LOS ANGELES - U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson extended a temporary restraining order to end overcrowding in the county jail system's central processing hub during a hearing Monday. He also ordered the Sheriff's Department to submit a plan to improve jail conditions in 2007 before a Jan. 11 hearing.

In legal papers filed last week, the ACLU/SC requested a preliminary injunction to ensure inmates are not packed into cells without access to regular food, water, beds, or even blankets. The ACLU of Southern California sought the hearing to expose loopholes the county has used to circumvent the Oct. 27 order.

'Tragically, the manner in which the County has implemented the TRO has subverted its intent and purpose. While for the most part appearing to be in technical compliance with the order, the County has excavated loopholes that continue to work great hardship on inmates and detainees,' the papers in the three-decades-old jails-condition lawsuit, Rutherford v. Baca, said.

Judge Pregerson did not immediately grant the ACLU/SC's request but extended the TRO for four weeks and ordered a hearing for Jan. 11. He also ordered the Sheriff's Department to present a 'long-term plan' for the year a week before the hearing and denied the department's request to put six men in cells built for four, and four men in two-man cells.

'We're pleased that Judge Pregerson extended the restraining order without allowing the increases in cell population the sheriff had requested,' said ACLU/SC staff attorney Melinda Bird.

The ACLU/SC found that since the TRO was granted on Oct. 27, inmates are being held in medical areas, which are exempt from the order, and scores of inmates are shuffled daily for weeks at a time between the Inmate Reception Center and holding cells at the jails facilities without ever being assigned regular housing.

'What we have observed indisputably violates the spirit and intent of the judge's orders,' said Bird.

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Charlene Nguon was an honor-society candidate and straight-A student on track to attend a competitive four-year college after graduating from high school last June. Instead, her academic plans were derailed when she was singled out and unfairly disciplined by school administrators on her Orange County campus.

Last year, she sued the Garden Grove Unified School District in an effort to stop discrimination and harassment of gay and lesbian students on campus.

"Charlene is the type of child every parent should be proud of," said Christine P. Sun, staff attorney for the ACLU of Southern California, who represented Nguon along with two local law firms. "We've tried to work out this situation with the school district so it's very unfortunate that it has come to this point. Instead of derailing Charlene's academic achievements, school administrators should have done their job to ensure every student thrives regardless of their sexual orientation."

Nguon's academic plans were derailed when school officials began targeting and punishing her and her girlfriend for displaying affection on campus and ultimately forced either Charlene or her girlfriend to transfer schools midway through the second semester of their junior year. Such displays by heterosexual students were common and generally went unpunished.

"I just don't understand why my girlfriend and I were not allowed to be affectionate but other couples are," Nguon said at the time the lawsuit was filed. "Most other students at Santiago are very accepting and tolerant of gay students, but the administration is a different story. We were singled out and disciplined just because we are two girls."

U.S. District Judge James V. Selna is expected to issue a decision in the next several weeks. The lawsuit seeks to create a district wide policy and guidelines to ensure that gay and lesbian students are treated equally.

Nguon is represented by Dan Stormer of Hadsell and Stormer, Jordan Kushner and Shawn McDonald of the law firm Latham and Watkins and Sun of the ACLU/SC.

December 15, 1791: The freedoms of speech, religion, the press and others included in the Bill of Rights were not part of the original Constitution. The first 10 amendments to the Constitution were proposed in 1789, and added a year and a half later after ratification by the 13 states.

Without a Bill of Rights, Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789 (via the National Archives), civil rights are "in constant progression from bad to worse."

"The tyranny of the legislatures is the most formidable dread at present, and will be for long years. That of the executive will come in its turn, but it will be at a remote period," Jefferson added.

The Bill of Rights has been the ACLU's blueprint for action since 1920. The ACLU of Southern California became the first affiliate to add an Economic Bill of Rights in 1983, supporting the right to employment and the right to a decent standard of living.

Read the full text of the Bill of Rights.

Document: An 18th-century print of the proposed Bill of Rights originally included 12 articles (two were not ratified). This line is from Article 3, which became the First Amendment, and began: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...." (Source: National Archives)