Prisoners at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility in
We have a rich history of litigating important civil rights cases on behalf of the most vulnerable in society. Our cases have smashed remnants of Jim Crow segregation; destroyed some of the nation’s most notorious white supremacist groups; and upheld the rights of minorities, children, women, the disabled and others who faced discrimination and exploitation. Many of our cases have changed institutional practices, stopped government or corporate abuses, and set precedents that helped thousands.
Currently, our litigation is focused on five major areas: children’s rights, economic justice, immigrant justice, LGBTQ rights, and mass incarceration.
Here are summaries, in a searchable format, of our current cases in addition to many over the previous four decades.
Prisoners at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility in
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 Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) systemically puts the health and lives of prisoners at risk by ignoring their medical and mental health needs and discriminating against prisoners with disabilities – violations of federal law by a prison system that has one of the highest mortality rates in the country. The SPLC and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program (ADAP) filed suit to end the deplorable conditions in Alabama prisons.
The private company Professional Probation Services (PPS) has a contract with a municipal court judge and the city of Gardendale, Alabama to illegally place defendants who cannot pay their fines and court costs on probation. The Southern Poverty Law Center sued on Oct. 23, 2017 in federal...
As elections approached in Alabama during the COVID-19 pandemic, the state failed to provide safe and accessible voting, potentially disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters. The SPLC and its allies filed a federal lawsuit to compel state officials to make absentee and in-person voting more...
The Trump administration violated its obligations under both U.S. and international law when it instituted a policy forcing asylum seekers to return to Mexico to wait for their hearings in immigration court. The SPLC and its allies filed a federal lawsuit to end the policy.
The lawsuit,...
Detained immigrants were forced to work for as little as $1 a day to clean, cook and maintain a privately operated immigrant detention center in Stewart County, Georgia, as part of a scheme to maximize its profits, according to a class action lawsuit the SPLC filed against the private prison...
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...
Decades of research and experience have led to a consensus among mental health practitioners throughout the nation that intensive home- and community-based mental health services are much more effective and less expensive than institutionalizing children and youth who have ongoing mental health...
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...