Controversy over a proposed Islamic cultural center in New York City appears to have stoked an increase in hate crimes and other bias incidents directed at Muslims in America, according to congressional testimony submitted today by Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen.
The notion of birthright citizenship guaranteed by the 14th Amendment is once again a flash point in our volatile debate over immigration. Derided as "anchor babies" and even "terror babies," the children of today's undocumented immigrants are under attack by a coalition of state lawmakers backed by the nativist lobby.
A congressional delegation led by U.S. Rep. John Lewis laid a wreath at the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery to honor the men and women who sacrificed their lives during the civil rights movement. About 300 people took part in the solemn ceremony on March 5.
The Southern Poverty Law Center will host a live webcast with Richard Cohen and Mark Potok on Wednesday, March 2.
A Minnesota school district’s curriculum policy instructs teachers to remain “neutral” on matters regarding sexual orientation, but that’s not what’s been happening.
A year ago, we introduced a new school curriculum, Civil Discourse in the Classroom and Beyond, with this urgent call: "There is a pressing need to change the tenor of public debate from shouts and slurs to something more reasoned." The tragedy in Tucson this weekend reminds us that it's a call that politicians and pundits would do well to heed.
A guest on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” on Dec. 21 made a number of inaccurate references to recent articles published by the Southern Poverty Law Center on the activities of organizations opposed to the equal-rights efforts of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender Americans. Unfortunately, those statements were allowed to stand unchallenged. I would like to set the record straight.
Congressional repeal of the U.S. military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, which will allow gay men and lesbians to serve in the armed forces without having to hide their orientation, has set off waves of condemnation among anti-gay opponents who predict all measure of doom and disaster for the military and America. Yet it serves us well to recall a decision that put an end to another unjust policy steeped in fear and prejudice rather than fact and logic.
The Family Research Council (FRC), a hate group that spreads demonizing lies about gay men and lesbians, claims that it’s simply a pro-family organization. But don’t gay men and lesbians have families, too?
