Thread: SPLC sues Alabama Department of Education over enrollment records

2:09 PM, Oct. 9, 2012

Written by
Brian Lyman
Montgomery Advertiser

The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Alabama Department of Education, seeking access to records the organization says shows the impact of a school reporting provision in the state’s immigation law.

The SPLC is seeking data the Alabama Department of Education supplied to U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, tracing student enrollment in a two-week period between September 29, 2011 and October 14, 2011. During that time, a section of the law requiring schools to gather data on the immigration status of enrolling students was in effect.

Under the law, students were required to provide a birth certificate or a statement of their immigration status to a school district. After issuing an injunction against the section last year, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last August that the provision violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The state of Alabama is seeking a review of the decision.

The Civil Rights Division requested the information near the end of 2011, saying the law might “chill or discourage” Hispanic students from attending school. In May, Perez sent a letter saying the law could “implicate” the 1964 Civil Rights Act, saying numbers supplied by the state and gleaned from interviews conducted by the Department showed 13.4 percent of Hispanic students withdrew from public schools between September, 2011 and February, 2012. According to Perez, the data also showed Hispanic absence rates during that period triple those of white and black students.

SPLC said in a statement they had requested the data through a Freedom of Information act request, which the department has not yet acted on. The SPLC said the specific data was needed to “better understand the education crisis” created by the reporting requirement.

“If the Department of Justice is saying it had this dramatic impact, we’d like to see the numbers that back that up,” said Sam Brooke, an attorney with SPLC.

Michael Sibley, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of Education, did not have an immediate comment Tuesday. The lawsuit says ALDOE cited concerns about an ongoing Justice Department investigation, SPLC’s representation of plaintiffs in a suit seeking to overturn the immigration law and potential violations of the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

Brooke said the SPLC could not comment on the possibility of further lawsuits based on the data until they saw it.

One Old Vet

SPLC sues Alabama Department of Education over enrollment records | The Montgomery Advertiser | montgomeryadvertiser.com

Perhaps it is time for the Alabama Department of Revenue to start looking closely at the funding and financial networks associated with the SPLC. Just my humble opinion.