SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO - A settlement agreement reached last night leaves the Capistrano Unified School District free to consider race when redrawing school attendance boundaries. The settlement affirms the importance of integration in public schools and the ability of school districts to take steps to avoid racially isolated schools.

A lawsuit filed in June 2005 had sought to overturn attendance boundaries for high schools adopted last year. The settlement leaves that plan intact.

'This settlement means Capistrano will not turn back the clock on school integration,' said Catherine Lhamon, ACLU/SC racial justice director. 'And it affirms that California law does not prevent school districts from considering race when drawing boundaries to reduce or avoid segregation.'

Orange County Superior Court Judge Gail Andler ruled in August that the school district's policy did not violate Proposition 209, the 1996 law about discrimination or preferences on the basis of race, gender, or ethnicity. In her opinion, Judge Andler stated that 'the mere 'consideration' or 'taking into account' of racial/ethnic composition does not necessarily seem to 'discriminate' or grant 'preferences' based on race.'

Under the settlement, the new school district policy will not mention race, but the district will not have to change any of its practices.

'I am happy the district can continue to work toward schools that bring students of all races and backgrounds together,' said Capistrano parent Geri Ditto.

'Capistrano parents and students have experienced the benefits of racial and ethnic diversity,' said LDF assistant counsel Anurima Bhargava. 'The combined effect of the judge's ruling and the settlement means racial and ethnic integration can remain a core principle in the district.'

A year ago Bakersfield high-school journalists and gay and lesbian students faced censorship over stories in their newspaper. Now a judge has approved a free-speech policy that will protect future student journalists tackling important topics.

"It shows student journalists still have the right to think about and explore more sensitive issues, such as homosexuality, in an in-depth, educational manner," former Kernal editor Maria Krauter told a Bakersfield newspaper.

Krauter and her Kernal colleagues were set to run a four-story spread about on-campus views of homosexuality in April 2005. But at the eleventh hour the school's principal pulled the stories, citing unnamed threats to gay and lesbian students.

The stories were eventually published in November 2005, but the ACLU/SC's lawsuit continued to win a new policy that requires administrators to consider alternatives before censoring students.

"From day one the students knew they had been wrongly censored and vowed to make sure this didn't happen to the next generation of Kern students," said ACLU/SC attorney Christine Sun, who represented the students. "Under this policy, the students would not have been censored in the first place."

November 25, 1986: Ryan Thomas, a 5-year-old Atascadero kindergartner infected with the AIDS virus, was readmitted to school after the ACLU/SC intervened. The boy scuffled with another student and was kicked out of school by administrators afraid he would transmit AIDS to his classmates.

But a court found that five years after AIDS was first identified in the U.S., medical evidence showed "there is really nothing to fear from this child." The ACLU/SC Open Forum called it the first federal decision allowing children with HIV/AIDS to attend school. Ryan Thomas died on Thanksgiving Day in 1991.

The ACLU continues to fight the stigma of HIV status and protect the privacy of people with HIV/AIDS. We also are working to expand treatment in jails, nursing homes and other facilities where people with the virus do not have equal access. An estimated 1 million Americans live with HIV/AIDS, and as many as 280,000 people with the virus may not know they are infected, according to evidence cited in a 2003 report by the ACLU AIDS Project. Click here to read the report (pdf).

Photo: Ryan Thomas with his father, Robin, in 1986.