vol. 62, no. 2
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NEWSPAPER OF THE AMERICAN GIVIL pads tadalasd UNION oF NORTHERN GCALIFORNIA
aclu news.
SPRING 1998
Non-Profit
Organization
US Postage
PAID
Permit No. 4424
San Francisco, CA
Pinel a 41 |
NEW PUBLICATION
Reaching for the Dream:
Profiles in Affirmative Action
en a college recruiter came to
Raquel Arias' high school in rural
Kingsburg, the career counselors
told him, "Our Mexicans don't want to go to
college." It took a second trip to the farm-
worker community before the recruiter
was able to hand an application to Arias.
Today, the former San Joaquin Valley farm-
worker is a top surgeon and a USC gynecol-
ogy professor who was recently appointed
to the Medical Board of California, the elite
agency that oversees licensing of all the
state's doctors. |
Dr. Arias is one of the Californians pro-
filed in a new publication Reaching for the
Dream: Profiles in Affirmative Action
which was launched on March 16 at press
conferences at the ACLU offices in San
Francisco and Los Angeles.
Governor Wilson has targeted for elimina-
tion or curtailment citing their purported
violation of Proposition 209.
"We wanted to put a human face on the
sometimes abstract question of affirmative
action," said ACLU-NC Public Information
Director Elaine Elinson, an editor of
Reaching for the Dream. "We wanted
Californians to understand affirmative
action through the voices of people whose
lives have been changed by these invalu-
able programs."
A coalition of civil rights groups is dis-
tributing the booklet to media outlets and
community groups throughout the state.
The programs are now under attack in
legislation by Assembly member Bernie
Richter (R-Chico), AB 1700, which is due
to be heard in the Assembly Judiciary
The booklet describes the 31 statutes | Committee on April 21, and similar legisla-
and related state-funded programs that
Korematsu Honored
with Medal of Freedom
In January, Fred Korematsu was honored with the Medal of Freedom, the country's
highest civilian award, at a White House ceremony. As a tribute to Fred Korematsu
and his enduring courage, ACLU-NC Executive Director wrote the. following
"Perspective," which was aired on KQED-FM in February:
his week, as we commemorate the |
Day of Remembrance, marking 56 |
years since the Executive Order |
was issued during World War II which |
in the advancement of civil rights in this
country.
It was a long journey from Fred
Korematsu's incarceration in a local jail,
resulted in the incar- to concentration
ceration of more than camps, through the
110,000 Japanese darkest days of
Americans, we should
stop and reflect on the
journey of a true hero
of the civil rights move-
ment, Fred Korematsu.
- The way I've heard
the story is that in
June of 1942, Fred
Korematsu, a 22-year-
old draftsman, was
locked up in the
Oakland Jail, when he
was surprised to learn
that he had a visitor. It
turned out to be a
stranger, by the name
of Ernest Besig. |
Besig, who was then the Executive |
Director of the ACLU of Northern
California, had read an article in the local
paper about a U:S. citizen of Japanese
descent who refused to go quietly to the
internment camps. He clipped the article
and drove to the jail to meet Fred
wartime anti-Japan-
ese hysteria, all the
way to the US.
Supreme Court. His
-brave challenge to
the government's
decision to intern
Japanese Americans
_. was rejected then by
S S the high court; his
|= conviction for refus-
sing to obey was
= upheld. It was a jour-
ney so painful, that
for decades he could-
n't even share these
events with his own children. Yet forty
years later, with that same sense of jus-
tice and courage, he decided to reopen
the case; and, in 1988, won a successful
reversal of his conviction.
This long journey made the short walk
to the podium last month, to accept the
Medal of Freedom from the President of
Korematsu and to offer the ACLU'S assis- the United States, a sweet irony. Once
tance in representing him. | denounced as an enemy alien, today Fred
Who could have known on that sum- | Korematsu is the recipient of the highest
mer day that Fred Korematsu's resis- civilian honor for his courage in trying to
tance, born out of some very basic sense force a nation, even during a time of war,
of justice, and his meeting with Ernie | to adhere to the principles of the Bill of
Besig, would create a significant chapter Rights.
Fred Korematsu at the 1995 Bill of
Rights Day Celebration.
INSIDE:
Continued on page 4
_ Melissa Noel, a sophomore at Chico State University, accompanied by her sister
Amber (right) and other students from the American Indian Early Childhood
Education Program, told a crowded press conference at the ACLU office about the ben-
efits of the innovative program - now targeted for elimination by Governor Wilson.
Congress Restores
SSI to Immigrants
undreds of thousands of elderly,
Hoi: and disabled legal residents _
and |
hunger without Supplemental Security |
Income (SSI) benefits have been assured |
of their right to receive public assistance -
who faced homelessness
thanks in part to a lawsuit challenging fed-
eral legislation that would have purged
legal immigrants from the SSI rolls.
After the ACLU-NC and a coalition of |
civil rights attorneys filed the class action _
lawsuit Sutich v. Callahan in U.S. District
Court in March, 1997, Congress restored |
SSI benefits to most legal residents as part |
of the Balanced Budget Act. In December -
the Social Security Administration subse-
quently issued instructions to allow those
noncitizens to receive their benefits. As a
result, Sutich was dismissed without preju-
dice on January 18. The ACLU suit, filed in
conjunction with other civil rights organi-
zations and cooperating attorneys from
Heller Ehrman White and McAuliffe, mir-
rored multiple lawsuits filed throughout
the country.
Attorney Judith Gold of Heller said, "It
is a-great relief that this anti-immigrant
legislation has been repealed. This success
can be credited in no small way to the
plaintiffs who had the courage to tell their
personal stories to the public."
- The Sutich case was filed on behalf of
legal residents who receive subsistence-
level SSI benefits because they cannot
work due to advanced age or disability.
The plaintiffs were being denied SSI bene-
fits or would have been purged from SSI
rolls as a result of the so-called "welfare
pound997 ACLU-NC ANNUAL REPORT
`Pacific American Legal
reform" bill passed by Congress and signed
by President Clinton in 1996. More than
forty percent of those who would have been
affected live in California.
The lawsuit charged that Section 402 of
the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Act of 1996 violated the con-
stitutional rights of indigent legal resident
immigrants by unfairly barring them from
receiving SSI because of their non-citizen
status.
ACLU-NC managing attorney Alan
Schlosser said, "Congress corrected unjust
legislation which would have threatened
the lives of full-fledged members of our
society, many who were welcomed to this
country under U.S. national immigration
policies like family unification, worker
recruitment, and refugee asylum."
The case was litigated by cooperating
attorneys Judith Z. Gold, Paul W.
Sugarman, Roger W. Doughty, Thomas P.
Brown, Robert Mahnke and Jeff Hessekiel
of the San Francisco law firm Heller,
Ehrman, White and McAuliffe; ACLU-NC
attorneys Alan Schlosser and Edward
Chen; ACLU National Immigrants' Rights
Director Lucas Guttentag; Yolanda Vera
and Linton Joaquin of the National
Immigration Law Center; Victor Hwang
and Gen Fujioka of the National Asian
Consortium;
Gerald A. McIntyre and Herbert Semmel of
the National Senior Citizens Law Center;
Melinda Bird and Giocando R. Molina of
Protection and Advocacy, Inc.; and Robert
Rubin of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil
Rights.
esponding to a warning from the
ACLU that mandatory use of
unfiltered or a filtered computer to both
adult and minor library patrons. Minors do
not need parental consent to use an unfil-
tered computer.
The resolution came less than a week
after the National ACLU and the ACLU affil-
iates of Northern and Southern Cali-fornia
told Kern County officials that the organiza-
tion would take legal action if they did not
remove Internet filtering software from
public library computers within 10 days.
"This is a victory for free speech
rights," said ACLU-NC staff attorney Ann
Brick. "Web sites accessed from a library's
computer are just like the books on a
library's shelves. The Constitution pre-
vents the government from censoring
either one."
The controversy began in July 1996,
after the Kern County Board of Supervisors
passed a resolution to block on-line mater-
ial defined under California state law as
"harmful to minors." Upon learning that
the Board's solution involved installation
of a filtering program called "Bess," the
ACLU contacted county officials.
Although developers of Bess software
had earlier informed the Board that they
could not customize the software to only
filter "harmful matter" as defined by
the California Penal Code, the Board went
ahead with the program. Only after hear-
ing from the ACLU did the Board go back
BY KELLI EVANS
STAFF ATTORNEY
lived together for several years as
domestic partners. At the inception
of the relationship, Wagner already had a
isa Wagner and Kathleen Crandall
the relationship, Wagner and Crandall
jointly decided to have a second child.
Wagner gave birth to the child and
Crandall participated in the birth.
Crandall's surname was given to the child
and Crandall and Wagner continued to live
together and share parenting activities for
several years following the second child's
birth. The women jointly raised the chil-
dren for eleven years.
When the couple separated, both chil-
dren remained with Wagner. However,
Crandall continued to visit regularly with
both children, with whom she shared a lov-
ing parental relationship and a deep
attachment. But disputes between Wagner
and Crandall eventually led Wagner to cut
off her former partner's contact with the
children.
In every sense of the term, Crandall
was the children's de facto parent. Under
current law, however, if the de facto par-
ent's relationship with the child's legal par-
ent terminates, the de facto parent has no
standing to #initiate# custody or visitation
proceedings. Instead, she must wait for
someone with standing to bring a proceed-
Internet filtering software could |
result in a lawsuit, on January 28, Kern |
County agreed to provide a choice of an |
|
three-year-old child. During the course of |
|
Kern County
_ Library Removes
Internet Filters
to the makers of Bess and ask - unsuccess-
fully - that the company "refine" the soft-
ware.
Among the web sites the software
blocked were political sites such as those
advocating drug policy reform and the site
of Hate Watch, an organization dedicated
to working to eliminate bigotry.
"We applaud the Board of Supervisors'
decision to honor the First Amendment
rights of Kern County readers by changing
its library Internet access policy to allow
all adult and minor patrons to decide for
themselves whether to access the Internet
with or without a filter," said national
ACLU staff attorney Ann Beeson, in a letter
to the County counsel.
Beeson also urged the libraries to (c)
clearly mark filtered and non-filtered ter-
minals so that patrons can make informed
decisions about which terminal to use, and
to place terminals for maximum privacy.
The filtering issue has drawn many cities
across the country into a national debate
about whether library systems should limit
what people can see on the Internet.
On the other side of the country, the
National ACLU has intervened in a lawsuit
on behalf of on-line speakers, including
San Francisco Examiner columnist Rob
Morse, whose web site has been filtered
out of local library computers in Loudon
County, Virginia.
"Libraries are our nation's storehouses
of knowledge," said Brick. "Their mission
is to make that knowledge available to
young and old alike. Filters are fundamen-
tally antithetical to that mission."
ACLU Joins
Landmark Lesbian
Custody Case
ing (such as the juvenile court, a grandpar-
ent, or a stepparent). However, if no one
else initiates the proceeding, and the par-
ent with the legal claim to the child forbids
further contact, the de facto parent has no
alternative but to withdraw from the
child's life.
In search of a forum to raise her cus-
tody/visitation claims, Crandall filed an
action under the Probate Code for
Guardianship. In a landmark ruling, an
Alameda County trial judge recognized
that a de facto parent may be entitled to a
limited form of personal guardianship in
order to obtain visitation rights to chil-
dren. The court granted jurisdiction and
held the first lesbian co-parent
custody/visitation trial in California histo-
ry. However, Crandall lost her visitation
battle due to latent homophobia and the
misapplication of current law. She
appealed the decision to the First District
Court of Appeal. :
The ACLU of Northern California,
along with the National Center for Lesbian
Rights, filed an #amicus# brief with the
appellate court which argues that the de
facto parent doctrine protects a lesbian co-
parent's right to maintain a relationship
with children for whom she has shouldered
all the responsibilities of parenthood. In
turn, the brief argues that de facto parents
must be provided a fair forum in which to
raise their claims. and
Ballot Initiatives = Vote on June 2
PROPOSITION 226 - VOTE NO
PROPOSITION 227 - VOTE NO x
Don't End Bilingual Education - NO on 227
This measure, authored by Ron Unz, a Silicon Valley millionaire who has publicly
admitted that he has never stepped foot in a bilingual education classroom, would jeop-
ardize teachers who assist students in their home language and deny an equal educa-
tion to more than a million school children.
The untested Unz scheme would force children of all ages and all language back-
grounds into a single classroom all day for one year with a teacher who would be pro-
hibited by law - and under threat of a lawsuit - from teaching any of them in their
own language.
The ACLU-NC Board of Directors voted to actively oppose Proposition 227 because:
- it discriminates against language minorities and immigrants and has a dispro-
portionate impact on racial minorities. The law will have a severe and detrimental
impact on Latinos and Asians who make up the vast majority of limited English profi-
cient students in the California public schools. In Lau v. Nichols the Supreme Court.
found San Francisco's failure to provide special assistance to immigrant students vio-
lated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which prohibits recipients of federal funds
from discrimination against racial and national origin minorities.
- it would harm the educational opportunities of immigrant children. The most
comprehensive study of bilingual education by the National Research Council shows
that children learn best (English as well as other subjects) in longer-term transition-
al bilingual education programs where students make a gradual transition into all-
English courses over several years. As the U.S. Supreme Court stated in Law,
"students who do not understand English are effectively foreclosed from any mean-
ingful education."
- it would violate the due process rights of parents. The burdensome and intimi-
dating process of obtaining a waiver for bilingual education would make it difficult, if
not impossible, for many parents, especially those with immigration documentation
problems, to assert their rights.
- it feeds into and fortifies a climate of racism and anti-immigrant scapegoat-
ing. The Proposition 227 campaign of misinformation, stereotypes and distortions of
statistics and the law, is another step on the downward continuum of Proposition 187,
Proposition 209 and the federal immigration and welfare "reforms." The initiative is
also related to the broader "English-only" movement, which is predicated on the
notion that multiple language services provided by the government constitute a
threat to the stability of the American society - a premise that the ACLU has long-
sought to expose as false and oppose in practice.
The ACLU is actively involved in the campaign to defeat the Proposition 227. Coalitions
are meeting in San Francisco and other communities to build the grassroots effort to
stop this measure.
Stopping Union Political Activity -Noon226 +3 -
_ The ACLU-NC Board of Directors, on the recommendation of the Legislative Policy
Committee, voted in March to oppose Proposition 226 for the following reasons:
The initiative would establish a burdensome requirement that every member of a
union would have to affirmatively agree every year to have any portion of their union
- dues used for political activity.
Currently, an individual can choose not to pay dues to the union, except for the
costs for representation in the collective bargaining process. ACLU supports this right
of indviduals to "opt out," i.e., not have dues spent on political issues on which they dis-
agree, 5
Proposition 226 turns this around and requires every union member every year to
reauthorize the union to speak on their behalf. It would institute a complex bureaucra-
cy of authorization and forms, which the ACLU-NC believes will result unreasonable
limitations on speech.
The burdensome requirements of Prop. 226 were designed to-and will- severely
limit a union's ability to organize and speak out on behalf of its rank-and-file members,
thereby silencing less powerful voices in the political process. In addition, the require-
ments directly interfere with democratic rights of the union, which the ACLU has long
supported.
For more information or to join the campaigns to stop these initiatives,
call Field Representative Lisa Maldonado at 415/621-2493 ext. 46.
oe : AGLU News = Sprinc 1998 = Pace 2
Court Allows Open
Meeting Lawsuit
Against Governor,
Regents for Anti-Affirmative
n March 11, the California Court of
(ines ruled that an Open Meeting
Act lawsuit against Governor
Wilson and the U.C. Regents could proceed
as there is information to support plain-
tiffs' claim that the Governor and Regents
broke the law.
"This ruling is a victory for the public's
right to know," said ACLU-NC attorney Ed
Chen.
The suit was initiated in February
1996, when student reporter Tim Molloy,
and the UC Santa Barbara student newspa-
per, The Nexus, charged that Governor
Wilson and the Regents violated the Bagley
Keene Open Meeting Act by secretly lock-
ing up the votes of a majority of Regents
through a series of private phone conversa-
tions prior to the July 20, 1995 meeting at
which the Board voted to approve resolu-
tions abolishing affirmative action at the
University.. The students are represented
by the ACLU affiliates of Southern and
Northern California, the First Amendment
Project and others.
The Governor and Regents sought to
have the suit, Molloy v. UC Regents, dis-
missed on procedural grounds. The trial
court refused to do so, and the Court of
Appeal's decision affirms that ruling. The
decision will allow the plaintiffs to take
depositions regarding the Governor's and
Regents' alleged wrongdoing. It also pro-
tects the ability of citizens and newspapers
to challenge official wrongdoing in the
future by seeking a determination from the
court that the Regents violated the law.
The decision does not, however, allow Molloy
Action Vote
to obtain a remedy of nullification of the UC
Regents vote on affirmative action,
because his suit was filed after the 30-day
statute of limitation.
ACLU-SC attorney Dan Tokaji said,
"This ruling means that Governor Wilson
and the Regents will have to stop
stonewalling, and disclose information
that should have been made public months
ago."
ACLU Asks S.F. Mayor to
Ensure City Employees'
Speech Rights
Willie Brown, ACLU-NC Managing
Attorney Alan Schlosser asked the
Mayor to issue a directive to ensure that
"city employees who wish to exercise
their constitutional rights may do so with-
out fear of reprisal."
The ACLU demand was prompted ini-
tially by a complaint to the ACLU about a
Muni restriction limiting employee con-
tact with the media. Schlosser noted
that in a letter from Muni chief Emilio
Cruz, he was informed that Cruz had clar-
ified the policy to apply only to those
comments that employees make as Muni
[: a letter to San Francisco Mayor
representatives and not as individuals.
"However, it seems that city employees in
other departments are burdened by simi-
larly overbroad policies which restrict
their free speech rights,' Schlosser
wrote.
Because statements by city officials
quoted in the media conflict with the First
Amendment, Schlosser urged the Mayor to
issue a directive to all city departments
which makes it clear that public employ-
ees who are speaking as individuals and
not on behalf of the city have the same
right to discuss public affairs with the
media as any other citizen.
Chen and Lobaco Honored
wo ACLU-NC . staff members,
[eet Director Francisco
. Lobaco and staff attorney Ed Chen,
were honored recently for their outstand-
ing efforts for civil liberties.
On March 26, Lobaco was honored by
the Society of Professional Journalists
with the James Madison Award for his
work on a bill which would have restored
the media's right to interview California
prisoners face-to-face. The award was
presented to him at SPJ's annual awards
dinner held at the Fort Mason Officer's
Club in San Francisco.
Due in large part to Lobaco's lobbying
efforts, the bill passed with a majority vote
in both houses, however, Governor Wilson
vetoed the measure. The bill attempted to
reverse the California Department of
Correction's (CDC) 1996 ban on face-to-
face interviews with specified prisoners
and corifidential mail between media and
all prisoners claiming "security concerns."
Falsely Detained
Teen Can't Get
Damages Under
Civil Rights Law
py Maria ARCHULETA
n January 29, the California
O Supreme Court ruled that a sixteen-
year old African American who was
unlawfully detained by retail store employ-
ees cannot receive damages or attorneys
fees for the violation of his civil rights
because a private entity, not the govern-
ment, committed the violation.
The ACLU-NC filed an amicus brief in
Jones v. K-Mart on behalf of the innocent
teenager, arguing that California Civil
Code extends constitutional rights, such as
protection against unreasonable searches
and seizures, to private entities as well as
to the government.
K-Mart employees forcibly search-ed,
detained and handcuffed the teenager as
a suspected shoplifter which left him with
lingering back and neck problems. After
the humiliating and painful struggle, the
employees realized that he had not stolen
anything and released him before the
police arrived. The young man then sued
the store.
A jury decided that the employees did |
not discriminate against the plaintiff
because of his race, but that they did vio-
late his constitutional rights. He was
awarded damages and attorneys fees
under California's Bane Act which explic-
itly states that private parties need not be
acting under the "color of the law" for
their conduct to be considered in viola-
tion of constitutional protections when
they act in an intimidating or coercive
manner.
K-Mart appealed the jury award and
the California Court of Appeal reversed
the ruling. When the young man appealed
to the California Supreme Court, the
ACLU-NC filed a friend of the court brief.
ACLU Managing Attorney Alan Schlos-
ser said, "Both the plain statutory language
and the legislative history showed an
intent to broaden constitutional protec-
tions so that Californians are protected
from intimidating and coercive actions by
private as well as state actors. The Court's
narrow interpretation represents an
unwarranted judicial rewriting of this
important civil rights statute."
ACLU News = Spring 1998 = Pace 3
On February 27, the Asian American Bar
Association (AABA) of the Greater Bay
Area honored Ed Chen with the 1998 Joe
Morozumi Award for Exceptional Legal
Advocacy. The award was presented by
Jeff Adachi of the San Francisco Public
Defender's Office at the AABA's 20th
Annual Installation Dinner at the Empress
of China restaurant in San Francisco.
Chen was part of the legal team that
challenged the legality of Proposition 209
in Coalition for Economic Equity v..
Wilson and authored the ACLU's amicus
brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in
Croson v. Richmond, in support of a city
minority contracting program. He is
nationally known as an expert on lan-
guage discrimination and has litigated
numerous cases involving English-only
workplace rules, accent discrimination,
government restrictions on foreign lan-
guage business signs and the constitu-
tionality of laws proclaiming English as
the official language. Hf
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Continued from page |
tion by Senator Quentin Kopp (J-San
Francisco). Reaching for the Dream has
been distributed to all members of the |
state Legislature so that they will be aware
of the value of the threatened programs. _
This 32-page booklet provides thumb-
nail sketches of all of the threatened pro-
grams - ranging from the California
Academic Partnership Program, which has
provided more than 130,000 K-12 students
with mentoring, to the programs that pro-
vide opportunities for women- and minori-
ty-owned businesses at the state and local
level.
The legal and policy discussion,
Affirmative Action: Still Fair, Still
Necessary, compiled by some of the leading
civil rights lawyers in the state, explains
that these programs help to remedy dis-
crimination: They give no preferences to
anyone but provide opportunities for thou-
sands of Californians to reach for their
dreams.
At the heart of Reaching for the Dream
are the moving personal profiles of the peo-
ple whose lives have been changed by affir- |
mative action in California. In addition to
Dr. Arias, they include:
Maidu students from the Yuba County
American Indian Early Childhood
Education Program (ECE) - credited
with helping achieve a dramatic reduction
in the area's high school dropout rate |
PUBLICATION ORDER FORM
Name
Reaching for the Dream...
through an innovative mix of computer
training and Native American arts. This
unique program, which is targeted for
elimination by Assemblyman Richter's bill,
is in Richter's district, yet he has never vis-
ited it.
Rosa Manriquez, the daughter of a
Mexican immigrant restaurant worker
whose junior high school grades were sink-
ing fast when she was invited to join a spe-
cial summer academic program for
Hispanics in Oakland, part of the
California Student Opportunity and
Access Program. Her grades and aspira-
tions soared. The first person in her family
to graduate from high school, she is now a
freshman at UC Berkeley with a full schol-
arship.
L.J. Dolin, Jennifer Stafford and
Debra Tudor, three of the handful of |
women in the Elevator Union, Local 8, who
fought discrimination and harassment to
-enter this once-closed trade. One had the
highest grade point average among the 200
graduates in her Army mechanics school
yet had to spend five years trying to get
hired in the elevator repair industry. They
are convinced that without affirmative
action other women will not have the same
chance.
Derek Smith, a 31-year old African
American contractor who has worked on
numerous construction projects, including
Single copies are available at $3.;
Bulk orders are $25 for each order of ten.
Please send me copies of Reaching for the
Dream: Profiles in Affirmative Action.
I have enclosed a check for $
(Please make checks payable to ACLU-
NC/Publications)
Organization.
Address
City.
Daytime telephone
State Zip
(in case we have questions about your order)
Mail to Reaching for the Dream %ACLU of Northern California,
Chapter Meetings
(Chapter meetings are open to all interested members.
Contact the Chapter activist listed for your area.)
B-A-R-K (Berkeley-Albany-Richmond-Ken-
sington) Chapter Meeting: (Usually fourth
Thursday) For more information, time and address of
meetings, contact Jim Chanin at 510/848-4752 or
Rachel Richman at 510/540-5507.
Fresno Chapter Meeting: (Usually fourth Tuesday).
Please join our newly-reorganized Chapter! Meetings are
held at 7:00 PM at the Fresno Center for Non-Violence.
For more information, call Bob Hirth 209/225-6223
(days).
Lesbian and Gay Rights Chapter Meeting:
(Usually first Thursday) For schedule of meetings or more
information, contact Steve Zollman at 510/845-7108.
Marin County Chapter Meeting: (Usually third |
Monday) Meet at 7:30 p.m. at the Corte Madera Town
Center, Community Meeting Room. For more information,
contact Kerry Peirson at 415/383-3989.
1663 Mission Street, Suite 460, San Francisco, CA 94103.
Mid-Peninsula Chapter Meeting: (Usually fourth
Thursday) Meet at 7:00 PM, at 460 South California
Avenue, Suite 11, Palo Alto. For more information, con-
tact Ken Russell at 650/325-8750.
Monterey County Chapter Meeting: (Usually
third Tuesday) Meet at 7:15 PM, Monterey Library. For
more information, contact Richard Criley at 408/624-
7562.
North Peninsula (San Mateo area) Chapter
Meeting: (Usually third Monday) Meet at 7:30 PM, at
700 Laurel Street, Park Tower Apartments, top floor. For
more information, contact Marshall Dinowitz at
415/595-5131.
Redwood (Humboldt County) Chapter
Meeting: (Usually third Thursday) Meet at Chan's at
359 G Street in Arcata at 7:00 PM. For information on
upcoming meeting dates and times, contact Christina
Huskey at 707/444-6595.
Sacramento Valley Chapter Meeting: (Usually
first Wednesday) Meet at 7:00 PM at the Java City in
Sutter Galleria (between 29 and 30, J and K Streets) in
the renovation
of San Francis-
co's "Crookedest
Street in the
World." This
Stanford gradu-
ate credits the
Minority Busin-
ess Enterprise
program with
giving him the
notice and op-
portunity to
make a name for
his new compa-
ny in a white
male-dominated
industry. He
now employs
young black men
and women from
Bayview/Hunters
Point.
Cecelia Blanks, a former welfare recip-
ient and single mother from San Diego who
. got her master's degree and now teaches
college and counsels students facing simi-
lar hardships. Extended Opportunity
Programs and Services (EOPS) helped
make her transition possible. ~
Fred Lau who passed the police acade-
my's tough written exam but was told that
a5 foot, 7 1/4-inch man couldn't be a police
officer because, among other things, his
baton "would drag on the ground." Today
he is the Chief of Police of San Francisco,
one of the state's most diverse depart-
ments.
Lisa Campbell, a Chino Hills
Republican who founded an environmen-
tal cleanup company. With good-faith
efforts to seek out women subcontractors
required by government, Campbell at one
time received up to 50 job notices a week.
Elevator-repair worker Debra Tudor, flanked by fellow elevator work-
ers Jennifer Stafford (standing left) and L.J. Dolin (standing right)
spoke of continuing discrimination against women in the trades.
After 209 passed, she was told, "We don't
have to take your bid. There's no more good
faith effort."
The moving and colorful profiles were
written by Peter Y. Sussman, immediate
past president of the Northern California
Chapter of the Society of Professional
Journalists and a former San Francisco
Chronicle editor. The booklet also includes
an introduction by ACLU-NC Board mem-
ber David B. Oppenheimer, an Associate
Professor of Law at Golden Gate University.
The editorial board included contributors
from the ACLU affiliates of Northern and
Southern California, Equal Rights
Advocates, Lawyers' Committee for Civil
Rights and others. The booklet, which is a
project of a consortium of a dozen civil
rights organizations, was published with
generous assistance from the van Loben
Sels Foundation. @
The ACLU of
Northern California
Sacramento. For more information, contact Ruth Ordas
at 916/488-9955.
San Francisco Chapter Meeting: (Third Tuesday)
Meet at 6:45 PM at the ACLU-NC Office, 1663 Mission
Street, Suite #460, San Francisco. The San Francisco
Board would like to welcome and talk to new chapter
members at the New Members Party on Friday,
April 3, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Special Guest:
Sue Bierman. For more information, call the Chapter
Information Line at 415/979-6699.
Santa Clara Valley Chapter Meeting: (Usually
first Tuesday) Meet at 7:00 PM at the Community Bank
Towers, Ist Floor Conference Room, 111 West St. John
Street, San Jose. For further chapter information contact
Jon Cox at 408/293-2584.
Santa Cruz County Chapter Meeting: (Usually
third Monday) Meet at 7:15 PM. For more information,
contact Dianne Vaillancourt at 408/454-0112.
Sonoma County Chapter Meeting: (Usually third
Tuesday) Meet at 7:30 PM at the Peace and Justice Center,
540 Pacific Avenue, Santa Rosa. Call Judith Volkart at
Be) Maia a yaaa
NEWS FROM
Oe waaay
u can find press
Yolo County Chapter Meeting: (Usually third
Tuesday) Meet at 7:30 PM, 2505 5th Street 154, Davis.
For more information, call Natalie Wormeli at 916/756-
1900 or the Chapter Hotline at 916/756-ACLU.
Chapters Reorganizing
If you are interested in reviving the Mt. Diablo or
North Valley Chapter, please contact Field
Representative Lisa Maldonado at 415/621-2493.
Field Action
Meetings
(All meetings except those noted will be held at the ACLU-
NC Office, 1663 Mission Street, 460, San Francisco.)
Student Outreach Committee: Meet to plan out:
reach activities. For more information, contact Nancy Otto
at 415/621-2006 ext. 37.
Student Advisory Committee: For more informa-
tion, contact Nancy Otto at 415/621-2006 ext. 37. i
| ACLU News = Sprinc 1998 = Pace 4
of the ACLU of
Northern California,
Dorothy M. Ehrlich
Executive Director
Dick Grosboll
Chair
American Civil Liberties Union of
Northern California
1663 Mission Street #460
San Francisco, California 94103.
www.aclunc.org
OD he report which follows is a lively account of the intense activities
which the ACLU-NC engaged in during 1997, where the organization
battled on the forefront of nearly every significant civil liberties issue of
the day.
The theme for this year's report is most appropriately represented by (c)
the Chinese word for "crisis." The word is made of two characters:
danger and opportunity, which so aptly describe our response to the for-
midable challenges which confronted us this year.
What is most remarkable about our response this year to the "crises"
- from our legal defeat in our effort to have Proposition 209 declared
unconstitutional to the onslaught of attacks on the poor and on immi-
grants to homophobic attacks on teachers by local religious right
activists - is the depth of our capacity to strike back at each one of ~
these attacks on the most vulnerable members of our society.
Because of your support, the ACLU-NC has grown considerably over
the years, providing us with the resources we need to develop extraordi-
nary new programs: our Howard Friedman First Amendment Education
Project, now in its sixth year, has reached tens of thousands of high
school students and is developing student civil liberties leaders who will
take us into the next century; our a new northern California web site:
WWW. ACLUNC.ORG; and our decision to add a Racial Justice lawyer
position to respond both to the aftermath of Proposition 209 as well as
to help support our new Race and Criminal Justice Project which focuses
on challenging the disproportionate number of people of color in jails,
prisons and juvenile facilities throughout our state.
The growth of these new programs allows us to think in a much
more comprehensive and strategic way about the most vexing and dis-
_turbing trends confronting civil libertarians. As we aim to educate the
public and policy makers, as well as to develop legal and field organizing
strategies, the ACLU-NC has never been better prepared to respond to
these "dangers" and to genuinely turn them into opportunities for
action.
These opportunities stretch us to think through whole new issues
and approaches - such as our role in the first challenges to the intro-
duction of "filtering" software, clumsily designed to severely limit what
is available to young people on the Internet in school and public
libraries. Or the burgeoning movement, in response to our landmark
victory in the California Supreme Court guaranteeing the right of young
women to access to abortion without parental consent, to repeal that
right through a ballot measure.
These dangerous times also provide a rich environment for opportu-
nities to collaborate with so many of our allies: the cooperating attorneys
who give so generously to the ACLU-NC, our coalition partners; our sis-
ter ACLU affiliates here in California as well as our national office; our
16 local chapters, our ACLU student activists; and especially with you,
tne people who support the ACLU of Northern California.
When you read the report which follows, we hope you will share our
pride 1m the innovative ways that the ACLU-NC is responding to the
Challenges brought forth by "crisis."
1997 ACLU-NC ANNUAL REPORT
Ya
of the
5. Legal Docket
Ve you look at Highlights of our Legal Docket you will understand why we have taken
the Chinese character for "crisis" as our theme this year. The word is made of two other char-
acters: danger and opportunity. In 1997, we faced serious dangers to civil liberties and, as an
organization, we have turned them into opportunities to preserve our rights.
Some of the challenges we faced this year were born out of dangers on a national level -
an unprecedented assault on affirmative action following the passage of Proposition 209, wel-
fare reform legislation coupled with renewed assaults on the rights of the poor, laws to censor
the newest arena of expression: cyberspace.
We met these challenges with vision and determination - and some success. We won a
landmark victory in the California Supreme Court securing the right of young women to
choose an abortion without parental or judicial consent. That victory means that California -
where the teen pregnancy rate is the highest in the country - is
one of just a few states where teenagers' reproductive rights, and
their physical and mental health, are protected.
We have also been able to turn back attempts to stifle freedom
of expression both in cyberspace, where federal legislation and local
measures aimed to stem the free flow of information, and in class-
rooms, where teachers were threatened with loss of credentials for
allowing their students to discuss lesbian and gay issues.
Another crisis - the passage of Proposition 209, continues to
haunt us. Our litigation to stop this anti-affirmative action measure
from being implemented was successful in the District Court, but
was rejected by the Court of Appeals and later by the U.S. Supreme
Court which refused to hear the case. Our arguments supporting
equality for women and minorities resonated powerfully through-
out the state, though, and our new battles will take place in many
courts where different cities and agencies seek to defend their pro-
grams, in the Legislature and in the court of public opinion.
We face new challenges because of today's economic hardships
and political scapegoating. The rights of the homeless, of immi-
grants, of welfare recipients, of prisoners, of the chronically ill -
as well as the free expression rights of a new generation of activist
students and others who would protest today's injustices - are
under attack. We face new challenges when technology allows
police to train high-powered cameras on people reading the news-
paper on a park bench or to compile statewide "gang" databases of
young people based simply on their race or style of dress.
Our innovative legal work takes us from school boards to the
Supreme Court as we seek justice in these dangerous times.
In 1997, the ACLU-NC Legal Department was directed by
Managing Attorney Alan Schlosser and staffed by lawyers Ann
Brick, Edward Chen, John Crew, Margaret Crosby and Kelli Evans.
The staff attorneys were ably assisted by Frances Beal and Leah
Nestell.
In addition, the national ACLU Immigrant Rights Project,
directed by attorney Lucas Guttentag, maintains a center in our
affiliate office. The presence of this project informs and supports our own work in the crucial
arena of immigrant and refugee rights.
The Legal Department also oversees the work of the Complaint Desk. The Desk, staffed by
a dozen volunteer counselors, receives more than 200 calls and letters each week from people
who feel their rights have been violated. Advised by the staff attorneys and law students who
clerk for the ACLU-NC during the year, these lay counselors screen requests for assistance and
often provide the advocacy needed to resolve particular grievances.
We share the accomplishments of our legal program with more than 100 dedicated lawyers
who donate their services to the ACLU-NC as cooperating attorneys. Almost half of our cases
this year were handled by cooperating attorneys working with staff counsel. Without their
expertise and advocacy the ACLU-NC would not be able to address many pressing civil liber-
ties issues. A list of the 1997 cooperating attorneys and firms is on page 19.
Though we cannot describe every one of our current cases, we summarize here the high-
lights of our legal docket - and the opportunities we found to preserve civil liberties in these
dangerous times.
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
in Cyberspace
1997 was a breakthrough year for the
First Amendment in cyberspace. In
response to an ACLU challenge, in June
the U.S. Supreme Court struck down
the Communications Decency Act
(CDA) ina resounding victory for First
Amendment rights. The high court
upheld a Court of Appeals decision
which stated, "As the most participatory
form of mass speech yet developed, the
Internet deserves the highest protection
from governmental intrusion."
The suit, ACLU v. Reno, was filed
in federal district court shortly after
Congress passed the law in 1996. It
was brought on behalf of a score of
individuals and organizations that pro-
vide information via
PROTECTING FREEDOM OF
EXPRESSION
On work to protect freedom of expression took
place in many arenas in 1997 - from cyberspace
to the local Farmers' Market in Davis. Our liti-
gation protected the free speech rights of doctors
and patients who wished to discuss medical mari-
juana without the threat of federal prosecution,
journalists attempting to cover San Quentin exe-
cutions without restrictions and teachers who
allowed their students to ask questions about les-
bians and gay men.
the Internet. The suit challenged the
law which would have criminalized
free speech on the Internet, making it
illegal to send or post anything consid-
ered "indecent," if the information
would be available to minors.
LiBRARY FILTERING SOFTWARE
Asserting that the use of filtering
software at public libraries is funda-
mentally inconsistent with the role of a
library as a neutral storehouse of infor-
mation and in violation of freedom of
expression, the ACLU-NC has been
actively opposing the use of these sys-
tems in California.
In September, we were part of
strong opposition - including the City ~
Librarian - that persuaded the San
Jose City Council to reject a measure
that would have restricted children in
the city's libraries to computers with
filtering software.
At a public hearing on the propos-
al, the ACLU argued that filtering soft-
ware blocks a wide spectrum of speech,
including sites that may, for example,
provide life-saving information about
safe sex practices, abortion, resources
designed to help gay and lesbian teens,
as well as information about human
rights abuses, such as the use of rape
and sexual torture as tools of political
repression.
The ACLU-NC also succeeded in
opening up the Internet to Kern
County library users. After the ACLU
threatened to file suit, the Kern County
Board of Supervisors agreed to drop
mandatory filters for minors. The coun-
ty's new policy provides a choice
between filtered and unfiltered comput-
ers for both adult and minor patrons.
Kern County now joins libraries in
Santa Clara County and San Jose,
among others which have rejected
attempts to make libraries censors
rather than providers of information.
Staff attorney Ann Brick, who has
taken the lead on protecting freedom of
expression in cyberspace, states that
web-sites accessed from a library's com-
puter are just like the books on a
library's shelves, and the Constitution
prevents the government from censor-
ing either one.
RESTRICTING iMAGES
In yet another challenge to censorship
on the Internet, the ACLU-NC and the
national ACLU in October filed an
amicus brief in an appeal from a deci-
sion upholding the 1996 Child
Pornography Protection Act (CPPA),
which criminalizes publication
or transmission of non-
obscene images that
"appear to" portray chil-
dren involved in sexual
acts, even if the materials
- looking adults or computer
generated images. In
August, the U.S.
District Court upheld
the law.
The ACLU argues
that the CPPA criminal-
izes non-obscene materi-
als that do not involve
the participation of
minors. These materi-
als may well have seri-
ous literary, artistic,
political or scientific
value yet the language
used in the law restricts
writers, filmmakers and
other artists from even
using young-looking adults in their
work.
Talking about
Medical Marijuana
In May, the U.S. District Court issued
a preliminary injunction barring the
government from punishing doctors
who recommend the medical use of
marijuana to their patients. The
court's ruling in Conant v. McCaffrey
came in response to a class action law-
suit filed in January by the ACLU and
others on behalf of doctors and chroni-
cally ill patients suffering from AIDS,
cancer and other serious illnesses.
The Compassionate Use Act,
Proposition 215, was passed by 56% of
California voters in November 1996;
the new law provides immunity
for the possession or cultivation
of marijuana for a specific
group of seriously ill people
who use it on the recom-
mendation or approval of
their physician. However,
following the election, the
Drug Czar for the Clinton
adminstration, along
with Attorney General
Janet Reno and other
Cabinet leaders, threat-
ened to prosecute or
revoke the prescription
drug licenses of doctors
who recommended med-
ical marijuana to their
patients.
The lawsuit was filed to
stop the government from car-
rying out its threats. The lead
plaintiff, Dr. Marcus Conant, an
internationally renowned AIDS
specialist, argued that medical mari-
- juana worked "where other drugs
were produced using young-
fail...scores of studies support [this]
observation."
In issuing the preliminary injunc-
tion, the court ruled that "the govern-
ment's fear that frank dialogue
between physicians and patients about
medical marijuana might foster drug
use...does not justify infringing on
First Amendment freedoms."
The injunction will remain in
place while the remaining issues in the
case, including the plaintiffs' request
for a permanent injunction, are litigat-
ed. Under the order, doctors may dis-
cuss and recommend the medical use
of marijuana but cannot help patients
obtain the drug.
Witnessing
Executions
In December, the Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals heard the ACLU argue that
when the state shields lethal gas execu-
tion procedures from the view of jour-
nalists and other witnesses it violates
the First Amendment.
The hearing in California First
Amendment Coalition v. Department of
Corrections, resulted from the
Department of Corrections appeal of a
District Court injunction barring |
prison officials from restricting jour-
nalists' access to San Quentin's lethal
injection executions.
In 1996, when William Bonin
became the first person in California to
be executed by lethal injection,
reporters and other witnesses to his
execution were prevented by prison
officials from observing the complete
execution procedure. Unable to offer
first-hand accounts of the entire
process, including the difficulties
prison officials admitted they encoun-
tered in inserting the IV needles, the
journalists could not thoroughly
inform the public on the state execu-
tion. Thus, the public had to rely sole-
ly on prison officials for information
about how the death penalty is being
implemented by this new method of
execution.
Following the execution, the ACLU
filed suit on behalf of journalists, news
organizations and First Amendment
advocates, asking the court to issue an
immediate injunction to prevent the
prison from imposing the restrictions
during subsequent executions.
In February, 1997, the
District Court issued the
injunction, ruling that
public witnesses -
including the media
- have a constitu-
tionally protected
right to observe
executions and
that there was
no evidence
that media
presence jeop-
ardizes prison
security or
the safety of
prison person-
nel ihe
Department of
Corrections
appealed.
The San
Quentin procedure,
the ACLU argues,
intentionally prevents
the witnesses from observ-
ing critical parts of the execu-
tion process and conceals from
public view actual and potential problems
in execution procedures. Therefore,
these policies and practices impede demo-
cratic discussion of the death penalty and
its implementation.
Rick ROCAMORA
Open Meetings
The California Supreme Court in July
refused a request by Governor Pete
Wilson and the U.C. Board of
Regents to dismiss
Molloy v. Regents of
the
issues in
unfair and dras-
tic welfare
University of California, a lawsuit
brought by a student reporter for the
U.C. Santa Barbara campus newspaper
charging the Governor and some
Regents with violating the state's Open
Meeting Act when they eliminated affir-
mative action in the university system
in 1995.
The suit, filed by the ACLU affili-
ates of Northern and Southern
California and the First Amendment
Project, charges that prior to the public
meeting at which the Regents abolished
affirmative action in admissions and -
employment at the University of
California, Governor Wilson initiated
private telephone conversations with a
majority of the Regents for the purpose
of obtaining a promise to vote in favor
of the resolutions, violating the Bagley-
Keene Act, which states that "all meet-
ings of a state body shall be open and
public."
Expression in the
Classroom
The ACLU-NC successfully represented
teachers in San Francisco and Alameda
who were threatened with having
their credentials revoked
because they allowed dis-
cussions about les-
bian and gay
issues. The chapters are:
Kensington Chapter
regula-
lobby elected officials and
speak to the media on civil liberties
Berkeley-Albany-Richmond-
1997 ACLU-NC ANNUAL REPORT
their classrooms. (For more complete dis-
cussion, see Rights of Students and
Teachers).
Marketplace of ideas
The ACLU-NC legal staff supported the
Yolo County Chapter's successful opposi-
tion to the city of Davis's attempt to
restrict political activity in the Farmers'
Market. The city wanted to impose a
"Market Socio-Political Activity Rule,"
whereby the Market Manager could pro-
hibit vendors from soliciting votes, finan-
cial support, or campaign efforts for any
political group without prior consent. In
addition, vendors would only be allowed
to wear clothing with "non-confronta-
tional expressions." Though threatened
with suspension from the market for not
complying with these "No-Speech Zone"
rules, the market vendors fought back
successfully and the Davis Farmers'
Market is now also a true
marketplace of ideas.
with a special presen-
tation from National ACLU
Field Coordinator, Bob Kearney
on Inside the Beltway: A
Report from Washington DC.
Bit oF RicHts Day
The Celebration, entitled "Oh
Freedom: A History of Struggle" was
held at the Sheraton Palace in San
Francisco in December. Our 1997 Ear!
Warren Award honoree was longtime
activist Frank Wilkinson, founder and
Executive Director of the National
Coalition against Repressive legisla-
tion. Wilkinson was honored for his
ie
ACLU-NC's_ innova-
tive Field program was
established in 1981 to involve
members in outreach, education,
grassroots lobbying and mobilization
on the most urgent civil liberties
issues of the day. The Field
Department is ready to mobilize
members quickly on whatever issues
arise: we began the year by success-
fully lobbying key congressional rep-
resentatives to defeat a proposed flag
amendment and a ban on late-term
abortion.
The Field Committee chose as pri-
orities Affirmative Action (post-Prop.
209) and Poverty/Welfare. Throughout
the year, ACLU member activists
worked in their communities to sup-
port local efforts to keep equal oppor-
tunity for women and people of color
and to monitor the impact of the new
welfare legislation on the civil liberties
of the poor.
ORGANIZING
The Field Department assists chapters
by providing materials, speakers
training, board orientation training
and chapter development. This year
we organized a Welfare Summit to
bring together chapter activists, leg-
islative experts and civil liberties
advocates to explain the impact of
welfare reform on civil liberties. More
than forty chapter activists left the
summit with materials, enthusiasm
and a commitment to lobby against
tions.
In the spring the Field Depart-
ment co-sponsored a Speakers
Training with the Friedman Project
on "How to Speak on Behalf of the
ACLU." Thirty activists took their
newly-acquired knowledge and
speaking skills to community groups,
college classrooms and _ public
forums.
Our Lobby Day in Sacramento in
March drew activists from the San
Earl Warren Chapter (Oakland
area)
Fresno Chapter
Lesbian and Gay Rights Chapter
Marin Chapter
Mid-Peninsula Chapter
Monterey County Chapter
North Peninsula Chapter
Redwood Chapter
Sacramento Chapter
San Francisco Chapter
Santa Clara Valley Chapter
Santa Cruz Chapter
Francisco, North Peninsula, Mid-
Peninsula, San Joaquin, Sonoma and
Earl Warren chapters for a morning
briefing on pending civil liberties leg-
islation, including the Omnibus Civil
Rights bill and prenatal care for
immigrant women, and an afternoon
of meetings with individual legisla-
tors.
CHAPTERS
The ACLU's all-volunteer chapters are
the activist arm of the organization as
well as civil liberties watchdogs in
their communities. These geographi-
cally-based chapters and_ the
Lesbian/Gay Rights Chapter organize
events, educate their communities
through public forums and debates,
San Joaquin Chapter
Sonoma Chapter
Yolo Chapter
Activist CONFERENCE
"Justice in Action," this year's annual
membership conference held at
Sonoma State University in August
brought together more than 150
members and volunteer activists
from northern California to strategize
and educate themselves at work-
shops on topics such as the Top Ten
Censored News Stories, Dare to Work
Against Police Brutality and Why Race
Still Matters: New Directions in the
Fight for Equality. Plenaries explored
the subjects of Poverty and Civil
Liberties, and key federal legislation
work to abolish the House Un--
American Activities Committee and
his continuing struggle to protect
and defend the First Amendment.
The event also featured an address on
the aftermath of Proposition 209 and
its effect on race relations in America
by keynote speaker Christopher
Edley, founder of Harvard University's
Civil Rights Project and advisor to
President Clinton's Race Commission.
The Lola Hanzel Advocacy Award
was given to a longtime North
Peninsula Chapter leader and Field
Committee activist Marlene De
Lancie, who has played a major role
in campaigns for reproductive rights
and abolition of the death penalty.
One of the most popular portions
of the Celebration was the San
Francisco Chapter's High School
Freedom of Expression Art Show and
Award Presentation, which drew hun-
dreds of students who contributed
poetry, painting, music and short sto-
ries on civil liberties themes.
Locat ACLU PRESENCE
The Field Department is staffed by
Field Representative Lisa Maldonado
and Program Secretary - Rini
Chakraborty. Outstanding leadership
is provided by Field Committee Chair
Michelle Welsh. The willingness to be |
a strong presence for civil liberties in
their local community and the com-
mitment and dedication shown by
the chapter board members, activists
and Field Committee members helps
to protect the civil liberties of all and
ensures the strength of this organiza-
tion and its future.