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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
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....

Children's Rights
Active Case

Date Filed

July 11, 2016

Mississippi funded its charter schools through an unconstitutional scheme that diverted public tax dollars from traditional public schools. The SPLC filed a lawsuit in state court to end the funding system.

The lawsuit called for the court to strike down the funding provisions of the...

Children's Rights
Active Case

Date Filed

May 23, 2017

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...

Children's Rights

Date Filed

May 18, 2017

As part of budget cuts across state departments, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant ordered nearly $20 million in funding cut from public schools in February and March of 2017.

The SPLC filed a suit, on behalf of two legislators, contending that the governor lacked authority for the action...

Economic Justice
Active Case

Date Filed

December 05, 2017

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 ...

Immigrant Justice
Active Case

Date Filed

November 07, 2018

The Martinez family was traveling along a Mississippi highway in 2017 – on their way to a vacation – when a sheriff’s deputy stopped them for no apparent reason. The family was then detained by the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office for approximately four hours based solely on the fact that they...

Criminal Justice Reform
Active Case

Date Filed

January 23, 2020

Willie Nash was sentenced to a 12-year prison sentence for bringing a cell phone into a county jail. After the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed Nash’s sentence, the SPLC filed a motion on behalf of Nash, urging the court to rehear his case and arguing that the sentence is a violation of the...

Voting Rights
Voting Rights - MS
Amicus Brief

Date Filed

June 13, 2023

After Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed legislation creating a special judicial district within the city of Jackson where judges would be appointed rather than elected – and ultimately disenfranchise Black voters – the Southern Poverty Law Center filed an amicus brief supporting a lawsuit by...

Criminal Justice Reform
Voting Rights
Voting Rights - MS
Active Case

Date Filed

March 27, 2018

More than a century ago, Mississippi adopted a state constitution that was specifically intended to prevent formerly enslaved people and their descendants from gaining political influence, in part by blocking their access to the ballot box. A provision of that 1890 constitution – a lifetime...

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