Louisiana officials denied poor people their constitutional right to counsel by failing to establish an effective statewide public defense system. The SPLC and its allies filed suit in state court fix the broken system.
In 2016, a funding crisis forced as many as 33 out of 42 public...
President Trump’s revised executive order banning travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries threatened to break up families and prevent Shi’a Muslims from studying their faith with religious scholars. The Southern Poverty Law Center, Muslim Advocates and a coalition of other...
The founder of a major neo-Nazi website orchestrated a harassment campaign that relentlessly terrorized a Jewish woman and her family with anti-Semitic threats and messages. The Southern Poverty Law Center, along with its Montana co-counsel, filed suit in federal court on behalf of the woman,...
The money bail system in Randolph County, Alabama, violated the constitutional rights of people charged with misdemeanors or felonies because it created a “two-tiered” system of justice based on wealth. The Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies filed a federal class action lawsuit to end...
Mississippi has repeatedly violated a nearly 150-year-old, legally binding obligation to operate a “uniform system of free public schools” for all children, an obligation placed on the state as a condition of rejoining the Union after the Civil War.
Mississippi enshrined this requirement...
Two New Orleans bail bond companies working with two other businesses charged clients hidden and illegal fees – even sending armed bounty hunters to kidnap clients and extort money from their friends and family. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit to stop the practice.
The...
People awaiting trial before a criminal court in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, were coerced into paying hundreds of dollars to a company before they were released from jail – even after they had paid their bail. The SPLC filed a federal lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of...
A North Carolina state law guts the ability of farmworkers to organize and make collective bargaining agreements with employers.
North Carolina farmworkers and a coalition of civil rights groups – including the SPLC – sued to block implementation of the law on November 15, 2017 in federal...
The city of Corinth, Mississippi, and Municipal Court Judge John C. Ross operated a modern-day debtors’ prison, unlawfully jailing poor people for their inability to pay bail and fines. The SPLC and another civil rights group filed a ...
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency entered the homes of immigrant families without warrants, consent or probable cause – in violation of the Fourth Amendment – solely to detain and deport families, mostly women and children. The raids took place in Georgia in January 2016...
