LOS ANGELES - The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court today on behalf of public high school students who qualified for a statewide special admissions to the University of California program called "Enrollment in the Local Context" (ELC), but whose schools failed to sign up for the program. The lawsuit charges that the students' rights under the United States and California Constitutions were violated by the program's failure. The program, which takes effect this year for the first time, guarantees admission to the University of California to the students who rank in the top 4% of their class but relies on schools to complete the necessary paperwork and does not provide students any recourse if their schools fail to do so. In order to ensure that qualified students participate in the program, schools were required to submit to the University the transcripts of the top 10% of their junior year class; the University used this larger pool to determine the top 4%. One hundred and thirty-four out of 852 public high schools - almost 16% - failed to send in the paperwork, so students from those schools will not have a guaranteed space at the University of California. The University estimates that, under the program, 3600 additional students would be admitted who may not otherwise have been offered a seat.

"This program provided one narrow bridge to a brighter future for thousands of top-achieving students in California," said Rocio Cordoba, staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California, "but for students attending the 134 schools that failed to complete the paperwork, and especially for students attending schools such as Locke and Manual Arts in Los Angeles, which are typically dramatically under-represented at UC campuses, that bridge has been washed away by the failure of the University of California's policy to ensure that all qualified students were given the opportunity to participate."

According to an editorial posted on Governor Davis' website, the ELC program's real effects are most likely to be seen on campuses "that are not traditionally known as 'feeders' to the University of California." Locke High School, in Los Angeles Unified School District, with a student body of 2300, sent no students to UC last year. Under the ELC program, numerous students would have been eligible for guaranteed admission.

"The suit seeks no more," said Mark Rosenbaum, Legal Director of the ACLU of Southern California, "than to hold the UC Regents to their word that if high school students academically achieve, they will be admitted within the University of California system. Denying admission to many of our best and brightest students who play by the rules on already unlevel playing fields, only to have the rules changed once they qualified for admission to the UC system, sends an unmistakable message that California's higher education admissions policies are rigged against poor students and students of color. The Regents might as well have posted signs outside their campuses saying, 'Students of color and low income students need not apply.'"

"The students involved in this case and others who were denied the chance to benefit from the ELC program," said Cordoba, "are remarkable students with tremendous promise, hope, and ambition. They want to become journalists, lawyers, engineers, and pediatricians. They did more than just follow the rules -- they exceeded expectations. Many are the first people in their families to go to college. This program �_ which offers more than just admission, but academic guidance and college advice as well �_ is particularly important for students whose families are less familiar with the culture of higher education and the complexities of the college admissions process and whose schools often have overworked and overwhelmed college counselors, unable to provide the guidance they need."

"Most of the students we met with had no idea, for instance, that this program even existed," said Cordoba. "Many thought they had no chance of getting into a UC school."

"The University clearly saw that its outreach and enrollment mechanism was failing at a rate of almost 1 in 6 schools," said Cordoba. "Why didn't someone stop to ask what would happen to the students in those schools? Why didn't anyone at the University flag this problem and create a solution that would give students a fair chance? These failures are troubling, especially considering that the ELC program was founded in the aftermath of Proposition 209 for the purpose of creating a new avenue for under-represented students to reach the University. "

The program was designed as a measure to help UC admit a diverse student body in the face of Proposition 209's ban on stronger, more affirmative steps to recruit and admit a diverse population of students - but the students primarily affected by their schools' failure are students of color and students from economically struggling communities.

"As we look at the data for the schools affected, we see a very clear pattern," said Cordoba. "The very students this program purports to help - students from schools that don't send many students to UC and students from communities which are under-represented at UC - constitute a large block of those excluded by this program's failures. Any program that truly aims to provide more access to under-represented students must, at a minimum, think through these problems in advance and offer effective remedies to the affected students. This program fails to meet that basic test."

In at least one instance earlier this year, UC made special arrangements to accommodate students from a school that had failed to meet the paperwork deadlines. This summer, Pittsburg High School in Contra Costa County mailed its paperwork in after the July 31 deadline. The University offered admission guarantees not just to the top 4%, but to the larger pool of 10% it would have evaluated and whittled to 4%.

"We're pleased that the University is capable of being flexible about this," said Cordoba, "but we're puzzled about why it has limited that remedy to one school. We believe that the only fair option at this point is for the University to guarantee admission to all students in the top 4% of their class who would have qualified for the ELC program. It's a matter of basic fairness."

LOS ANGELES - Community leaders from the African American community, the Latino community, the disability rights community, the Jewish community, and the civil rights community gathered today at the ACLU of Southern California to debunk the underlying premise of Proposition 38 - that it will help solve the problem of inequality in California schools.

Rev. Norman Johnson, Eve Hill, Hon. Antonio Villaraigosa,

and Ramona Ripston at the press conference today

The ACLU of Southern California Department of Public Affairs also released an analysis of the geographic distribution of private and religious school seats in Los Angeles County that showed that the numbers of private school seats per capita are lower in areas with higher percentages of African-American residents, with higher percentages of Latino residents, and with lower per capita income.

"There's a gap between the resources offered to rich and to poor students and a gap between those provided to students of color and to white students," said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California. "But to close a gap you need a bridge, and Prop. 38 is no bridge. It simply presents us with another gap in a different sector and calls it a solution."

"The vast majority of private and religious schools - 78% in one survey - select only students who are performing at grade level or above," said Ripston. "That means that the students whose education has suffered the most in public schools are the very ones who don't stand a chance of leaving them."

In fact, a 1998 U.S. Department of Education survey of private schools revealed that only 15 to 31% of private schools surveyed would participate in a vouchers program if they were required to accept students with special needs, such as learning disabilities, limited English proficiency, or low achievement.

Other speakers raised questions about the real-life hurdles families will face when trying to access vouchers, including transportation costs, discrimination on the basis of academic preparation, discrimination on the basis of language ability, private schools' lower rates of participation in free or reduced-cost lunch programs, and discrimination based on ability to pay.

"Vouchers are not a reform movement or solution to the problems of public education," said Rev. James Lawson. "Black and brown children are not the ones who stand the most to gain from the passage of Proposition 38; it's the affluent children already in private schools."

"Here in California, we're beginning at last to realize that a multi-ethnic, multicultural society cannot pick and choose which children to value," said Speaker Emeritus Antonio Villaraigosa.

"A multicultural society cannot survive without building a common platform to launch our multitude of dreams."

The issue of equal access was also a concern of the disability rights community. Religious schools are exempt from the two pieces of federal civil rights education that guarantee students with disabilities access to a free and appropriate public education: the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act. In addition, only around 9% of private and religious schools in Los Angeles County offer special education.

The community leaders who came together to address access issues at today's press conference included:

--Hon. Antonio Villaraigosa, Assemblymember of the 45th District, former Speaker of the California Assembly, and Board member of the ACLU of Southern California.

--Rev. James Lawson, former vice president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and a Board member of the ACLU of Southern California. Rev. Lawson recently retired after 45 years as a minister.

--Rev. Norman Johnson, President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Vice President of the Southern California Affiliate of the Congress of National Black Churches

--Eve Hill, Executive Director of the Western Law Center for Disability Rights

--Angela Sambrano, Central American Resource Center (CARECEN)

--Daniel Sokatch, Executive Director of the Progressive Jewish Alliance

--Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California

LOS ANGELES - In the aftermath of an unprecedented election contest, ultimately decided by a U.S. Supreme Court that openly questioned whether individuals have the right to vote for President, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California Ramona Ripston called for a Constitutional Amendment to guarantee U.S. citizens the right to elect their President.

"We must change our Constitution to make it clear that every American has the right to vote," said Ripston, "and we do not exercise our franchise by the sufferance of our state legislators."

"What we thought was unshakeably secure has been shaken," said Ripston, "and now it must be clearly, fully, and finally secured. Justice Scalia's attack on our right to vote has created a crisis in confidence in our democratic process. We need a Constitutional Amendment that affirms what we have believed to be true for generations: the people, not state legislatures, have the right to elect the President of the United States."

Ripston compared Justice Scalia's comments to antiquated, anti-democratic ideas in the U.S. Constitution which have been altered over time as we have grown into a more democratic society.

"As a result of the 17th Amendment, we now vote directly for our Senators," said Ripston. "As a result of the 14th amendment, African Americans are guaranteed equality, and as a result of the 19th Amendment, women vote. The framers of our Constitution began a process whose completion they perhaps could not imagine. We imagine it today as we broaden our freedoms and secure our rights."

"Today, we call for a 28th Amendment so that our freedom to vote for President will not, in the future, be trifled with, undermined, or subordinated to other considerations," said Ripston. "In order to heal the injuries to our democracy, in order to come together as a people, we must first know that we are guaranteed the right to vote. We call on our elected leaders, we call on President-elect Bush, and we call on all those committed to democracy to rally behind this fundamental right."