News & Commentary

Capistrano parent Tareef Nashashibi was thrilled by the news that Capistrano's school district was prevented from going through with an effort that would have resulted in segregated schools. "This decision is very momentous; it is what I was hoping for. As a parent, I went into this thinking the district was doing a good job. The court decision confirms that the school district was going about things right. Decisions like this one are what make our country great--they show that racism and discrimination stops at the constitution."

Despite the Los Angeles City Council's Sept. 20 decision to reject a hard-fought compromise designed as a first step toward providing true help for downtown's homeless population, the ACLU of Southern California's efforts to advocate on behalf of this vulnerable population continue.

This article was originally published in The Los Angeles Times on Sept. 21.

LOS ANGELES - The ACLU of Southern California will represent domestic violence and day laborer groups in a lawsuit defending a Los Angeles Police Department policy that is a cornerstone of community policing, a judge ruled Wednesday.

SACRAMENTO - The first bill in the country to require privacy and security protections for the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in state government-issued ID's passed last night in the Senate with a strong bipartisan vote of 30-7 and is now heading for the Governor's desk. The bill passed out of the Assembly with a bi-partisan vote of 49-26 on August 21.

ORANGE, Calif. - An Orange County judge today resisted attempts to hobble integration efforts in California public schools and expand the meaning of Proposition 209, which prohibits discrimination or the use of race for preferential treatment.

ORANGE, Calif. - Members of a Vietnamese Buddhist temple may hold religious services at the medical building it owns despite Garden Grove's repeated attempts to prohibit worship at the site, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

LOS ANGELES - The ACLU of Southern California, the Student Press Law Center and the law firm Caldwell Leslie Newcombe & Pettit submitted a friend of the court brief with the California Court of Appeal today in support of the free speech rights of student journalists.

Andrew D. Smith, a former student at Novato High School and current U.S. Marine, authored two opinion pieces for his school's student newspaper, The Buzz. The articles were originally approved by the school principal, but after publication school officials confiscated copies of the The Buzz and said the editorials violated school policy after other students and parents complained about the content of the articles. Smith sued the school district and the Superior Court issued a ruling against him, which, if not reversed, will almost certainly chill future speech by sending the message that school officials can prevent or punish students for publishing certain views, Sun said.