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ACLU/SC’s Longtime Leader Ramona Ripston Honored At Ceremony Dedicating Building in Her Name

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa joined a diverse crowd of several hundred community leaders, government officials, activists, lawyers, judges and many more today at a poignant ceremony to honor Ramona Ripston, the longtime executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. The event culminated with the dedication of the ACLU/SC’s new 40,000-square-foot building downtown as the Ramona Ripston Center for Civil Liberties and Civil Rights.

“I am honored and of course very proud that this beautiful building will endure as the headquarters of the ACLU of Southern California for many years into the future,” Ripston said. “But I must tell you, there are many people whose hard work and dedication have made this organization a success. I would especially like to acknowledge our legal director, Mark Rosenbaum, who has worked shoulder to shoulder with me for many years to make the ACLU of Southern California the respected, dynamic and influential organization that it is.”

Ripston became the first woman to lead a major affiliate of the ACLU when she took over as executive director of the ACLU/SC in 1972. Under her leadership, the affiliate’s staff has grown from six to nearly 60, and the ACLU/SC has become a respected voice on crucial regional and national issues ranging from freedom of speech, racial equality and education to immigration, gay rights, homelessness and law-enforcement reform.

Mayor Villaraigosa – a former board president of the ACLU/SC – thanked Ripston for being a friend for 25 years “through thick and thin.” “This is a woman who is a passionate sentry…for liberty and justice,” he said. “We need her energy, we need her commitment, we need her energy and we need her passion.”

Among the other dignitaries who spoke in heartfelt tribute to Ripston at the building dedication ceremony were Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard; Congresswoman Jane Harman; Congresswoman Maxine Waters; Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky; Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca; Los Angeles City Councilman Ed Reyes; Los Angeles Police Department Chief William Bratton; Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union; Erwin Chemerinsky, the founding dean of the University of California, Irvine’s Donald Bren School of Law; Connie Rice, co-founder and co-director of the Advancement Project Los Angeles; and Maria Elena Durazo, the executive secretary/treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.

Others attending the ceremony included Assemblyman Mike Feuer; Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley; Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks; Los Angeles Police Commission President Anthony Pacheco; and Los Angeles Police Commissioners Andrea Ordin and Robert Saltzman.

Ripston also received proclamations recognizing her leadership and the dedication of the ACLU/SC’s headquarters in her name from Roybal-Allard, Yaroslavsky and Reyes as well as from Congressman Howard Berman, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, state Sen. Darrell Steinberg and Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine.

The Ramona Ripston Center for Civil Liberties and Civil Rights is owned by the ACLU/SC and was extensively remodeled before the organization’s staff moved in in April of this year. The ACLU/SC occupies the upper two floors of the building, which are connected by an atrium with a center stairway.

The offices feature graphic wall elements that underscore the organization’s celebrated history and mission, as well as Ramona Ripston’s influence. On the third floor, two floor-to-ceiling glass walls are covered with translucent graphics that commemorate U.S. and California Supreme Court decisions in cases in which the ACLU either represented plaintiffs or filed amicus briefs. Nearby, two more floor-to-ceiling glass walls are adorned with translucent graphics featuring wording from the Bill of Rights and other constitutional amendments.

Engraved on a second-floor wall is a quotation from a speech that Ramona gave at the ACLU/SC’s 2006 Bill of Rights dinner. The quotation reads in part: “What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to American ideals: to the Constitution, to the Bill of Rights, to principles like free speech, due process, fairness and equality. Those ideals are the heart of American identity.”

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