News & Commentary

LOS ANGELES - The ACLU of Southern California strongly opposes efforts to give Anaheim police officers the authority to arrest people suspected of violating federal immigration laws.

LOS ANGELES - On behalf of its 28,000 members, the ACLU of Southern California called on Senator Dianne Feinstein to oppose the nomination of John Ashcroft as Attorney General of the United States, citing the nominee's appalling record on civil liberties and civil rights during his tenure in elected office in Missouri and in the United States Senate.

LOS ANGELES - In response to two Councilmembers' proposal to undo the LAPD consent decree, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California will appeal to the City Council to swiftly reject the proposal and, in addition, will appeal to all mayoral candidates to affirm their commitment to the decree, which has already been signed by the City of Los Angeles and the Department of Justice. The consent decree grew out of a pattern of police abuse and civil liberties and civil rights violations that came to light in connection with the Rampart scandal. The ACLU/SC was the first to call for federal intervention and recently insisted, along with noted legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky and groups such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, that local residents and groups needed a more direct role in monitoring enforcement of the decree. The ACLU filed suit last month to intervene on behalf of residents and community groups, alleging that full and vigorous enforcement of the decree would be endangered by President-elect Bush's open resistance to the U.S. Department of Justice's intervention in police-related civil rights cases, as well as the City's own history of backsliding from commitments it has made to reform the LAPD.

SAN LUIS OBISPO - The ACLU of Southern California and the San Luis Obispo Chapter of the ACLU sent letters today to the County of San Luis Obispo and City of Atascadero challenging the legality and fairness of subsidizing the activities of the Boy Scouts of America by offering them "sweetheart deals" on rent of government lands, facilities and buildings.

LOS ANGELES - In a letter written to the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California on January 5, Deputy City Attorney Deborah Sanchez notified the organization that the City had revised Municipal Code �_ 41.59, which restricts individuals' rights to solicit in a variety of places and contexts. Two of the primary passages of the ordinance that the ACLU objected to, one dealing with a ban on solicitation near restaurants, and another dealing with a ban near bus stops, bans which, together would have effectively placed much of the City off limits as a forum for any kind of solicitation, have been deleted. The repeal comes after the ACLU won a series of legal victories in its challenge to the ordinance, most recently, when the 9th Circuit upheld a preliminary injunction issued by a lower court that prohibited the City from enforcing the ordinance.

LOS ANGELES - In a reversal of position in response to an ACLU of Southern California lawsuit, Beltran v. UC Regents, the University of California late yesterday announced that it will admit students who qualify academically but whose schools failed to fill out the paperwork for the ELC ("Eligibility in a Local Context") admissions program, which guarantees admission to UC for the top 4% of each graduating class. The ACLU of Southern California filed suit in California State Superior Court on December 20, 2000, challenging the University's violation of the students' due process rights.

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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.

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.