By Kitty Williams | Associate Editor
The Southern Poverty Law Center is a new club on campus with a focus on civil rights. It aims to make students aware of issues that are going on around the world and encourages them to take action and use their voice to make a change.
Topics of discussion range from election issues to police brutality. Skyla Hudson, the club’s president here on campus, says that their advisor, Dr. Laura O’Toole, thinks it is important to “Pop the Salve bubble.” In other words, students should think on a larger scale, not just in the Salve community.
Right now, they are focusing on a very important issue: the 2016 Presidential Election. At their meetings, they have been discussing the issues brought up in this election and fact checking claims made by candidates in an effort to, as Hudson says, “clarify their own beliefs and values.”
They are also stressing the importance of voter registration. “For a lot of people on college campuses, it’s their first time voting in such a big election,” says Hudson, “and that’s something that we want people to really value.”
SPLC has voter registration tables set up in Miley in partnership with SGA. The club is very new and small in comparison to others, so they decided to partner with other clubs in order to accomplish their goals.
This club is part of a larger national organization. Hudson says that she and others came up with the idea to bring this club to Salve after seeing the club in Birmingham, Alabama on a Civil Rights Bus Tour last spring break.
The process of beginning the club began that same spring and they were up and running by the start of this school year. The club has around fifteen members at the moment.
Members of Southern Poverty Law Center meet every other Tuesday from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Students are encouraged to get involved by attending meetings, volunteering to work at voter registration tables, or the “United Not Divided” police brutality panel that will take place in November.
The e-board always welcomes students who want to learn more about the club. Hudson says, “I want to see it grow and strengthen, even once I graduate.”
