Today, communities around the world remember those whose lives have been unjustly ended by ignorance and hate. And everyday, we honor them with our relentless spirit in the struggle for transgender civil rights.

Since the 1960s, the ACLU of Southern California has recognized itself as an LGBT rights organization, whose mission includes the advancement of transgender and gender non-conforming civil rights.

In 1967, we challenged Los Angeles’s ordinance that barred performers from “impersonating” people of a different gender. We won. In 1980, we embraced transgender struggles as our own and established the Transsexual Rights Committee. And earlier this year, we helped pass state law that gives transgender students the opportunity to succeed in public schools. See our timeline for more ACLU transgender rights victories.

Today, under the auspices of our new LGBT, Gender & Reproductive Justice Project, we are working hard to expand transgender rights by focusing on:

• Creating safe and bias-free schools for transgender youth.
• Enforcing laws that prohibit gender identity and gender expression discrimination, with particular regard to access to gender-segregated facilities and health care.
• Ensuring transgender people are treated with dignity and that their gender identity is respected when interacting with law enforcement or when incarcerated.

Transgender Day of Remembrance is about reflection and renewal. We remember our family members, friends and neighbors and reaffirm our commitment to justice in their name.

Joey Hernández is community engagement and policy advocate at the ACLU of Southern California. Follow ACLU SoCal on Twitter.

Learning takes time. Time to grasp. Time to practice. Time to allow yourself to make mistakes and improve on the next try. One of the critical struggles educators face is finding a way to teach students new skills and concepts in a short amount of time.

As a recent study by UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access found, this challenge is even more daunting for teachers at high-poverty schools.

The study's key finding is that public school students in California have “markedly different amounts of instructional time depending on the neighborhoods in which they live.”

Because of the constant interruptions, delays and routines at high-poverty schools, students that attend these schools lose roughly 30 minutes of instruction per day when compared to their counterparts at low-poverty schools. And they lose nearly ten additional days each year due to the issues with teacher absences, emergency lockdowns and preparation for standardized tests. That's two weeks less to learn, practice and improve throughout each school year.

This study reinforces the core premise of Cruz v. State of California, a lawsuit the ACLU of Southern California filed earlier this year with Public Counsel, and the law firms Carlton Fields Jorden Burt and Arnold & Porter LLP—that learning time matters. The UCLA study also confirms that this is a statewide problem requiring state-level solutions, as we argue in Cruz.

Last month, as a result of the lawsuit, a judge ordered the State of California and state education officials to intervene to stem the loss of learning time at Jefferson High School in Los Angeles. This important victory showed that California courts see the loss of learning as unacceptable. It also confirmed that the state is ultimately responsible for ensuring that students have an equal chance to succeed in school, no matter the neighborhood they live in.

The UCLA study's findings provide even more evidence that the state—like so many of its students at high-poverty schools—has run out of time. California leaders must act now to create systems that catch and correct the major education disparities facing students who attend high-poverty schools.

David Sapp is director of education advocacy with the ACLU of California. Follow ACLU SoCal on Twitter.

By Chris Conley, @manconley

“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”

The saying has been around for decades, but it has never been truer in an era where technology so often seems to promise something for nothing. Dig deeper, and you’ll usually find there’s a hidden cost — and it could be one you’re not so happy to pay.

That’s why the ACLU of California has just released Making Smart Decisions about Surveillance: A Guide for Communities. It provides step-by-step assistance to help your community ask and answer the right questions about surveillance. It includes case studies from California and elsewhere highlighting smart approaches and missteps to avoid, as well as a model Surveillance & Community Safety Ordinance to ensure that public input, transparency and accountability are part of every discussion about surveillance technology.

Download the report (.pdf)

 

Unfortunately, too often that’s not the case. As our interactive map on the state of surveillance in California illustrates, while many communities have adopted some form of surveillance technology, there is little evidence that community members had or have the opportunity to debate its adoption or the resources to evaluate its impact. Even courts are sometimes left out of the loop, blocking their essential oversight function.

Because each community and each surveillance proposal may present a different set of issues, there is no one-size-fits-all answer as to whether surveillance is the right choice. The key to making a smart decision is to thoroughly assess every proposal with the benefit of input from the entire community. We’re delighted that San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian have announced plans to introduce ordinances in their communities to ensure that happens every time. We hope our guide and resources will also help your community make smart decisions about surveillance going forward.

Chris Conley is technology & civil liberties attorney at the ACLU of Northern California. Follow ACLU SoCal on Twitter.