News & Commentary

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – ACLU/SC Executive Director Ramona Ripston, for decades one of the region’s most respected and outspoken voices on civil rights and civil liberties issues ranging from education and police reform to privacy, freedom of speech, and the rights of immigrants and homeless people, announced today that she will step down from the post she has held for 38 years.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The following statement is from Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California:

On Feb. 2, MALDEF, the ACLU of Southern California and the National Day Laborer’s Organizing Network (NDLON) announced a lawsuit challenging the City of Costa Mesa’s anti-solicitation ordinance as unconstitutional.

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LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The ACLU of Southern California welcomes the civil rights probe being conducted by the Department of Justice into the polices and practices of the Inglewood Police Department in the wake of a series of officer-involved shootings, and we applaud U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters for calling for an investigation. Use of force by law enforcement has been a persistent problem in Inglewood and has sparked well-founded community outrage. We agree that reforms are necessary and call for an overhaul of the Inglewood civilian review board.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California is deeply disturbed by the Los Angeles County district attorney's decision not to prosecute an El Monte police officer who clearly violated the law by brutally kicking a suspect in the head even though the suspect posed no physical threat.

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LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The director of the California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology, Kristy Underwood, has written new policies that spell out prohibitions on discrimination in enforcement functions and narrow the board’s role in inspections conducted jointly with other agencies, as part of a settlement announced today in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Southern California and Seyfarth Shaw LLP on behalf of several African American barbers in the Riverside area.

Join us Sunday, Nov. 15, 2:30-4:30 p.m. for this special talk with Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project.