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Immigrant Justice
Active Case

Date Filed

December 03, 2018

Peter Sean Brown was illegally detained in Florida’s Monroe County jail for deportation despite his repeated pleas to authorities that he was a U.S. citizen and the county’s own jail file showing that he was born in Philadelphia. The SPLC filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Brown, whose Fourth...

Children's Rights
Active Case

Date Filed

November 29, 2018

In 2018, the Duval County School Board in Florida began hiring armed civilians, known as “school safety assistants,” to patrol the district’s elementary schools. The program threatened the safety of thousands of students by opening the door for inadequately trained assistants – who are not law...

Criminal Justice Reform

Date Filed

May 08, 2019

The SPLC and its allies filed a federal class action lawsuit challenging Florida’s use of solitary confinement as cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act.

The lawsuit...

Immigrant Justice
Active Case

Date Filed

July 16, 2019

After Florida passed an “anti-sanctuary cities” law mandating cooperation agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) requiring local law enforcement agencies to use their “best efforts” to support federal immigration law enforcement and prohibiting local sanctuary policies, the...

Voting Rights
Voting Rights - FL
Active Case

Date Filed

July 01, 2019

After Florida voters overwhelmingly passed Amendment 4 in 2018, which restored the right to vote to over 1.4 million residents who had completed their sentences for felony convictions, the Legislature introduced and passed a law known as SB 7066, which requires people with past felony...

Criminal Justice Reform

Date Filed

September 05, 2019

The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) places hundreds of children in solitary confinement on any given day. The SPLC, Florida Legal Services and the Florida Justice Institute filed a federal class action lawsuit to end the use of solitary confinement in the state’s juvenile detention...

Children's Rights
LGBTQ Rights
Active Case

Date Filed

July 25, 2022

The state of Florida in 2022 enacted House Bill 1557, commonly referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K-3 and restricts such discussions for students through grade 12 based on undefined standards of appropriateness. The...

Voting Rights
Voting Rights - FL

Date Filed

May 03, 2022

The city of Jacksonville, Florida, in March 2022 adopted racially gerrymandered district voting maps that dilute the voting power of Black residents in city council and school board elections.

On behalf of four civil rights organizations and 10 individuals, the Southern Poverty Law Center...

Children's Rights

Date Filed

June 22, 2021

Under Florida’s Baker Act, thousands of children each year are taken from their classrooms and transported – handcuffed and in the back of police cars – to psychiatric facilities without their parents’ input or consent and sometimes over their objections. There, they can be held for up to 72...

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