Criminalization of ordinary school misbehavior is not uncommon at the Jefferson Parish Public School System, located in the New Orleans suburbs. In fact, it’s the norm – and African-American students are disproportionately targeted for arrest. The ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ filed a federal civil rights complaint on behalf of four African-American students who faced mistreatment at the hands of police officers stationed in Jefferson Parish schools.
More than 1,500 guestworkers owed back wages by an Arkansas agricultural company will be paid a total of $1.5 million in a settlement with the ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ – one of the largest agreements ever reached against a single employer of foreign guestworkers.
The ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ has asked a federal court to force Jackson Public Schools to turn over key documents describing the practice of handcuffing students in an alternative school to a pole for hours at a time as punishment for minor infractions.
A retrospective of some of the Southern Poverty Law Center's work in 2011.
A federal district court today temporarily blocked major parts of South Carolina’s anti-immigrant law as a result of a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies challenging the law as unconstitutional.
A federal judge set a historic legal precedent by granting class action status to a human trafficking lawsuit involving more than 350 Filipino teachers – a decision likely to benefit countless other human trafficking victims in the future.
When students at Foley Elementary School in Alabama arrived for class one morning in late September, many of the Latino students were crying. It was the first day that portions of Alabama’s anti-immigrant law were in effect.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and other civil rights groups asked a federal judge today to block South Carolina’s anti-immigrant law from taking effect on Jan. 1 because it is unconstitutional, interferes with federal laws and would cause great harm in the state.
A polarized Congress seems unlikely to come to grips with the nation’s immigration issues in a comprehensive way any time soon, even as states like Alabama, Arizona and Georgia enact their own, unconstitutional laws to punish undocumented immigrants. Meanwhile, though, there is one federal enforcement proposal being floated that will do far more harm than good – by requiring prison time for virtually all immigration offenses.Â
The Southern Poverty Law Center urged the Department of Homeland Security today to end raids by federal immigration agents that have terrorized north Alabama families and that undermine federal efforts to protect the civil rights of the state’s Latino community in the wake of the state’s harsh new anti-immigrant law.Â
