Because the city of Santa Monica has stopped using vaguely worded camping ordinances as a pretext to round up homeless people, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP have agreed to drop a lawsuit against the city over its homeless policies, the legal team announced today. Among the provisions of the settlement are that no one should be forced out of his or her community simply for being homeless; that all communities need to provide a reasonable amount of shelter beds and serves; and public safety personnel must be adequately trained to interact with homeless people.

“As a result of Santa Monica’s de facto policy of criminalizing the mentally ill homeless, we filed suit -- similar to our successful lawsuits in Los Angeles, Laguna Beach and Santa Barbara -- in an attempt to get the city to direct its efforts to eliminate homelessness, not the homeless,” said Mark Rosenbaum, chief counsel for the ACLU/SC. “Almost immediately after our filing against Santa Monica, we documented that the practice of using the city’s vague anti-camping ordinance to harass the homeless had ceased, and that therefore the objective of the litigation had been met.

“We continue to monitor the city’s response, and are gratified that this primary tool of enforcement has, for all intents and purposes, ended. We are pleased to announce public settlement of the case, and commend the city of Santa Monica for its decision to no longer use its ordinance to criminalize poverty and mental illness,” Rosenbaum said.

The lawsuit, filed in July 2009, cited egregious examples of how Santa Monica used its police officers to harass and intimidate homeless residents. Among them was the case of a paranoid schizophrenic woman who reported seeing flying saucers. Santa Monica police arrested and jailed her multiple times for sleeping on the sidewalk when she had no home. Police also arrested a recovering addict for sleeping outside a shelter that didn’t have sufficient available beds that night. The man carried with him a bible, an Alcoholics Anonymous book and work clothes. He begged officers to release him so as to not endanger his job, but he was arrested and released two days later. He subsequently lost his employment.

“The city said on its own website that it gave chronically homeless people a stark, unconstitutional choice: get into treatment facilities or leave,” said Jonathan Altman, an attorney with Munger, Tolles. “We urge the city to focus its efforts away from criminalization and toward constructive supportive services aimed at eliminating homelessness, not the homeless.”

As part of the agreement, the ACLU/SC and Munger, Tolles released a joint statement with the city of Santa Monica, which outlines core principles that the ACLU/SC believes are fundamental to protecting the basic rights of the chronically homeless, many of whom suffer mental or physical disabilities and have been homeless repeatedly or for a sustained period of time.

A key portion of the settlement agreement reads as follows:

In agreeing that the lawsuit should end, the parties confirm their ongoing commitment to the following mutual principles in addressing homeless issues:

Joint Statement of Mutual Principles:

1. All communities need to provide a reasonable amount of shelter beds and services;
2. No one should be forced out of any community because he or she is homeless;
3. Merely sleeping and homeless status should not be crimes anywhere;
4. Communities need to engage in outreach to their most vulnerable; and,
5. Public safety personnel must be adequately trained.

The ACLU of Southern California’s Chief Counsel, Mark Rosenbaum, will testify before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on the unconstitutionality of Arizona’s AB 1070. The board is set to vote today on whether to support a boycott of Arizona in response to the new law requiring that police demand "papers" from people they stop and suspect are not authorized to be in the U.S.

The ACLU of Southern California does not take a stand on the boycott but supports every American’s right to take a principled position as a matter of conscience. The ACLU has voiced vehement opposition to the law and with a coalition of civil rights groups is challenging the extreme law, charging it invites racial profiling, violates the First Amendment and interferes with federal law.

The ACLU/SC has a long history of fighting such discriminatory laws and policies in Southern California. In Los Angeles, the ACLU/SC successfully fought off challenges to the LAPD’s Special Order 40, which prohibits police officers from using immigration status to initiate investigations. And it was Mr. Rosenbaum’s arguments before the U.S. District Court and his aid in negotiations with then Gov. Gray Davis that helped seal the demise of Proposition 187, a 1994 California voter-backed ballot measure that prohibited undocumented immigrants from accessing education, health care and social services.

The following statement can be attributed to Mr. Rosenbaum:

“The linchpin of this policy and scheme is the requirement, now carved into Arizona state law, that job one of local police is to investigate and determine who may remain in the United States and to make unlawful immigration status and alien registration a matter of state criminal law. This is a system which trades on racial stereotypes, turning skin color, accent and ethnicity of neighborhood into presumptive indicia of criminal conduct under state law, rather than evidence of the rich and nourishing diversity of our American experiment we know them to be. It foments racial antagonisms this board has sought so successfully to remove from our community.”

School Districts Have Flexibility in Making Layoffs in Order to Provide Equal Education to All, Ruling Says

Saying that the state’s education code allows school districts flexibility in laying off teachers in order to comply with constitutional requirements to provide equal education to all students, a Superior Court judge granted an injunction today that prevents the Los Angeles Unified School District from laying off teachers at Gompers, Liechty and Markham middle schools this year. The three schools, which primarily serve low-income students and students of color, saw their teaching corps disproportionately decimated by a round of budget-driven layoffs last year, causing their education efforts to fall below the state constitutional guarantee that all students will receive a basic education consistent with prevailing statewide standards.

“The Education Code expressly allows a school district to deviate from… seniority for… purposes of maintaining or achieving compliance with constitutional requirements related to equal protection of the laws,” said the ruling from Judge William F. Highberger.

“'Today's landmark decision carries on the ideals of Brown v. Board of Education that no child may be deprived of the right to learn,” said Mark Rosenbaum, chief counsel for the ACLU of Southern California. “The injunction granted by a conscientious and courageous judge establishes the principle that government may not deny children their right to equal educational opportunity by disproportionately laying off teachers in communities such as Watts and Pico-Union. The children of Linda Brown are smiling.”

“Today’s decision gives hope back to Watts and East Los Angeles that their kids count every bit as much as students everywhere else,” said Catherine Lhamon, director of impact litigation at Public Counsel Law Center. “We celebrate this historic victory for equal rights and look forward to beginning the work to ensure that no students will suffer in future.”

The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU of Southern California, Public Counsel Law Center and the law firm of Morrison & Foerster LLP, on behalf of students at the three schools.