A federal appeals court today blocked key provisions of Alabama and Georgia's anti-immigrant laws sending a strong message to Alabama and other states that they cannot enact hate-filled laws to try to drive people from their borders.
More than a year ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center described in a federal lawsuit how students in Alabama’s Mobile County public schools are suspended for minor infractions for months at a time without the constitutionally required notice and hearing.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies are demanding that Alabama’s attorney general ensure the state adheres to last week’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down most of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law.
The Southern Poverty Law Center announced today that Alabama’s Jefferson County Board of Education abolished its unlawful policy banning male students from wearing earrings – a policy that discriminated on the basis of sex and violated students’ free-speech rights.
The Southern Poverty Law Center re-launched a hotline today for people to report problems and abuses they have experienced as a result of Alabama’s draconian anti-immigrant law. Alabamians are urged to share their stories about the state’s anti-immigrant law and learn more about changes to the law by calling 1-800-982-1620.
Alabama lawmakers just can’t help themselves. When the legislature convened this year, its members had an opportunity to repair the damage the state’s harsh anti-immigrant law had inflicted across Alabama.Promises were made. Changes were supposedly in the works.
As the school year draws to a close, the SPLC salutes just a few of the students this year who fought the good fight, challenging homophobia and gender discrimination in their schools.
"Today is an incredibly dark day for Alabama. Despite the fact that our state has suffered incredibly over the past year as a result of HB56, the Alabama legislature and Governor Bentley have chosen to double down by passing and signing into law an even more extreme measure. While other states have abandoned similar measures and even recalled the sponsors of such measures, Alabama has once again made a name for itself as the worst of the worst."
Rather than take steps to correct the humanitarian crisis created by Alabama’s anti-immigrant law, the state legislature appears poised to pass another law as ill conceived as its predecessor.
The Southern Poverty Law Center sent a letter today to the Jefferson County Board of Education in Alabama demanding that the board repeal a policy banning male students from wearing earrings or potentially face a federal lawsuit.
