06/10 11:30 am
16th Annual Law Luncheon
Top Stories From the ACLU of Southern California
Costa Mesa Backs Off
Within days of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, MALDEF and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, on March 2, 2010 the City of Costa Mesa halted enforcement of its anti-solicitation ordinance. The suit was brought on behalf of day laborers represented by the Asociacion de Jornaleros de Costa Mesa and the Colectivo Tonantzin.
State/LAUSD "Decimating" Teaching Staffs of 3 Schools
Massive teacher layoffs at three Los Angeles Unified School District middle schools have deprived thousands of students at Gompers, Liechty, and Markham middle schools of their legal right to an education consistent with prevailing statewide standards, a team of civil rights attorneys said in a class-action lawsuit filed Feb. 24, 2010.
Pictured: Concepciona Manuel-Flores, 7th grader, Markham middle school.
Ramona Ripston Announces Retirement
ACLU/SC Executive Director Ramona Ripston, for decades one of the region’s most respected and outspoken voices on civil rights and civil liberties issues ranging from education and police reform to privacy, freedom of speech, and the rights of immigrants and homeless people, announced today that she will step down from the post she has held for 38 years.
ACLU/SC Expands Death Penalty Opposition
The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California has hired the first Southern California-based professional organizer in at least a decade to be devoted solely to death penalty issues in California.
“This move comes as the ACLU/SC and its partner ACLU affiliates in Northern California and San Diego ratchet up their longtime campaign to end the death penalty,” said Ramona Ripston, ACLU/SC executive director. “The evidence is accumulating that the system of state-sanctioned killing is expensive, biased and error prone.”
James Clark, a former coordinator of Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, will undertake a major organizing effort aimed at raising awareness among the public and legislators that the death penalty is costly, unjust, ineffective as a crime deterrent and inhumane.
Hector Villagra Appointed ACLU/SC Legal Director
This Feb. 9, 2010 statement is from Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California:
It gives me great pleasure and pride to announce that Hector Villagra has been appointed as the new legal director of the ACLU of Southern California. Hector truly embodies what the ACLU/SC is all about: he combines agile and incisive legal thinking with deep compassion, tenaciousness and an unswerving dedication to the causes of civil liberties and civil rights.
Suit Challenges Costa Mesa Ordinance
MALDEF, the ACLU of Southern California and the National Day Laborer’s Organizing Network (NDLON) have filed a lawsuit challenging the City of Costa Mesa’s anti-solicitation ordinance as unconstitutional. The civil rights groups say ordinance violates day laborers’ First Amendment rights.
The Feb. 2, 2010 lawsuit was filed against the City of Costa Mesa on behalf of the Asociacion de Jornaleros de Costa Mesa and the Colectivo Tonantzin, whose members have been restricted from peaceably expressing their need and availability for employment in the city’s public areas due to the ordinance.
Ensure California's Redistricting Commission Is Diverse!
Right now, California residents can take a lead role in drawing the boundaries for our state Senate, Assembly and Board of Equalization districts. Everyday people from throughout the state, rather than only politicians, will have the power to participate in the redistricting process. The application deadline is Feb. 16.
Click here to read a personal message from Ramona Ripston about why it's important for you to step up and act as the voice of your community.
Rain Or Shine, We All Need Health Care Reform
Join us 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 23 at Cliníca Romero in Los Angeles (2032 Marengo St., 90033) to rally for health care reform!
Your help is needed now to fight for the passage of health care reform. In light of this Tuesday’s Massachusetts election and the media narrative stating that health care reform is dead, the future of health care reform hangs in the balance. But the need for increased access to health coverage has not changed due to one election race (14,000 people in this country lose their health coverage daily, millions more have coverage that fails them when they need it most, people are denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions) and the public still supports meaningful reform and taking reform efforts to the finish line.
Speak Out Against Lethal Injections in California!
The State of California is preparing to adopt an execution procedure so inhumane that we would not use it to put an animal to sleep. In addition to being scientifically unsound and inhumane, the new execution protocols would discriminate against women, interfere with religious freedom and the right to counsel, and are unfair to the family members of people about to be executed. We must send objections to the new lethal injection regulations before 5 p.m. on January 20. Please take action now to stop these unjust policies from being adopted.
LA County Fails to Educate Probation Camp Youth
An alliance of legal groups today filed a ground-breaking, class-action lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Probation Department and top county education officials for their total failure to provide youth in the county’s largest juvenile probation camp with basic and appropriate education, thereby denying them the legally mandated rehabilitative program that should prepare them to reenter society and the work force.
The suit, filed in United States District Court in Los Angeles, charges that county personnel -- including administrators and teachers at the Challenger Memorial Youth Center in Lancaster -- have in some instances thrown worksheets under the door of students’ cells in lieu of classroom instruction, denied all education services when children ask for help or to use the restroom, and systematically denied students access to appropriate instruction and the required minimum school day.
"Our months-long investigation has uncovered a scandal of dimensions that would make Dickens shudder," said Mark Rosenbaum, ACLU/SC legal director.
Listen to one of the youth describe his experiences at Challenger.
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Criminal Justice
Report: Racial Profiling and the LAPD: Reform & Resistance
Economic Justice
Suit Against Santa Monica for Throwback Treatment of Disabled Homeless
Educational Equality
Get Help Fixing California's Broken Classrooms
Immigrant Rights
Court: Special Order 40 Stands
Jails Project
Jails Project Helps LA County Inmates and Families
LGBT Equality
Prop 8: Focusing on the Wrong Question
Religious Liberty
Blocking Faith, Freezing Charity
