News & Commentary

The ACLU of Southern California celebrates LGBT History Month by participating in several events that highlight the LGBT community's rich history and ongoing struggle for equality.

The ACLU of Southern California recently released its 2011 Annual Report. Below is a welcome letter from ACLU/SC Executive Director Hector Villagra.

 

 

No student trying to visit the website for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) from a school computer should be confronted with a stop sign.  But that's precisely what happened to a student in Virginia, which spurred our "Don’t Filter Me!" campaign.

"I want to thank my colleagues in the Senate for taking this important step forward to ensuring that schools have the necessary tools to prevent any young person from being bullied, harassed or worse because of their sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. As a former teacher, I know how important it is for our students to feel safe at school. We have a moral duty to our youth to prevent bullying and Seth’s Law will help schools protect students, and prevent and respond to bullying before a tragedy occurs.” said Assemblymember Tom Ammiano. “Public schools have tremendous power and responsibility to protect students from bullying and harassment," said James Gilliam with the ACLU of California, and director of the Seth Walsh Students’ Rights Project at the ACLU of Southern California. "Better school procedures and policies to prevent and address bullying will make a safer environment for students who are suffering." “All students deserve to receive an education without fearing for their safety because of who they are,” said Roland Palencia, Executive Director of Equality California. “Seth’s law is an important step forward in ensuring schools have the knowledge and tools they need to prevent bullying. We thank Assemblymember

No one is surprised to learn that California’s death penalty is a broken and dysfunctional system. After all, you don’t have to go far in California to find any government bureaucracy that’s broken or dysfunctional – it’s finding a functional government program that might take a while. The question is: How do we fix it? How do we punish the worst criminals in a way that maximizes public safety without bankrupting the budget?A new bill in the California State Assembly, SB 490, has a shockingly simple solution: give voters the facts and let the voters decide. (The shock is that it’s taken 30 years to figure that out.)

This is the last in a series of posts written by our summer LGBT Project legal interns. The other posts are "LGBT Human Rights Gone Global", “The Roots of Homophobia“, and “Calling It ‘Marriage’ Isn’t the End of the Story."The first step is admitting we have a problem. And we do: students that stand by and allow bullying to occur, as well as teachers that either don’t know how to -- or choose not to -- respond to anti-LGBT bullying. Most LGBT students say they’ve experienced bullying behavior in school, but don’t report it. We have to change the widespread attitude that “bullying is just part of growing up”.

In a letter sent today, the ACLU of Southern California is calling on Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley to stop the criminal prosecution of a Los Angeles County jail inmate whom two sheriff’s deputies brutally attacked in the Twin Towers Correctional Facility on January 24, 2011.