vol. 44, no. 5
Primary tabs
- Volume XLIX .
Abortion Fight Continues
, . . Poor women must, as the price for
medical care, bring unwanted children
into their financially bleak worlds or, if
they insist on exercising their constitu-
tional right, seek their remedy from the
unskilled and unclean in California's
back alleys and byways."'
So read the dissenting opinion ex-
plaining the practical consequences of
the May 29 California Court of Appeal
decision which substantially upheld the.
Legislature's decision to cut off
abortion funding for at least 95 per cent
of California's poor women.
' The coalition of welfare rights
groups, feminist groups, and health
`care providers who are the plaintiffs in
the case will file an appeal of the
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Court. (They will also challenge in court
any future restrictions on full Medi-Cal
funding passed by the Assembly for -
1979-80.) :
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the
plaintiffs by the ACLU, the National
Center for Youth Law, Equal Rights
Advocates, the Women's Litigation
Unit of the San Francisco Neigh-
borhood Legal Assistance Foundation,
and the Mexican American Legal
Defense and Educational Fund,
maintained full abortion funding for
indigent women during the last year
while the Budget Act restrictions were
`deformed by
- conditions]; (4) an unmarried teenager
June-July 1979
debated before the courts.
The restrictions would have ter-
minated public financing for all
abortions, except where (1) a physician
certifies that pregnancy would [not
might] cause the death of the mother;
(2) the pregnancy results from rape or
incest which is promptly reported to a
law enforcement agency; (3) the
pregnancy will [not might] produce an
infant deformed by one of five
designated . physical conditions [which
excludes infants which may _ be
additional _ physical
under the age of fifteen seeks an
abortion after disclosing her pregnancy
and decision to abort to her parents;
and (5) severe and long-lasting physical
health damage will [not might] result
from carrying the pregnancy to term,
because of ten designated physical
health conditions.
(The restrictions are so stringent that
many doctors refuse te allow abortions _
even under the worst of circumstances,
fearing their medical judgment will be
challenged by the state.)
The Court of Appeal approved all of
the legislative restrictions except
number 5S: the court ordered the state to
follow the Hyde Amendment language
and provide reimbursement for any
abortion necessary to terminate a
pregnancy which would inflict severe
and long-lasting physical health
damage on the mother, regardless of
the cause of the injury.
In their appeal, the plaintiffs will
argue that the court did not adequately
consider California's express con-
stitutional right to privacy, which
- prohibits the state from coercing poor
women to give up their right to decide
whether to bear a child as a condition to
receiving medical benefits. (The court
ruled that the state has a right to make -
childbirth "financially a more attractive (c)
choice for the pregnant woman" than
abortion.)
In addition, the plaintiffs will argue
that the court also did not fully consider -
California's guarantee of equal
protection, which precludes the state
from denying the poor access to fun-
damental constitutional rights available
to the more affluent.
Finally, the plaintiffs will argue that
the federal Social Security Act requires
states, like California, which receive |
federal funding under the Medicaid
program, to provide comprehensive
health care to its needy residents for all
medically necessary services, including
abortions, and that the Court of Appeal
erred in ruling that Congress modified
the federal requirements by passing the
Hyde Amendment. :
Abortion Fight Update:
On Monday, July 10, the plaintiffs filed
a petition asking the California
Supreme Court to reverse the Court of
Appeal's decision upholding the cut-off
of Medi-Cal abortion funding.
Deadly Force
Downed |
In 1972, a Long Beach police officer
responded to a radio call reporting a
burglary in process at the apartment of
Roland Peterson. As the officer ap-
proached with his gun drawn, he saw a
man running away from the apartment.
Although the officer had had no report
of violence, had seen no weapons, no
`violence, or even the threat of violence
at the apartment, he shot the man in
the head and killed him. :
_ The burglary call was erroneous.
The man lying dead was Roland
Peterson.
In May, the California Supreme
Court found that the officer had failed
to exercise due care in the performance
of his duty and had killed Peterson
unlawfully. _ :
The court ruled that if a police officer
violates internal police department
regulations which forbid the use of
deadly force to apprehend non-violent
fleeing felony suspects, the officer is
- California courts'
@
_ presumed to be negligent.
The case, Peterson v. City of Long
Beach, is another in a long line of
review of police
firearms use. In 1976, the Court of
Appeal held in another suit that the
penal code forbids police from using
deadly force against felons unless their
conduct can be characterized as
"violent." That case was brought and
won by the ACLU-NC and the Northern
California Police Practices Project and
other civil rights groups.
The Peterson case presented the
opportunity, in the context of a lawsuit
for wrongful
Peterson's parents, for the Supreme
Court to endorse the holding of the
1976 Court of Appeal decision. The
ACLU-NC, along with ACLU-SC, the
Northern California Police Practices
Project, the Mexican American Legal
Defense and Education Fund, and the
NAACP Legal Defense Fund appeared
as friends of the court, urging the court
to hold that both the state and federal
constitutions and the Penal Code forbid
police from shooting non-violent fleeing
felony suspects. The brief submitted
expressly urged the Supreme Court to
base its decision on the constitutions
and Penal Code and not on the fact that
the Long Beach officer had violated
death brought by -
internal regulations of the department.
The reason for the ACLU's position
is a fear that if civil liability is based on
internal rules of police departments,
then police departments will not make
new rules that would conceivably lead
to money judgments against them.
This position was backed up by
recommendations of a recent American
Bar Association study of urban police.
Encouraging police to make rules
protecting individual rights has been a
- major objective of ACLU-NC since it
established the Northern California
Police Practices Project in 1973.
The Supreme Court's 4-3 decision
interpreted various statutes as creating
a presumption of liability when internal
rules are violated. In other words, the
rules became the standard of care that
must be exercised by the police, and the
police become subject to liability when
they violate the rules. The Court did not
deal with the constitutional or Penal
Code issues urged by the ACLU and it
expressly rejected the position that the
court's opinion would retard police-
rulemaking.
Amitai Schwartz, staff counsel and
head of the Nothern California Police
Practices Project, commented that
"only time will tell who is right about
continued on p. 3
No. 5 (c)
Reporters to
Appeal Libel
Judgment
Raul Ramirez and Lowell Bergman,
two reporters ordered to pay $780,000
each in a libel suit judgment, will be
represented in their appeal by the -
ACLU of Northern California.
The suit, based on a series of articles
published in 1976 about a controversial
murder trial involving a 19-year-old
Chinese youth, was brought against
Ramirez, Bergman, and the San
Francisco Examiner by two San
Francisco police officers and a former
assistant district attorney. The articles
reported that the three city officials had
persuaded witnesses to give false
testimony. -
"The ACLU will represent Bergman
and Ramirez because the case raises
very important First Amendment
issues. The case strikingly documents
the potential of libel suits for chilling |
inquiry into public affiars,"' commented
Dorothy Ehrlich, ACLU-NC Executive
Director.
"If reporters are saddled with
financing the legal defense of
protracted libel actions and satisfying
six-figure monetary judgments, they
necessarily become self-censors,
cautious about printing facts whose
truth they cannot prove months later in
some courtroom,"' Ehrlich said.
The case gained an extra degree of
notoriety when the Examiner refused to
provide outside legal counsel for
freelancer Bergman and Examiner staff
writer Ramirez. The reporters hired
private attorneys for the trial, which
concluded in mid-April. The Columbia
Journalism Review called this ``Dutch
Treat Libel."
The jury of nine women and three
men awarded over $4.5 million to the
plaintiffs, San Francisco homicide
inspectors Edward Erdelatz and Frank
McCoy, and ex-assistant DA Pierre
Merle. The damages broke down to $3
million against the Examiner, and
$780,000 each against the reporters.
"The award can only be interpreted
as a message to the press and inquisitive
public to leave the police and public
officials alone. That is wrong: the
public has a right to know. What
working reporter has over three-
quarters of a million dollars to pay this
type of judgment?"' added Ehrlich.
Ramirez continues to work for the
Examiner. Bergman is now an in-
vestigative reporter for ABC-TV's
20/20".
Board of Directors
Election Results
see p. 3
June-July 1979
aclu news
Voluntary Affirmative Action Upheld ":::.10o2siem
The civil rights movement scored a major victory on June 27, 1979, in the case of
United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO vy. Weber.
- In a moving opinion written by Justice Brennan, the court found that the affir-
mative action program voluntarily entered into by Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical
Corporation and the United Steelworkers of America did not violate Title VII (the
section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination in employ-
ment).
Observers of the fate of affirmative action programs were anxiously anticipating
the outcome of this case which has been referred to as the "blue-collar Bakke,"
allusion to the court's ambiguous ruling last term in the so-called `"`reverse dai
ination" suit brought against the University of California by Allen Bakke, a dis-
gruntled white. Many felt that the court would prohibit voluntary affirmative pro-
grams, thus thwarting the efforts of conscientious employers to remedy the effects
of past and present discrimination, without a judicial finding of discrimination.
The decision in Weber allayed those fears and gave cause for much celebration
among civil rights activists who have been finding victories few and far between
recently.
The affirmative action program which was upheld by the Supreme Court was
arrived at after two lawsuits had been filed against Kaiser at two of its southern
plants. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was studying the racial
make-up of Kaiser's plant located in Gramercy, Louisiana, and determined that
prior to 1974, only 1.83% of the skilled craft workers were black - despite the fact
that the local work force was approximately 39% black.
Because of what these statistics showed, Kaiser faced almost certain additional
litigation, so it entered into a master collective-bargaining agreement with. the
United Steelworkers of America which, according to the court's opinion,
"included an affirmative action plan designed to eliminate conspicuous racial im- (c)
balances in Kaiser's then almost exclusively white craft work forces by reserving for
black employees 50% of the openings in in-plant craft-training programs until the
percentage of black craft workers in a plant is commensurate with the percentage
et b...cks in the local labor force."
After the District Court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with
Weber's argument that Kaiser's plan violated the provisions of Title VII which
make it unlawful to ``discriminate ... because of .... race," the United States Su-
_ preme Court agreed to hear the case and to rule on the legality of voluntary affir-
mative action programs. The court ultimately decided 5-2 that the Kaiser program
did not violate Title VII. (Justice Stevens did not participate ostensibly because he
represented Kaiser while in private, practice; Justice Powell, the swing vote in
Bai.k-e, was ill at the time oral arguments were heard in the case and did not par-
ticipate in the decision.)
The legal reasoning behind the decision revolved around two major issues:
1) The court found that prior to the enactment of Title VII in 1964,: private em-
ployers and labor unions were free to enter into agreements of the sort embodied in
Kaiser's affirmative action program. The court then embarked on an extensive in-
quiry into the legislative history of Title VII to determine if anything in that piece
of legislation withdrew the authority of private employers and unions to enter into
such agreements. The court concluded that Congress did not intend to withdraw
_ such authority.
2) The court also found that because the nature of the action was private and
did not involve the state, there was no "state action" rendering the Equal Protec-
tion Clause of the U.S. Constitution inapplicable. Consequently, the court's ruling
last term in the Bakke case was not controlling since Bakke involved a "voluntary"
affirmative action program created by a state university. This latter ruling may
prove troublesome in the future when the inevitable case of a voluntary affirmative
action program instituted in the public sector reaches the court.
In California, the Weber decision will probably affect three cases which have
been accepted for review by the California Supreme Court: Price v. Civil Service
Commission of Sacramento, Hull v. Casson, and Hiatt v. City of Berkeley. These
cases, in which the ACLU of Northern California has filed friend-of-the-court
briefs, involve the legality of race-conscious afformative action programs which
have been adopted in the public sector. While Weber did not speak directly to this
situation, it is expected to be pivotal in the decision-making of the California
Supreme Court.
In a time when activists who work for improving the condition of black people
have found little in Supreme Court opinions which is congruent with their values,
the Brennan opinion rekindled the hopes of those who feel that justice can be ob-
tained from the courts. Brennan spends much time talking about the spirit of Title
VII - a spirit dedicated to the elimination, "`so far as possible, [of] the last ves-
tiges of an unfortunate and ignominious page in this country's history," a welcome
echo of the sentiments of the Warren court.
But lest one be misled into believing that truth and fusice are once again the
guiding lights of the Supreme Court, one need merely glance through the dissent
penned by our old friend Justice Rehnquist to understand that we still have formi-
dable opponents. He quotes extensively from 1984 in an effort to show that the
Brennan majority was redefining reality by the deft manipulation of words - an
action similar to that taken by a character in Orwell's masterwork about the work-
ings of a society gone mad. Rehnquist later calls the majority "escape artists' who
would put Houdini to shame. The basis for this attack is Rehnquist's analysis of
the legislative history of Title VII - an analysis which leads him to conclude that
the legislative intent of Title VII was to prohibit voluntary affirmative action pro-
grams.
Chief Justice Burger, while joining in Rehnquist's dissent, wrote his own
separate dissent which basically says that while the majority's opinion is the right
and moral action to take, nevertheless, judges should not let their notions of
morality deter them from blindly following legal precedent. Burger states that if he
were a member of Congress, he would have joined in the majority opinion, but that
as a Justice of the Supreme Court, he is honor bound to follow the law and to strike
down the Kaiser plan.
te
As civil libertarians we should all be elated with the decision in the Weber case.
The ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief in this case which advanced many of
the theories subsequently adopted by the court, so our collective voice was heard.
While this decision does not mark the end of the fight for racial justice in America,
it is an encouraging sign. The struggle continues, but victories can be and are
occasionally won.
Eva Jefferson Paterson has been on the ACLU-NC Board of Directors for the past two
years and is currently Vice Chair of the Board. She also serves as Vice Chair of the Legal
Committee, Co-chair of the Equality Committee, and as a member of the Executive Com-
mittee. In addition, she is on the Executive Board of the San Francisco N.A.A.C.P.
Bomb the Ban!
Law School June 25. "The case involves
the constitutionality of prior restraint
based on the Pentagon Papers decision,
and the conflict between government
secrecy and the public's right to know,"
said Knoll. :
. Perhaps the most important free |
speech case of the century."'
That's how Bruce J. Ennis, National
ACLU Legal Director, described the
United States government's case
against The Progressive magazine,
forbidden by the Milwaukee Federal
District Court from publishing a
political article on the "`secret'' of the
H-bomb.
Erwin
Progressive,
Knoll, editor of The
and Howard Morland,
author of the article, explained the_
significance of the case to a largely
ACLU-member audience at a public
meeting co-sponsored by the ACLU of
Northern California and Golden, Gate
The-ACLU represents the editors of
The Progressive, a small monthly
magazine which has been thrust into
the center of a legal and political battle
with staggering implications: for the
first time in the national's history, a
publication has been prevented by court
order from publishing an article critical
of government policy.
Knoll
_ traveling around the country explaining
the censorship case to ACLU members
and to the general public through
meetings and radio and television
appearances. They reached over one
million people in the Bay Area June 25-
26 through news interviews and talk
shows arranged by the ACLU of
Northern California.
and Morland have been`
Re
Over 100 ACLU members from all over California attended the Legislative Action Conference held May
20 and 21 in Sacramento. Following a briefing by. Legislative Advocate Brent Barnhart, the members
shown here went on to lobby for increased Medi-Cal abortion funding with Governor Brown's top legis-
lative staff aide.
Deadly F orce continued from p. 1
the. rulemaking issue. We _ were
disappointed that the court ducked the
constitutional issues, but we are
delighted that the court found that
police can be liable in money damages
when they shoot fleeing non-violent
felony suspects. I suspect that the next
big case will come from a small rural.
community where the police kill a non-
violent felon and there are no internal
police rules on the subject."'
Schwartz, ACLU cooperating at-
torney Nicholas B. Waranoff, and
Advisory Counsel Anthony G.
Amsterdam prepared the friend of the
court brief.
June-July 1979
aclu news '
| Summer Law Interns
Stanford Daily IT
Sacramento
Report
by Sey Barnhart
ACLU-NC Legislative Advocate
The ACLU lobbying office in Sacra-
mento is presently engaged in a hot bat-
tle over AB 1609 (Levine) which at-
tempts to completely undo the
horrendous police-state effects of the
Stanford Daily case announced by the
U.S. Supreme Court in 1978. This leg-
islation is supported by physicians, hos-
pitals, lawyers, accountants, and news-
paper publishers. Opposing the bill are
Attorney General George Deukmejian
(whose heavy-handedness has made the
bill viable), the District Attorneys'
Association, and several peace officer
groups. 7
When in 1978 the U.S. Supreme
Court announced its atrocious decision
in Stanford Daily v. Zurcher, which rat-
ified police use of search warrants on
newspapers, the press and civil liber-
tarians were predictably outraged. In
California, the Legislature responded
quickly by passing AB 512 (Goggin),
sponsored by the newspaper publishers,
which forbade use of a search warrant
on a newsperson or materials, notes, or
information developed by a newsper-
son. Law enforcement was left with the
far more civil form of compulsory pro-
cess: the subpoena.
However, the new law protected only
newspeople. All other innocent third
parties - and those thought guilty of
crime by reason of evidence - were
lumped together by being subject to
search warrants. Thus, physicians, law-
yers, accountants, and even church of-
ficials became prime targets, even when
the information they held was protected
by privileges honored for centuries by
the law.
_ None of this was lost on California's
newly-elected Attorney General,
George Deukmejian. In the course of
an investigation into the activities of
former Lieutenant Governor Mervyn
Dymally, agents of the California De-
partment of Justice secured search war-
rants for the law offices of two firms
which had represented Dymally in busi-
ness matters. Lawyers were ordered to
submit to a search of all of their files;
requests to be told what the search was
about were denied; the personal papers
and even the purse of one of the women
lawyers were searched; and lawyers who
objected to the search were arrested for
obstructing the officers.
Both subpoenas and search warrants
are forms of compulsory process: the
law orders someone in possession of cer-
tain physical or documentary evidence
to hand-it over for purposes of deter-
mining some legal question before the
court. The practical differences, how-
ever, are enormous.
Though in securing a search warrant
the police must go before a magistrate
and convince the court that they have
reason to believe that evidence of a
crime is in the possession of someone, |
neither the person in possession of the
evidence, nor the evidence itself is be-
fore the court. The factual allegations
made by the officers seeking the war-
rant in that secret proceeding are never
really tested, and if any confidentiality
provision protects that evidence, it
probably is never brought to the judge's
attention.
A subpoena also reaches the informa-
tion. But in that instance, the holder of
the information gathers up the request-
ed material and brings it to the court.
The court then reviews the evidence
which is submitted, hears arguments on
any privileges that are claimed, decides
whether the evidence is in fact relevant
to the crime, and if it is, only then or-
ders it turned over to the police. That is
precisely what took place between Ja-
worski, Nixon, and the U.S. Supreme
Court over the Watergate tapes. Even
though Nixon was suspected of having
committed certain high crimes, no
search warrant was used. A subpoena
was thought to be quite adequate.
One other practical aspect: with the
subpoena, the innocent third party has
the option of turning the evidence over
without any court hearing. Law enforce-
ment opposition to AB 1609 fabricates
a scene in which bloody sheets and
smoking pistols will be hidden away or
destroyed by third parties who have
them in their possession.
By and large, most people will be
`more than willing to turn the evidence
over to police, if for no better reason
that to assure law enforcement that they
are not party to some conspiracy or an
accomplice to a crime. If the holder of
evidence hides or destroys it, he or she
becomes party to a crime. If a lawyer or
doctor does anything of the sort, they
can kiss their professional licenses
good-bye.
AB 1609 has already passed the
Assembly - barely. Only Assembly
member Filante of Marin County broke
-Republican ranks to vote for the bill.
_ The bill's next greatest test will be be-
fore the Senate Judiciary Committee
which seldom bucks law enforcement.
Of the five votes needed for passage
through that committee, the votes of
Senators Jerry Smith of Santa Clara
County and John Nejedly of Contra
Costa County are essential.
Any expression of concern by ACLU
members to their Senators could mean
ultimate passage of the bill.
Kelly Stark, Editor
8 issues a year, monthly except bi- -monthly in January-February, June- duh,
August-September and November-December
Second Class Mail privileges authorized at San Francisco, California
Published by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California
Drucilla Ramey, Chairperson Dorothy Ehrlich, Executive Director
Michael P. Miller, Chapter Editor f
ACLU NEWS (USPS 018-040) B}
814 Mission St. - Ste. 301, San Francisco, California 94103 - 777-4545
Membership $20 and up, of which 50 cents is for a subscription to the aclu news
and SO cents is for the national ACLU bi-monthly publicalen, Civil Liberties.
Three Boalt Hall law students dedi-
cated to constitutional law have joined
_the ACLU of Northern California Foun-
dation's annual summer law intern
program.
Special endowments and work-study
programs fund the internship awards
granted to students who have a commit-
ment to legal careers in the area of civil
liberties. ACLU-NC staff attorney Alan
Schlosser supervises the summer intern
program and staff.
Buckling down for a demanding but
rewarding summer's work are:
Barbara Brenner, recipient of the
_ Edison Uno Internship (named in
honor of the late Japanese-American
civil liberties leader), is in her second -
year of law school at U.C. Berkeley. She
has a BA in government from Smith
College and has worked as a law clerk
for the Women's Rights Project at the
ACLU of Southern California. She is
currently investigating the rights of
government employees to speak to the
press and the fishing rights of the
ACLU-NC Summer Law Interns Liz Symonds, Barbara Brenner,
and Cynthia Remmers:
Klamath Indians.
Cynthia Remmers, a third-year stu-
dent, worked with mentally retarded
patients and their families after
receiving her BA in art and history from
UC Davis. She interned last year with
California Supreme Court Justice
Mathew Tobriner and is currently
working on the case of a lawyer who was
fired because of his political affiliations.
Liz Symonds, recipient of the Ralph
Atkinson Internship (named for the late
ACLU Board member who devoted
much of his life to civil liberties work),
is also in her third year of law school.
She received her BA in psychology and
French from the University of Michigan
and went on to temporary legal secre-
tarial work in various firms in San
Francisco and Washington, D.C. She is
currently helping to prepare the appeal
of the cut-off of Medi-Cal funding for
_ abortions and is researching the rights
of mental patients to refuse treatment
with dangerous drugs.
New Board Members
Three new and seven incumbent
members of the ACLU of Northern Cal-
ifornia Board of Directors have been
elected by the ACLU-NC members to
serve three-year terms beginning in
September.
This was the third election in which
the ACLU of Northern California's
policy makers were elected by the gen-
eral membership in accordance with re-
vised by-laws adopted by the Board i in
1976.
The ten newly-elected Board mem-
bers will join 36 members currently
serving terms on the Board. The Board
includes 12 chapter representatives,
each elected by an ACLU-NC chapter,
and 34 at-large members, elected by the
membership.
Almost 400 eligible ACLU members
chose to cast their ballots. Eleven can-
didates were nominated for ten
positions.
Board officers will be elected at the
September meeting.
The newly-elected Board .members
(and the cities in which they reside) are:
Alvin H. Baum, Jr.* (San Francisco)
Richard (Dick) Criley (Monterey)
Carolina Capistrano (Sacramento)
James Goodwin* (Berkeley)
Robert L. Harris (San Francisco)
Donna Hitchens* (San Francisco)
Iris Mitgang* (Orinda)
Drucilla Ramey* (San Francisco)
Davis Riemer* (Oakland)
Emily Skolnick* (San Mateo)
-* incumbent
Passiton...
If you have been on the receiving
end of more than one ACLU
membership appeal, please, have
patience.
The National and Northern
California ACLU offices are now in
the middle of a membership drive to
enlist new recruits in the fight for
civil liberties. Often, your name will
appear on more than one of the
mailing lists we mail to.
Strange as it may seem, it is less
expensive to mail more than one
appeal to you than to pay to have all
the lists checked for duplicate
listings.
So if those membership appeals
keep popping up in your mailbox,
please pass them along to non-
' ACLU friends sympathetic to civil
liberties.
Or give us a hand in our struggle
to maintain individual rights in the
legislatures and the courts by
making an extra contribution to
ACLU-NC.
And thanks.
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If you wish, your name can be taken
off the ACLU mailing list we trade
with other organizations. Just write
to the ACLU-NC office at 814
Mission Street, Room 301, San
Francisco, CA 94103.
June-July 1979 .
aclu news
Fourteen Northern California Board
members and staff took their anti-draft
message straight to Capitol Hill in
Washington, D.C., as part of this year's
national ACLU Biennial Conference.
Biennial.
who sent an aide in his stead. Unfor-
tunately, the aide had_ trouble
remembering just where the junior
senator stood on several issues.
The group then met with Alan
Marin
BOARD MEETING. Monday, July 16,
Cranston, the only U.S. Senator to
receive a 100 per cent voting rating
from the ACLU Washington office. The
ACLU delegates thanked him for his
staunch support of civil liberties and
urged him to lead the fight against the
draft and other repressive legislation.
The many conference delegates
obviously enjoyed their role as citizen
lobbyists and the national legislative
staff promised to take advantage of the
ACLU's growing `"`grass roots."'
In a related development, a caucus of
state legislative advocates proposed a
national state legislative clearinghouse
to share information on legislation and
organizing among the ACLU's SO
affiliates.
In addition to lobbying, the four-day
Biennial included many hours of
`practical organizational workshops and
issues debates. All three Northern
California staff attorneys and Paul
Newton, Gay Rights Chapter, were
asked to lead workshop panels.
Lobbying Congress members,
especially on the draft, highlighted the
Biennial, attended by over 500 people.
The Northern California delegation
included the following Board members:
Stephen Cornet (B.A.K. Chapter),
Richard Criley (Monterey Chapter),
Marlene De Lancie (at large), James
Goodwin (at large), Francis Heisler
(Monterey Chapter), Paul Newton (Gay
Rights Chapter), Carolyn Symonds
(Santa Cruz Chapter),- and Linda
Weiner (San Francisco Chapter).
Staff attending the conference were
Margaret Crosby, Dorothy Ehrlich,
Michael Miller, Amitai Schwartz, Alan
Schlosser, and Kelly Stark.
. The Northern California delegation
teamed up with a similar size group
from Southern California to visit the
offices of California's two Senators.
The prospect of facing this many
wide-awake constituents proved to be
too much for Senator S.I. Hayakawa,
phoio by Michael Miller
_ Delegates from Northern and Southern California ACLU express legislative concerns to Senator A an
Cranston.
Stender Trust Fund Set Up by Priscilla Camp
Fay Stender, member of the Board of Directors of the ACLU of Northern -
California since 1974, was shot and critically wounded on May 28, 1979 by an
assailant who forced her to write a note saying she had betrayed George Jackson
and the entire prison movement "`when they needed me most.' A suspect has been
charged with the attack.
True to the tenacity for which she has been known in ACLU circles and else-
where, Fay is making steady progress in spite of six wounds, including a spinal
injury and shots in both arms. She faces a difficult process of rehabilitation, and a
fund to help with these enormous expenses and those associated with security has
been established.
Fay has been in the practice of law in the Bay Area for 21 years and in the early ~
1970s represented George Jackson, primarily responsible for the publication
of his letters, and created and obtained funding for the Prison Law Project. Her
creativity and extraordinary energy and commitment are well known. During the
most active period of her prison work, it was not unusual for her to travel to prisons
and interview ten prisoners in one weekend day, then return the next day to see ten
more.
Last summer, she was a candidate for the Board of Governors of the State Bar of
California.
During her tenure on the ACLU Board, Fay has worked tirelessly for the in-
clusion of increasing numbers of women and minorities on the Board, and recently
had become interested in the civil liberties issues raised by the phenomenon of -
religious cults. She had been on a ``sabbatical,"' travelling and writing, since last
September, and had begun a major work on feminist theory at the time of the
shooting.
Correspondence may be sent directly to Fay at Herrick Hospital, Berkeley,
where she will remain hospitalized through most of July.
Contributions to the Fay Stender Trust Fund should be sent to Bank of California,
P.Q. Box 773, Berkeley, CA 94701.
- patrol." The way it works is this: the
CHAPTERS
Mt. Diablo
ANNUAL MEETING. Sunday af- (c)
ternoon, Aug. 28, Larkey Park. (Mark
calendars now, details will follow.)
BOARD MEETING. Wednesday, (c)
August 1, 7:45 p.m., home of Dave and
Beverly Bortin, 117 Los Altos, Walnut
Creek. Information: 415-434-1987.
8 p.m., Fidelity Savings and Loan, Mill
Valley. (c)
Sacramento
BOARD MEETING. Wednesday, July
18, 7:30 p.m., room adjoining Sto Cc kton . 2
Supervisors Chambers, County
Administration Building, 700 "H' BOARD MEETING. Tuesday, July 10,
7:30 p.m., 3859 Petersburg Circle,
Stockton. Information: Larry L. Pippin,
209-477-7698. :
Earl Warren
BOARD MEETING. Wednesday, July
11, 8 p.m., home of Phil Thomas, 844
Northvale Rd. Oakland. Information:
415-451-1839. (Earl Warren Chapter
includes Oakland and all of Alameda
County south.)
Street, Sacramento.
North Poni
BOARD MEETING. Tuesday, July 17,
8 p.m., Allstate Savings Community
Room, 1820 S. Grant St. (at Concar),
San Mateo.
Election of officers to be held. Infor-
mation: Dannetta Ervin, 415-344-4342.
(North Peninsula Chapter includes the
northern portion of San Mateo County.)
Chapter
Action ...
WE'VE RUN OUT OF ANTI-DRAFT
PUNS, but not anti-draft workers. San
Francisco members, led by Linda
Weiner, told the Board of Supervisors
that including women does not improve
the draft ... Marin's Frances Miller
joined a panel at College of Marin to
discuss the issue ... Vince Crocken-
berg represented Yolo Chapter at a
U.C. Davis anti-draft rally ... Francis
Heisler from Monterey spoke against
the draft at Hartness College, Salinas
. Up in Sonoma County, Russ
Jorgensen and Deanna Beeler gave aid
and comfort to some high school kids'
parents who don't want their children's
names and phone numbers given to the
military .... And our T. Jefferson
Award for Eternal Vigilance goes to
Mid-Peninsula's John Hancock for his
`"Dial-McClosky's-Office Campaign."
(McClosky is sponsoring the most inclu-
sive and repressive of all bring-back-
the-draft proposals.)
: @
Reaction...
clients, the police watch (or escort,
depending on whom you believe) the
patrol, and the ACLU. watches
everybody. It's rumored they'll all need
a parade permit to continue.
TAG, YOU'RE IT. Here are the early
returns into ACLU NC election central
for newly elected chapter board
members. Marin: Donna Franzblau,
Helen Frutchman, Gretchen Gray, Len
Karpman, Ruth Jonas, and Leslie Paul;
North Peninsula: Jeanne Caughlan,
Alan Hynding, Catherine McCann, and
Florence Yoshiwara; San Francisco:
Donna Ambrogi, Sumi Honnami, and
Harold Kramer; Berkeley: David
Socholitzky, Stephen Cornet, Peter
Hagberg, Glenn Moss, Virginia
Johnson, Vernon Moore, Pamela Ford,
Adeline Collins, Moses Saunders,
James Chanin, and Judy Heumann
. Yolo has new officers: Dave
Rosenberg, chair; Nadine Noelting,
vice chair; Chris Dearth, secretary; and
Hap Dunning back (by popular
demand) as treasurer. New Yolo board
members are Richard Meyers and.
Daniel Penerya .... and Sacramento is
looking to draft new board members for
the fall series: submit nominations to.
Myra Schimke, 3518 Ronk Way, Sacto.
95821 or call 916-487-5336.
HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU, KID.
The Gay Rights Chapter is looking into
complaints of sex and_ race
discrimination in some San Francisco
gay bars .... GRC also joined with San
Francisco Chapter in asking Mayor
Feinstein for a meaningful investigation
into police conduct during the evening
following the Dan White verdict ....
In Santa Clara, chapter members are
keeping an eye on a gay rights
ordinance before the Board of Super-
visors. The chapter is also looking into
possible cooperation between the police
and a privately organized `"`hooker
SCHOOL DAZE. Yolo members are
wondering why a U.C. Med School
clinic is excluding whites (!) from treat-
ment .... Marin reports success in
negotiations with the College of Marin
over their policies for groups
distributing materials on campus. |
patrol watches the hookers and their
_ ACLU-NC 1979 Chapter-Board Conference
Question:
What do Three Mile Island, `Saturday night specials,'' 36 million disabled people,
the ``Sibling of S. 1437," H.L. Richardson, and you have in common?
Enticing Answer: :
Come to Point Bonita Outdoor Center in the Marin County Headlands overlooking
beaches, bay, and ocean, join scores of ACLU movers and shakers including
chapter activists, NC board members, staff, and some just plain folk, and find out. -
Friday - Sunday _
September 28 - 30, 1979
(watch this newspaper for details)