The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal class action lawsuit today against the Jackson Public School District in Mississippi for allowing an alternative school to shackle and handcuff students for hours at a time as punishment for school uniform violations and other minor infractions.
Students at Jackson Public School District’s Capital City Alternative School have regularly been disciplined for minor infractions, such as not wearing a belt or for wearing mismatched shoelaces, by being shackled for hours at a time to a fixed object. The lawsuit was filed after Jackson Public Schools refused to respond to a demand letter requesting that the school district end these practices.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and Disability Rights Mississippi (DRMS) have filed an emergency motion with a federal court to stop officials at a Jackson, Miss., juvenile detention center from blocking attorneys and advocates from meeting with youths held at the abusive facility.
The Southern Poverty Law Center today urged the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to reassess the resources it devotes to investigating non-Islamic domestic extremism. The request came as the SPLC published an interview with a former top DHS analyst who charged that the department effectively dismantled the unit he once headed following the political right’s unjustified criticism of a 2009 report on right-wing terrorism.