Nick Aten Professor Weins Interest Groups December 12, 2015 Southern Poverty Law Center The Southern Poverty Law Center is an interest group who fights for the rights of the most defenseless people in the U.S. They look to help the people in poverty, and also look for equality in all people. The look for all people of color to be treated the same, along with people of poverty to be treated just the same as people of the mid class. Southern Poverty Law Center mission statement is, “The Southern Poverty Law Center is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. Using litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy, the Center works toward the day when the ideals of equal justice …show more content…
For example, the SPLC was actually founded by civil rights lawyers in 1971. So the organization was founded on people who were willing to help people of poverty or people of colored in the court room. Not only were they willing to help, but they have the credentials to help these people also. Now, their mission is still helping people anyway possible, and they have lawyers that can help them do it. The SLPC is run by many civil rights lawyers now, so they run their own cases. When they find a case they believe someone has be wronged because of their skin color or the amount of currency they bring in, and they believe they can win, they take the case and fight for the people they believe deserves to have a fair shot. For example, they had a case where hundreds of guys from India were in a labor trafficking scheme engineered by a Gulf Coast marine services company, an immigration lawyer and an Indian labor recruiter lured hundreds of workers to a Mississippi shipyard with false promises of permanent U.S. residency. This case was handled by the SPLC and 5 guys received 14 million dollars because of the strong case put on by these civil rights lawyers, The SPLC handled this case because of the fact that these people were wronged because they were not U.S citizens and people thought they could take advantage of them. That’s just one example of the type of cases the SPLC take. Another example would be when a teenage boy was beaten by five members of the IKA. The IKA is similar to the KKK, and they set off looking for a black person the attack. The SPLC took the case, and the leader of the IKA was found guilty. He was order to pay the teenage boy 2.5 million dollars following the attack. So it is apparent that the SPLC take cases involving hate crimes against a certain race, or crimes that involve people getting taken advantage