Southern Legal Resource Center

The Southern Legal Resource Center (SLRC) is a non-profit foundation which offers legal support to victims of discrimination or other averse actions related to Southern Heritage.

History

The SLRC was founded in 1998 by a group of four attorneys: Carl A. Barrington (deceased), Kirk Lyons, Larry Norman, and Lourie A. Salley, III. Lyons was appointed Chief Trial Counsel, a position he still holds, and Salley became the firm's first Board Chairman. The organization is a registered South Carolina corporation with its executive offices in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

The SLRC scored an early victory in 1999 when it successfully sued a Greenville, South Carolina, private academy on behalf of Dr. Winston McCuen, a teacher at the school who had been fired for refusing to remove a Confederate flag that was part of a classroom historical display. The SLRC also undertook cases on behalf of Federal Aviation Administration workers in Florida, utility company employees in South Carolina and workers at a DuPont plant in Virginia (the "DuPont Seven"). Its most significant victory to date has been "Castorina v. Madison County Schools", in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 2001 overturned a federal district court's ruling in favor of a Kentucky school board's ban on student displays of Confederate symbols, and remanded the case for further proceedings. [cite court
litigants =Castorina v. Madison County Schools |vol= |reporter= |opinion= |pinpoint= |court=6th Cir.|date=2001|url=http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=6th&navby=docket&no=01a0064p] In 2006 the "Castorina" decision led to an out-of-court award of damages for Jacqueline Duty, an SLRC client who had sued her own school board after she was barred from attending her high school prom in a Confederate flag-patterned evening gown.

It has drawn extensive fire from organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which has frequently attacked the SLRC by citing Lyons' pre-SLRC defense of some controversial right-wing figures such as Aryan Nations members and Tom Metzger. [cite news | url=http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=251 | title=In the Lyons Den: Kirk Lyons, a white supremacist lawyer whose clients have been a 'Who's Who' of the radical right | publisher=Southern Poverty Law Center |date= Summer 2000 | first= | last= | accessdate =2007-08-17] In addition the SPLC has called Southern Legal's fundraising practices deceitful citing, for example, "the SLRC Web site detailed two disputes under a headline that read "Cases Pending," implying that the SLRC represented the parties involved. In both cases, the plaintiff's families say Lyons actually did very little for them." [cite news | url=http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=26|title=Cashing in on the Confederacy|publisher=Southern Poverty Law Center|date=Spring 2003|first= | last= |accessdate =2007-08-17]

The SPLC also criticized Lyons tie to Deborah Davila's FBI espionage case. [cite news|url=http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=26|title=Spy vs. Spy: Kirk Lyons, linked by the FBI to a bizarre espionage case|publisher=Southern Poverty Law Center|date=Spring 2003|first= |last= |accessdate =2007-08-17]

In 2004 the SLRC hired advertising executive and Southern activist Roger McCredie as its full-time Executive Director. Under McCredie the organization doubled the size of its Board of Directors, increased its advertising program and undertook an ambitious five-year growth and development plan.Fact|date=May 2007

References

External links

* [http://www.slrc-csa.org/site/ Official website]
* [http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=251 "In the Lyons Den: Despite his extremism, Kirk Lyons, a white supremacist lawyer whose clients have been a 'Who's Who' of the radical right, is becoming the attorney for the neo-Confederate movement"] , SPLC, Summer 2000
* [http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=26 "Cashing in on the Confederacy: A North Carolina legal group calls itself the leading advocate for 'Confederate Americans.' Its dismal record suggests otherwise"] by Heidi Beirich and Mark Potok, SPLC, Spring 2003
* [http://spofga.org/flag/2004/dec/prom_dress_lawsuit.phtml Kentucky Division SCV webpage on Confederate Gown lawsuit] (with photographs)