Twelve years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center stopped participating in the Montgomery, Ala., United Way campaign because the organization chose to fund the Boy Scouts of America despite its policy of excluding LGBT people from its ranks.
A homeless U.S. Army veteran sought to attend federally funded job training courses at a ministry in North Carolina but discovered she wasn't allowed to attend courses offered to men. Instead, she was offered training in such things as knitting, art therapy and yoga. The SPLC filed a discrimination complaint of behalf of her and other female veterans.
Foreign guestworkers are routinely cheated out of wages, forced to mortgage their futures to obtain low-wage, temporary jobs and held virtually captive by employers. Now, new U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) regulations that will help protect guestworkers from exploitation as well as protect job opportunities for U.S. workers are under attack by some federal lawmakers.
The face of America is changing. In 40 years, the United States will become a minority-majority nation – a remarkable milestone for a country that already boasts one of the most religiously, ethnically and racially diverse societies in the world.
Ten years ago today, William Luther Pierce, the founder and leader of what for three decades was the most important hate group in America, died unexpectedly. Now, a decade after Pierce’s death, the National Alliance, which was once revered on the international radical right as a serious and effective organization, is a shadow of its former self — a joke on the larger neo-Nazi scene that is led by a man who has lost the respect of his former followers.
At a time when the nation’s schools are becoming more segregated, teachers and students across the country have an opportunity to show the rest of the world they’re committed to challenging these boundaries by registering for Teaching Tolerance’s Mix It Up at Lunch Day.
Wendy Ruiz has lived in Florida her entire life. She graduated from a Florida public high school and enrolled at Miami Dade College. But because she can’t prove the federal immigration status of her parents, she must pay out-of-state tuition, which can more than triple the cost of a college education in Florida.
Ceara Sturgis and her same-sex partner, Emily, have a simple wish: They want their family and friends to attend their commitment ceremony at the Mississippi Agriculture & Forestry Museum. But the state-owned museum’s unlawful policy of refusing to rent its facilities to same-sex couples for commitment and wedding ceremonies threatens to deny that wish.
It was supposed to be a reminder of one of the most special days shared by Brian Edwards and Tom Privitere – their engagement photo. The black-and-white photograph shows the two men kissing with the New York City skyline in the background. The picture was one of several that Edwards posted on his blog to allow friends and family unable to attend the couple’s wedding to share their joy. But what was supposed to be a symbol of the life-long commitment between two people in love was hijacked by an anti-gay hate group.
The Southern Poverty Law Center commended the U.S. State Department today for its changes to rules regulating the department’s J-1 Summer Work Travel Program as a step in the right direction.
