The California affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a class action lawsuit against the State of California and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today for allowing school districts throughout the state to charge fees for books and other essential educational supplies. This practice violates the California Constitution which, since 1879, has guaranteed children a free education.

The California affiliates include the ACLU affiliates in Southern California, Northern California, and San Diego & Imperial Counties. The law firm Morrison & Foerster is co-counsel on the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, follows an investigation by the ACLU/SC that uncovered a widespread practice among school districts of forcing students to purchase textbooks, workbooks, and assigned novels to matriculate in academic courses. School districts also charged students to take Advanced Placement examinations, even though completing these examinations is a course requirement and affects students’ grades. The suit contends that this discriminating practice against lower-income children will result in an unfair system where only the wealthy will be able to afford an education that is constitutionally supposed to be free to all regardless of economic status.

“School districts know they cannot charge students for an education; this practice was struck down by the California Supreme Court in 1984,” said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU/SC. “The court said no to pay-to-play then, and it should be no different now.”

Illegal school fees levied against students who strived to be successful in school caused a great academic disadvantage, and the suit alleges that some students who could not afford to pay the illegal fees were overtly humiliated by teachers and school officials. In one incident, a student’s Spanish teacher wrote the teenager’s name on the board because she could not pay for assigned workbooks. The school required this student, who wants to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, to pay $440 annually in course and uniform fees. This was an extreme financial burden for the student’s family.

“The idea of educating every child at public expense ranks with political democracy as one of the United States’ great original social contributions,” said Mark Rosenbaum, Chief Counsel of ACLU/SC. “Each of these ideas rests on a hallowed belief that every child is capable of reaching his or her fullest potential only when we encourage and honor accomplishment based on merit and hard work and disavow class distinctions.”

Another student, who also requested anonymity, was required to pay for a workbook for English class, foreign language workbooks, science lab manuals, and a school-issued agenda, which he could not afford.

The ACLU investigation, while not exhaustive, found 40 school districts that openly violate the state constitution by posting on school websites fees students must pay to participate in educational programs. It is likely that many more school districts are charging similar fees. Some examples of the fees found in the investigation include:

• All public high schools in the Tustin Unified School district in Orange County charge students fees for art courses, music courses, automotive technology, fashion design, interior design and website development;
• Arcadia High School in Los Angeles County charges students fees for art and music courses;
• California Academy of Math and Science in Long Beach Unified School District in Los Angeles County charges students fees for physical education uniforms that they are required to wear; and
• California High School in Contra Costa County requires students to purchase foreign language workbooks and a locker lock from the school.

LOS ANGELES –The ACLU of Southern California (ACLU/SC) and the National ACLU today released a report documenting disturbing conditions and abuses in the Los Angeles County jail system, including excessive and unjustified force by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, retaliation against prisoners for communicating with the ACLU/SC, a lack of access to mental health care, and severe overcrowding.

The report, based on scores of visits to the jails and interviews with dozens of prisoners during the first eight months of this year, paints a stark picture of unacceptable levels of violence in the jails, with deputies reported to have beaten handcuffed prisoners, injuring some so badly that they ended up in intensive care. The report also shows that retaliation against prisoners is an acute problem. Several prisoners have been severely punished for meeting with representatives of the ACLU, which is the court-appointed monitor of conditions inside L.A.’s county jails. This pattern of retaliation results in prisoners being afraid to speak freely with the ACLU about conditions in the jails.

“This report makes clear that deputy abuse and retaliation is not limited to a few isolated instances, but is instead a significant problem that has developed over decades and characterizes Men’s Central Jail and other jails run by the Los Angeles County Sheriff,” said Peter Eliasberg, Managing Attorney of the ACLU/SC. “What is even more troubling is that the ACLU has been reporting these problems for a number of years, but they continue to fester or get worse.”

One prisoner reported being attacked by a group of deputies on his way back from church because he failed to put his hands in his pockets, though his jail-issued clothing had none. Deputies beat him so badly they left him with several broken ribs, a fractured nose and a swollen artery in his brain. Another prisoner told ACLU jail monitors that a sheriff’s deputy punched him in the face for having his shirt untucked and asking for a new pair of shoes.

“There is a strong link between the massive over-incarceration in the L.A. County Jails and the terrifying subculture of deputy violence and abuse at Men’s Central,” said Margaret Winter, Associate Director of the ACLU National Prison Project. “The cure will require finding safe alternatives to locking up low-risk detainees who are awaiting trial."

The report follows a series of troubling outside reports of serious misconduct at the jail. Most recently, a former jailhouse deputy was sentenced to four years in prison for attempting to smuggle drugs inside the jail. And just a month ago, the Office of Independent Review for the County of Los Angeles issued a report(pdf) uncovering a deliberate and systematic cover-up involving at least 10 deputies who falsified
surveillance logs in part to hide the fact that John Horton, a twenty year inmate who was exhibiting signs of severe mental illness, hung himself in his cell while the supervising deputies were at the jail’s gym working out or at a nearby restaurant making a “chow run.”

Taken together with the ACLU report, these incidents paint a picture of a jail with lax deputy supervision and little accountability that gives rise to negligence, abuse and violence. Today’s report was prompted, in part, by the overwhelming response of former and current prisoners to the ACLU’s May 2010 report on conditions inside Men’s Central Jail. The May report, which covered 2009, provided a broad overview of the overcrowded conditions, woefully inadequate care of those with mental disabilities and deputy-on-inmate retaliation and violence. Today’s report provides an update on those conditions.

 

 

 

 

Our nation's public schools represent the highest and most revolutionary ideal of American democracy that through education open on an equal basis to all, every child can achieve his or her full potential as consequence of merit and hard work. The California Constitution, like the constitutions of every state in the Union, accordingly entitles the children of this State to a free and equal education. But, as an investigation by the ACLU of Southern California released today has found, there is no system of free public education in California: public schools throughout the State openly ignore this constitutional right by requiring students to pay fees and purchase assigned materials for academic courses and for school-sponsored extracurricular activities.
Since its adoption in 1879, Article IX, Section 5 of the California Constitution has required that the State provide a system of free public schools. In 1984, the California Supreme Court ruled unequivocally in Hartzell v. Connell that "[i]n guaranteeing '[]free' public schools, article IX section 5 fixes the precise extent of the financial burden which may be imposed on the right to an education 'none.' Accordingly, public schools cannot charge students or families any fees as a condition for participating in 'educational programs,' including both curricular and extracurricular activities. Our investigation, however, uncovered more than 50 public school districts in which at least one high school openly acknowledges on its website that students must pay fees in order to participate in educational programs. The illegal fees that we discovered include numerous mandatory fees related to core academic courses that fulfill high school graduation requirements requiring students to purchase required text and workbooks for academic courses, charging lab fees for science classes, charging material fees for fine arts classes, and requiring students to purchase school-issued P.E. uniforms. They also included many instances where schools charge students hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of dollars to participate in school-sponsored extracurricular activities.
Despite the venerable vintage of the right to a free public education and the Supreme Court's clear ruling in 1984 that fees for educational programs are illegal, the State has done nothing as its public school districts blatantly violate the free schools guarantee by requiring students to pay fees and purchase assigned materials for academic courses. Accordingly, together with the ACLU of Northern California, the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, and the law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP, we filed a lawsuit today on behalf of two public school students, who are proceeding under pseudonyms, that seeks to compel the State to establish a system for monitoring school districts and ensuring they comply with the free schools clause. Because the State is the ultimate guarantor of students''' right to a free and equal education, it is the State'''s responsibility to ensure that 'free' means 'free.'
As the facts of this case demonstrate, the State's abdication of this responsibility has real and appreciable impacts on children across California: students who are unable to pay the fees or purchase the materials are disadvantaged academically and overtly humiliated by teachers and school officials. For example, Plaintiff Jason Roe was required to purchase an English workbook, a Chemistry lab manual, a Spanish language workbook, and a student agenda. Jason's mother was informed by a school official that, if Jason did not purchase an English workbook, the only way he could access a school-provided copy to complete homework assignments was by going to the school library after school. Because Jason's family could afford to pay only a portion of the fees for these required materials, Jason was compelled to start school without his Chemistry manual and Spanish workbook.
Although our investigation and the lawsuit we filed today cast an important spotlight on this widespread and illegal practice, it is important to keep in mind the context in which public schools are operating today. School districts' pursuit of this plainly illegal funding stream is a symptom of the broader dysfunction of the State's finance and governance system for public education and underscores the failure of leadership in state government to ensure that schools are provided the resources necessary to provide a free and equal education. With an ever-shrinking allocation of funding from the state 'over $1500 per student over the last two years according to some estimates' school districts face unprecedented challenges as they search for a way to offer the educational programming that we as citizens expect our public schools to provide. Although this does not excuse schools' resorting to an illegal means of raising funds, it highlights the reason we all must advocate to ensure our public schools receive from the State the resources necessary to achieve the democratic ideal of helping all children, regardless of their socio-economic status, race, or national origin, to achieve their full potential.