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Caught a professional women's basketball game lately? Watched a woman biochemist talk about her work on TV? You're seeing some of the effects of Title IX, the federal law passed 35 years ago on June 23, 1972, to give female students equal access to education and athletic opportunities. Today, 2.95 million women athletes play competitive sports, compared to fewer than 300,000 in 1972.

The ACLU of Southern California has helped expand the promise of gender equity. In 2004, we supported a state bill to apply Title IX standards to city athletic programs. We also represented a teen mother who was removed from regular classes because of her child care needs and placed in low-quality "study hall." And we sued on behalf of a girls' softball league that played on substandard fields, while the boys' Little Leagues enjoyed top-notch fields nearby.

LOS ANGELES - The ACLU of Southern California and law firm Munger, Tolles and Olson LLP filed a federal class action lawsuit today to stop the government's policy of forcibly drugging people facing deportation. The suit was brought on behalf of two immigrants who were drugged against their will by U.S. officials and seeks an immediate end to the practice as well as damages for the two men.

'Our Constitution does not allow the government to treat immigrants like animals. Injecting people who are not mentally ill with psychotropic drugs is illegal, immoral, and medically inappropriate,' said ACLU/SC staff attorney Ahilan Arulanantham.

Federal officials have publicly admitted to forcibly injecting immigrants with powerful drugs in order to render them less 'agitated' for deportation. Yet detention standards from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) state that detainees may not be forcibly medicated if they are not mentally ill, simply for 'staff convenience.' Neither of the plaintiffs had any history of mental illness.

Raymond Soeoth, an Indonesian citizen and ordained Christian minister who came to the United States in 1999, is seeking political asylum. In December 2004, immigration officials planning to deport him from the San Pedro Detention Center brought him to a cell, held him down, and injected him with Haldol, an anti-psychotic drug that can be lethal to some patients. The drug was prescribed by a physician working for ICE who had not examined Soeoth.

Amadou Diouf, a native of Senegal who entered the U.S. in 1996 to study at the California State University at Northridge, is married to a U.S. citizen. Despite a federal court order barring his deportation, immigration officials scheduled him for deportation in February 2006. On board an airplane bound for Senegal at Los Angeles International Airport, officials pushed him to the ground and injected him with an unidentified psychotropic drug after he attempted to speak with the captain of the flight.

Both Diouf and Soeoth were released in February after approximately two years in an immigration jail, as the result of a separate ACLU/SC lawsuit challenging their prolonged detention. They remain in the U.S.

The lawsuit names the ICE personnel who conducted the druggings, as well as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other senior officials. The ACLU/SC's action also includes a Freedom of Information Act request to reveal how often such forcible druggings occur and under what circumstances.

LOS ANGELES - Pedro Guzman is still missing in Mexico, one week after a lawsuit was filed seeking government help in the search for the 29-year-old mentally impaired man illegally deported May 11. The ACLU of Southern California and law firm Van Der Hout, Brigagliano & Nightingale have asked that government agents assist in the search and request help from Mexican authorities, two steps the U.S. has so far refused to take.

In a court hearing Wednesday, a federal judge declined to order the U.S. to assist in the family's search. But in legal papers filed Friday, the dean of Yale Law School urged the court to order the government into action.

U.S. District Court Judge George King asked the government to respond by 2 p.m. today and indicated he may order a hearing.

Pedro Guzman's mother, brothers and sister-in-law returned to Tijuana last Friday to continue the search, now in its fifth week. The family distributed posters with a photo of Mr. Guzman and met with volunteers who work among Tijuana's homeless community. His mother, Maria Carbajal, remained there today.

Without immediate action from U.S. agents in Mexico, "Pedro Guzman will not be found," ACLU/SC legal director Mark Rosenbaum told the court last Wednesday. "It would be the right thing to do, it would be the moral thing to do," District Court Judge Dean Pregerson said.

The government admitted in court last Wednesday that Guzman is a U.S. citizen, which it had previously disputed. The judge asked that a "lookout," or missing persons report, sent to U.S. ports of entry and the U.S. consulate in Tijuana state that he is a citizen and mention his disability.

While the U.S. government has not actively joined the search, the Salvation Army has offered volunteers to assist the family. "The Salvation Army has done more for my family than the U.S. government," Pedro Guzman's younger brother Michael Guzman told reporters last week.