News & Commentary

The ACLU of Southern California today filed a second amended complaint to expand a federal lawsuit (Beauchamp vs Los Angeles County MTA) as a class action on behalf of more than 5,000 disabled bus riders in Los Angeles County. The lawsuit was originally filed last January against the Metropolitan Transit Authority and Ryder/ATE Inc., a bus company contracted to provide bus service in the Long Beach area of Los Angeles County. The ACLU and cooperating attorneys Stanley Fleishman and David Warshaw charge that the MTA and Ryder Inc. discriminate against disabled riders by failing to maintain wheel chair lifts and other equipment.

This morning Superior Court Judge Ricardo Torres rejected a landlord's attempt to dismiss constitutional and civil rights claims in the crosscomplaint filed on behalf of five tenants of a HUD-subsidized housing complex, two tenant organizers and three tenant organizations.

Jason Kaldani and California Highway Patrol Officer Richard Gibson today entered into a settlement agreement resolving all claims between them. Mr. Kaldani, who is deaf, filed a citizen complaint with the CHP against Officer Gibson in May 1997 as a result of an encounter with Officer Gibson during a traffic stop. After investigating the complaint, the CHP exonerated Officer Gibson. Officer Gibson believed that Mr. Kaldani's citizen complaint to the CHP was false and defamatory, and sent Mr. Kaldani a letter stating his intention to sue Mr. Kaldani pursuant to California Civil Code ﾌ_ 47.5 for damages in small claims court.

The ACLU of Southern California today filed a long overdue class-action lawsuit in federal court against the city of Los Angeles and its Department of Recreation and Parks for discrimination against a girls' softball league in the San Fernando Valley [Kaitlyn Baca vs City of Los Angeles 98-2865 R(RCx)]. For 29 years, the West Valley Girls' Softball (WVGS) league, which includes more than 400 girls ages five to 18, has been denied equal access to the publicly-owned fields that are consistently made available to boys' baseball leagues.

Civil rights groups, including the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, the ACLUs of Northern and Southern California, Equal Rights Advocates and the Employment Law Center, have filed a lawsuit (Barlow vs. Wilson) in Alameda County Superior Court in Northern California challenging Governor Wilson's Executive Order W-172-98 which eliminates monitoring of state contracting.

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The ACLU of Southern California has filed a federal lawsuit [Taylor vs City of Los Angeles 98-1979 GHK (RNBx)] against the City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Commission for violating the First Amendment rights of a 23-year-old muralist. The Commission prohibited Richard Taylor from installing a public mural at the Venice Graffiti Pit although his work had been approved by the Cultural Affairs Commission and the Social Public Art Resource Center (SPARC) which coordinated the project.

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Sunday night, March 15, the Eagle Board of the Orange County Council of the Boy Scouts of America, made up of three parents and three Boy Scout executives from the Council, voted unanimously to award Michael and William Randall their Eagle badges. While the decision is subject to final approval by the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America, whose decision is expected in four to six weeks, the ACLU knows of no instance in Scouting's history where the National Council has refused to confirm the award once the Eagle Board has approved it.