Five black youths accused of beating a white high school student in Jena, La., amid racial tension sparked by nooses hung on the high school campus, have pleaded no contest to misdemeanor simple battery charges as part of an agreement to resolve a case that sparked a massive civil rights protest on their behalf.
The United States may be faltering as an economic powerhouse, but we're still No. 1 in one important category: locking people up. With one out of every 100 adults behind bars, we're ahead of China, Rwanda, Cuba and every other country. Our prisoner population has nearly tripled over the past two decades.
The SPLC today released a blueprint for reducing Louisiana's alarming student and teacher dropout rates as part of an ongoing effort to improve the state's schools. The state's high school dropout rate is among the worst in the country.
This report outlines a research-based approach to school discipline that reduces student and teacher dropout rates while improving academic performance and the overall climate in Louisiana schools.
Children held at the Harrison County Juvenile Detention Center in Mississippi endured squalid conditions and horrific physical and mental abuse that violated their civil rights. They were forced to endure shackling, physical assaults by staff, confinement to vermin-infested cells and overcrowded, unsanitary conditions that resulted in widespread contraction of scabies and staph infections. The detention center also failed to provide children with adequate medical and mental health care during their confinement. The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal class action lawsuit that resulted in a settlement agreement to protect children and teens detained at the center from abuse and neglect.
The Southern Poverty Law Center today filed a federal class action suit to stop the "shockingly inhumane" treatment of children at a juvenile detention center and to force officials to provide sanitary facilities and mental health treatment to young people confined there.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is encouraging school districts across the country to use federal stimulus money to establish Positive Behavior Supports (PBS) in their schools — an innovative approach to discipline that reduces student misbehavior and improves achievement and attendance.
Students with learning disabilities in Kentucky's second-largest school district have been subjected to harsh discipline but have been routinely denied the services they need to succeed in school, according to a complaint supported by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In one of the largest settlements involving federal education law for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities, school officials in Palm Beach County, Fla., have agreed to boost the counseling and psychological services needed to help these students succeed in the classroom.
By the time Joe Bates finished middle school in 2004, he had fallen years behind his classmates. His struggle with asthma was just one of his problems. He also had learning disabilities that had been ignored by his school.
