LOS ANGELES — The operator of a popular Central Valley high school football website will be allowed to cover this Friday's Division IV quarterfinal at Taft Union High School in Taft, California, after the ACLU of Southern California threatened to file a lawsuit on his behalf.

Derek Brown operates CVHSPreps.com, a website devoted to news, analysis, and statistics on high school football in the Central Valley. Brown was denied access to the sidelines of the football game by Taft school officials, who felt his website contained comments that portrayed some Taft coaches in a negative light.

"We're happy Mr. Brown will be able to cover the quarterfinal playoff game at Taft this Friday," said Peter Bibring, a staff attorney for the ACLU/SC. "Government officials cannot selectively exclude a reporter from open press areas just because they don't like the coverage."

School officials apparently objected not to content written by CVHSPrep staff, but to comments posted by the public in the "Community Forums" portion of the website. But in a letter to the ACLU sent this week, the school agreed to restore Brown's access to the Friday game.

"I'd never say anything against the school," Brown said. "But people get passionate when they talk about sports. We make sure everything on the site is family-friendly, but some of the comments still seemed to upset the coaches."

"I'm glad we've gotten our access back, so we can continue to provide the kind of comprehensive coverage our members and readers have come to expect," Brown continued.

Until a few weeks ago, Taft had consistently permitted Brown, along with other local newspaper and television reporters, to report and take pictures from the sidelines of Taft high school games. But on Oct. 20, Brown was escorted off the field and informed that no one from his web site would be allowed on the sidelines at future games due to the coaches' concerns with the website's content. Other media were permitted to remain on the field and cover the game as before.

"It's troubling that Taft wrongly kept Brown off the sidelines for two games," Bibring said. "But by restoring equal access, they've shown that CVHSPreps did nothing wrong in exercising their constitutional right to free speech and a free press."

LOS ANGELES — A Riverside police officer who faced racial discrimination and harassment prevailed in his six-year lawsuit against the city.

Roger Sutton, who is African American, was a 17-year veteran of the Riverside Police Department when he approached the ACLU/SC in 1999. After an incident in his K-9 unit he received unequal treatment, and when he objected, the department launched a campaign of harassment against him. Scott Silverman, a noted labor and employment attorney at Morrison & Foerster, took over the case from co-counsel ACLU/SC in 2000.

'I am relieved this is finally over,' said Sutton. 'Hopefully my case encourages the department to apply equal standards of justice to its officers and to not lash out at officers when they protest unfair treatment.'

'This case sends a message that Riverside police need to take racial discrimination and harassment seriously,' said Silverman. 'The leadership of the department treated him unfairly and then retaliated against him when he objected.'

In October 2005, a jury compensated Sutton for lost wages and medical expenses that totaled more than $140,000 and awarded him $1.5 million for emotional distress over the department's treatment of him. The Riverside Police Department then settled the suit rather than continue to pursue an appeal of the jury award. The settlement awarded Mr. Sutton the full amount of the jury verdict.

The ACLU/SC pursued reforms in the Riverside Police Department after the shooting of 19-year-old Tyisha Miller by four officers in December 1998. Miller, who was African American, apparently suffered a seizure while waiting in a locked car. Police shot her 27 times, killing her. The ACLU/SC and civil rights lawyer Constance L. Rice represented Officer Rene Rodriguez, who reported the Riverside Police Department's mishandling of the shooting.

Morrison & Foerster is one of California's largest law firms and took on this case as part of its long-standing commitment to important social and civil rights issues. For more information, visit www.mofo.com.

LOS ANGELES — A Kern County judge is expected to issue a court order today that will ensure that Bakersfield high school students are not wrongly censored and that student free speech rights in the district are preserved.

"Even though I'm in college now, I really wanted to make sure that future newspaper staffs could write about serious topics like sexual orientation in a meaningful way without worrying that they would be censored," said Maria Krauter, former editor-in-chief of The Kernal. "Now I know that's the case."

The final step comes a year and a half after the ACLU of Southern California and the law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP filed a lawsuit after student journalists and their interview subjects were prohibited from publishing a series in the East Bakersfield High School student newspaper, The Kernal, about sexual orientation and gender identity.

The agreement, which is signed by the ACLU/SC, Milbank and the Kern High School District and will be filed with Superior Court Judge Sidney P. Chapin today, affirms that 'all students have the right to exercise freedom of speech and of the press' and that school officials may turn to censorship only as a last resort.

It states: 'Prior to any restriction of student speech, school officials will consider all practical alternative options, and, where feasible, will implement any such practical alternative options instead of restricting the speech."

'This is a momentous day,' said Christine Sun, the ACLU/SC attorney who represented the six students and their co-plaintiff, the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, throughout the fight. 'From day one the students knew they had been wrongly censored and vowed to make sure this didn't happen to the next generation of Kern students. Under this policy, the students would not have been censored in the first place.'

Sun said that the legally-binding agreement came about as part of settlement discussions between the ACLU/SC and the District this fall. Part of the settlement included a change to district free speech policy, which the Kern High School District trustees drafted and approved in October.

'This consent decree is a victory for students' free speech rights and sets an important example for other school districts that school officials must take proactive steps to protect students from harassment and threats of violence before resorting to censorship of students' free speech,' said Carolyn Laub, executive director and founder of the Gay-Straight Alliance Network. Nearly 600 schools in California have Gay-Straight Alliance clubs.

Students originally sought to publish the articles in the second to last edition of the paper during the 2004-2005 academic year, but could not after the East High principal, citing vague threats to gay students, demanded the students pull the articles. The student journalists and their sources went to court seeking an order allowing them to publish the articles in the final edition of the paper.

The court denied the request, stating that more information about the district's reasons for censoring the articles was needed. Over the summer and fall school officials failed to produce evidence of their claims that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students would be harmed as a result of the publication of the articles.

The lawsuit also revealed the principal took no steps to inform those students' parents or the police officer assigned to the school of the alleged threats. In October 2005, the school relented and the articles were printed last November.

The students continued the lawsuit in order to obtain a policy that would prevent other students from being wrongfully censored, a goal that they achieved today with the consent decree.

Michael Diamond, Rick Baker and Jeff Goldman from Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP were co-counsel along with Sun and James Esseks of the ACLU LGBT and AIDS Project.