News & Commentary

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California called today for an independent investigation into the Pasadena Police Department's fatal shooting of Leroy Barnes Jr. during a Feb. 19 traffic stop.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Supreme Court today agreed to hear a challenge to a congressional law allowing an eight-foot-tall Latin cross to remain in the Mojave National Preserve by transferring ownership of an acre of land within the preserve to the local chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which is now defunct. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California that this transfer of federal land did not eliminate the government's endorsement of religion, and thus did not solve the Establishment Clause violation that the lower courts had already found. The government appealed that decision.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Finding that federal agents illegally detained and arrested dozens of people during a work site raid in Van Nuys last year, an immigration judge terminated orders to deport Gregorio Perez Cruz in a ruling this week. The ruling is likely to influence the outcome of dozens of the remaining cases arising out of the same raid.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - The city of Ontario has approved a legal settlement with officers from its own police department who sued over being secretly and illegally videotaped while dressing and undressing in the department's men's locker room. The class-action lawsuit was brought on behalf of about 125 Ontario police officers by the ACLU of Southern California and the law firm of Hadsell, Stormer, Keeny, Richardson and Renick LLP.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the Bear Valley Unified School District announced today that they will enter into a settlement that will protect students' right to free speech.

LOS ANGELES - The ACLU of Southern California has partnered with Join the Impact and other national LGBT groups on Tell3, a Web-based public education campaign that encourages LGBT people and their supporters to have three conversations with friends and family to help build support for LGBT equality.

The California Supreme Court announced today that it will hear oral arguments on Thursday, March 5, 2009 in the Proposition 8 legal challenge. The National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU'with support from civil rights groups, religious organizations, labor unions, and legal scholars'argue that Proposition 8 is invalid because the people of California have established strict safeguards that prohibit the underlying principles of the California Constitution from being changed by a simple majority vote. By taking away a right only from one group, Proposition 8 violates the most basic principle of our government: that all people are entitled to equal treatment under the law.

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