The ACLU of Southern California’s Chief Counsel, Mark Rosenbaum, will testify before the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on the unconstitutionality of Arizona’s AB 1070. The board is set to vote today on whether to support a boycott of Arizona in response to the new law requiring that police demand "papers" from people they stop and suspect are not authorized to be in the U.S.

The ACLU of Southern California does not take a stand on the boycott but supports every American’s right to take a principled position as a matter of conscience. The ACLU has voiced vehement opposition to the law and with a coalition of civil rights groups is challenging the extreme law, charging it invites racial profiling, violates the First Amendment and interferes with federal law.

The ACLU/SC has a long history of fighting such discriminatory laws and policies in Southern California. In Los Angeles, the ACLU/SC successfully fought off challenges to the LAPD’s Special Order 40, which prohibits police officers from using immigration status to initiate investigations. And it was Mr. Rosenbaum’s arguments before the U.S. District Court and his aid in negotiations with then Gov. Gray Davis that helped seal the demise of Proposition 187, a 1994 California voter-backed ballot measure that prohibited undocumented immigrants from accessing education, health care and social services.

The following statement can be attributed to Mr. Rosenbaum:

“The linchpin of this policy and scheme is the requirement, now carved into Arizona state law, that job one of local police is to investigate and determine who may remain in the United States and to make unlawful immigration status and alien registration a matter of state criminal law. This is a system which trades on racial stereotypes, turning skin color, accent and ethnicity of neighborhood into presumptive indicia of criminal conduct under state law, rather than evidence of the rich and nourishing diversity of our American experiment we know them to be. It foments racial antagonisms this board has sought so successfully to remove from our community.”

School Districts Have Flexibility in Making Layoffs in Order to Provide Equal Education to All, Ruling Says

Saying that the state’s education code allows school districts flexibility in laying off teachers in order to comply with constitutional requirements to provide equal education to all students, a Superior Court judge granted an injunction today that prevents the Los Angeles Unified School District from laying off teachers at Gompers, Liechty and Markham middle schools this year. The three schools, which primarily serve low-income students and students of color, saw their teaching corps disproportionately decimated by a round of budget-driven layoffs last year, causing their education efforts to fall below the state constitutional guarantee that all students will receive a basic education consistent with prevailing statewide standards.

“The Education Code expressly allows a school district to deviate from… seniority for… purposes of maintaining or achieving compliance with constitutional requirements related to equal protection of the laws,” said the ruling from Judge William F. Highberger.

“'Today's landmark decision carries on the ideals of Brown v. Board of Education that no child may be deprived of the right to learn,” said Mark Rosenbaum, chief counsel for the ACLU of Southern California. “The injunction granted by a conscientious and courageous judge establishes the principle that government may not deny children their right to equal educational opportunity by disproportionately laying off teachers in communities such as Watts and Pico-Union. The children of Linda Brown are smiling.”

“Today’s decision gives hope back to Watts and East Los Angeles that their kids count every bit as much as students everywhere else,” said Catherine Lhamon, director of impact litigation at Public Counsel Law Center. “We celebrate this historic victory for equal rights and look forward to beginning the work to ensure that no students will suffer in future.”

The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU of Southern California, Public Counsel Law Center and the law firm of Morrison & Foerster LLP, on behalf of students at the three schools.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – A report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union shows that overcrowding and unsanitary conditions that have plagued the jail for more than 30 years still persist, along with an apparent culture of violence and fear, including prisoner-on-prisoner assaults and the use of excessive force by deputies.

The picture of the jail that emerges in stark and disturbing detail in the report suggests that mentally disabled prisoners suffer some of the worst treatment, and that retaliation and a lack of transparency in conducting investigations into prisoner complaints make it difficult to assess the true extent of violence that occurs there.

“Men’s Central Jail is a modern-day medieval dungeon, a dank, windowless place where prisoners live in fear of retaliation and abuse apparently goes unchecked. The jail is not an appropriate facility for housing prisoners with mental illness, many of whom do not receive proper treatment for their mental illness,” said Peter Eliasberg, ACLU/SC managing attorney. “At the root of the many problems plaguing this toxic facility is overcrowding and the only solutions are to either reduce the jail population dramatically or close it.”

With approximately 20,000 detainees, the Los Angeles County jail system is the largest and most expensive in the nation, costing nearly $1 billion a year to operate. Men’s Central Jail is nearly 50 years old and currently houses an average of 5,000 detainees. More than half are simply awaiting trial – in other words, they are presumed innocent and have yet to get their day in court.

The ACLU/SC and the ACLU National Prison Project are the court-appointed monitors of conditions within the jail.

The new report, based on the observations of ACLU jail monitors, numerous interviews with prisoners, and thousands of prisoner complaints gathered between 2008 and 2009, focuses on conditions inside Men’s Central Jail, the largest jail in the county’s system.

In one case detailed in the report, a prisoner said he was brutally beaten by deputies after complaining to an ACLU jail monitor that he and other prisoners on his jail row had not been allowed to shower for weeks. The deputies broke his leg, and hurt his knee so badly that he had to have surgery. The ferocious attack had a chilling effect, silencing many of the prisoners on that row. When a jail monitor visited a few days after the beating, many refused to talk, while those who did spoke in hushed tones, fearing they would also be targeted.

Another significant concern is that a high percentage of prisoners are mentally ill, many unable to control their disturbed behavior. A national expert found abuse of prisoners by deputies and other prisoners is disproportionately directed toward those with mental illness.

“The dangerously overcrowded conditions at Men’s Central Jail exacerbate the violence, filth and mental illness, creating a poisonous brew,” said Mary Tiedeman, ACLU/SC Jails Project coordinator and co-author of the report. “No human being should be forced to live in such egregious conditions. But what is so troubling is that most of these prisoners are awaiting trial, still presumed innocent.”

It is difficult for the ACLU to assess accurately the extent of violence inside the jails or confirm allegations. The Sheriff’s Department refuses to release basic information about how it conducts investigations of abuse and metes out punishment. This lack of transparency raises serious questions about the adequacy and independence of the department’s internal review process and could even encourage violence within the facility. The ACLU is further hampered by a widespread fear of retaliation among prisoners, portrayed in numerous prisoner complaints.

“It’s time for the county and the Sheriff’s Department to deal with the longstanding problems at the heart of this lawsuit, and spending more money on a newer and bigger jail is not the answer,” said Margaret Winter, associate director of the ACLU National Prison Project. “It’s time for them to lower the jail population by using proven diversion programs such as electronic monitoring and drug and mental health treatment. The conditions at Men’s Central Jail are simply among the most barbaric of any jail or prison in the nation.”

Top photo: ACLU/SC Managing Attorney Peter Eliasberg, and Jails Project Coordinator Mary Tiedeman.

Bottom photo: Inside the Men's Central Jail.