Xenophobia and a desire to find a scapegoat for these hard economic times will spur more anti-immigrant legislation. And there’s no shortage of lawmakers unwilling to hear other viewpoints. But there are still people unwilling to allow their state to be governed by fear.
The Southern Poverty Law Center urged Louisiana lawmakers to oppose a bill that bans state contracts from providing anti-discrimination protections to vulnerable populations that include LGBT people and English language learners – provisions that threaten to stifle economic growth and harm the state’s school children.
Earlier this year, high school students in Montgomery County, Md., received flyers at school saying that being gay is a choice and that people can change their sexual orientation. The flyer’s message is a popular and harmful piece of propaganda about LGBT people – the claim that gay people can change their sexual orientation through what is commonly known as “ex-gay” or “conversion” therapy. It’s a notion that has been rejected or highly criticized by every mainstream American medical and mental health professional association.
The Southern Poverty Law Center commends Sheriff Marlon Gusman’s decision to close the Orleans Parish Prison House of Detention, but the Sheriff’s Department needs to make additional reforms to better protect the community and save taxpayer dollars.
A federal court has approved the $1.5 million settlement agreement the Southern Poverty Law Center reached on behalf of more than 1,500 guestworkers owed back wages by an Arkansas agricultural company. The settlement is one of the largest agreements ever reached against a single employer of foreign guestworkers.
There’s no shortage of tragic stories about the dangers of holding children and teens in adult jails. The Southern Poverty Law Center recently filed a lawsuit in Florida that described horrendous abuse at the Polk County Jail – an adult jail where children as young as 8 years old can be detained.
The SPLC is calling for the reinstatement of a Michigan teacher who was fired recently for helping students organize a fundraiser for the family of Trayvon Martin, the teen who was fatally shot in a Florida neighborhood earlier this year.
The U.S. Department of Justice has advised the Southern Poverty Law Center that it will investigate discrimination against students with disabilities in the Georgia public school system. The decision by the department’s Civil Rights Division follows an SPLC complaint filed with the Department of Justice in November.
The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal lawsuit against Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin N. Gusman today, charging the Louisiana sheriff’s indifference has created brutal and inhumane conditions at the Orleans Parish Prison where prisoners endure rampant violence, multiple sexual assaults and neglect.
Tuscaloosa County Schools will allow its lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students to attend prom with same-sex dates. The school district also has recognized the right of students to wear clothing with slogans expressing acceptance of LGBT people.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and more than 100 of the nation’s civil rights and faith groups joined in filing a brief with the Supreme Court this week to oppose Arizona’s anti-immigrant law. Arizona’s controversial S.B. 1070 is scheduled to come up for Supreme Court review in April.
I was in court with Barbara Anderson Young this week when three of the white teens who beat, ran over and killed her brother last June in a Mississippi parking lot pleaded guilty to murder and hate crimes. Those three now face life sentences in prison.
George Zimmerman appears to have concluded that young Trayvon Martin was "suspicious" based on nothing more than his race and the fact that Trayvon was walking in Zimmerman's neighborhood. Sadly, such assumptions are made about black youth every day. And they play out in a million disastrous ways.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) filed a federal lawsuit against Polk County, Florida Sheriff Grady Judd for regularly subjecting children held at the county’s adult jail to abuse, neglect and violence - including the placement of children in a cage for punishment.
The SPLC’s case against the Klansmen responsible for the savage beating of a Latino teen concluded with a victory when the Kentucky Supreme Court refused to reconsider a verdict against the former leader of the Imperial Klans of America.
Minnesota’s largest school district has agreed to adopt a wide-ranging plan to protect LGBT students from bullying and harassment, in a settlement that will resolve an SPLC lawsuit.
Latinos in Alabama have experienced harassment, hardship and discrimination, regardless of their immigration status, as a result of the state’s anti-immigrant law, HB 56, and the xenophobic climate it has created, according to a report released today by the SPLC.
Tracey Cooper-Harris served for 12 years in the U.S. Army and received multiple commendations. But because she’s in a marriage with a person of the same sex, the government refuses to grant her the same disability benefits as heterosexual veterans.
With a new year upon us, many state legislatures across the country will be convening. Some may attempt to follow in the steps of Alabama by passing harsh, anti-immigrant legislation. Before they do, they should remember Alabama.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, in cooperation with Mississippi attorney Winston J. Thompson III, filed a wrongful death lawsuit today on behalf of the family of a black man who was viciously beaten in a motel parking lot and then fatally run over.
