into precarious, life-threatening situations in Mexico and deprived them of access to legal assistance and...
After the sheriff of Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, failed to release public records about COVID-19 within the county jail, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit against the sheriff for violating the Alabama Open Records Act.
The lawsuit was filed four months after the...
Alabama resident Angelique Harris attempted to register to vote over the course of several years but was unlawfully denied by her county registrars due to a failure of state law to clarify how out-of-state and federal felony convictions are to be treated for determining voting eligibility. The...
During the 2020 property assessment cycle, the Orleans Parish assessor arbitrarily cut the value of large commercial properties – some by as much as 57% – citing the COVID-19 pandemic as a reason. As a result, he flouted his legal duty to assess properties at their fair market value. Despite...
In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in two voting rights cases that threaten to weaken Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), which helps ensure voters and communities of color have equal access to the ballot and political participation. The SPLC and others urged the court...
In 2011, Alabama lawmakers approved a law requiring voters to present a government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot in the state. Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit challenging the law as discriminatory, noting it targeted Black and Latinx voters who disproportionately lack such identification...
The Southern Poverty Law Center and Fair Elections Center filed a lawsuit to challenge a Florida law that, among other things, required groups engaged in voter registration activities to provide misleading information to voters that the organization “might not” submit the voter’s registration...
