During the 2020 property assessment cycle, the Orleans Parish assessor arbitrarily cut the value of large commercial properties – some by as much as 57% – citing the COVID-19 pandemic as a reason. As a result, he flouted his legal duty to assess properties at their fair market value. Despite...
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In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in two voting rights cases that threaten to weaken Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), which helps ensure voters and communities of color have equal access to the ballot and political participation. The SPLC and others urged the court...
As Georgia voters cast early ballots in the state’s January 2021 U.S. Senate runoff elections amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a Republican Party lawsuit was filed to, among other issues, close ballot drop boxes after business hours. The SPLC filed an amicus brief with other voting rights groups in...
After a historic legal settlement over abusive conditions facing incarcerated transgender people in Georgia prisons, Ashley Diamond, a Black transgender woman, re-entered the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) in 2019 only to encounter similar unconstitutional conditions, sparking a lawsuit...
After the sheriff of Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, failed to release public records about COVID-19 within the county jail, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit against the sheriff for violating the Alabama Open Records Act.
The lawsuit was filed four months after the...
In October 2020, the Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies filed a new challenge to the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which had forced over 60,000 asylum seekers into precarious, life-threatening situations in Mexico and deprived them of access to legal assistance and...
Alabama resident Angelique Harris attempted to register to vote over the course of several years but was unlawfully denied by her county registrars due to a failure of state law to clarify how out-of-state and federal felony convictions are to be treated for determining voting eligibility. The...
The Southern Poverty Law Center and its allies challenged the constitutionality of Mississippi’s burdensome absentee ballot requirements to ensure all voters have the opportunity to cast a ballot during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the November 2020 general election.
The federal...
The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of migrant workers who have faced rampant wage theft by a major farm labor contractor, Lowry Farms, Inc. The guest workers planted sugarcane on farms throughout Louisiana and received pay well below what was required under...
North Carolina required people with previous felony convictions to pay legal financial obligations before they could vote – a practice that disenfranchised thousands of people, predominately people of color. The law was challenged by North Carolinians with prior felony convictions and advocacy...
