The first concern at the ACLU of Southern California is the safety of inmates and sheriff's deputies in the Los Angeles County jails. For years we have been monitoring the jails and lobbying for improved conditions in the seven facilities throughout the county. And, for years we have been advocating the County Board of Supervisors and Sheriff Lee Baca and his department for increased staffing, better access to medical care for inmates, improved conditions for everyone inside the jail and an end to the overcrowding that plagues the jails.

We understand during an emergency, such as a violent outbreak in any one of the county facilities, all measures to keep inmates and deputies safe must be taken. This can include separating inmates along racial lines. Though separating inmates along racial lines is neither a long nor a short-term solution to the problems in the jails, it can help to prevent additional violence.

The riots that broke out at the jail in Castaic could have been avoided. In countless on the record conversations and testimonies in front and with the Board of Supervisors and the Sheriff Department, the ACLU has warned that if serious measures are not taken to address staffing, overcrowding and rising tensions in the jail violence will occur. Until the county is serious about improving conditions in the jail, this will not be the first or the last violent outbreak.

LOS ANGELES - Local parents, teachers and civil rights groups filed court motions today seeking to stop an effort to halt integration programs within the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Parents, teachers and the Coalition for Educational Justice, along with the ACLU of Southern California, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., Asian Pacific American Legal Center, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Public Counsel, and the law firm Hadsell & Stormer filed motions today to maintain integration programs in L.A. public schools and to become part of two lawsuits, both entitled American Civil Rights Foundation v. Los Angeles Unified School District.

"Programs that provide academic excellence and diverse faculty to a student body representative of the cities in which we live are imperative in the fight to integrate our public schools and provide quality education to everyone," said Catherine Lhamon, Racial Justice Director for the ACLU/SC. "This community has not yet reached the mountaintop about which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed, and we cannot turn our backs now on programs designed to reduce the harm of racial segregation."

The motions, which were filed in Los Angeles Superior Court with Judges Helen Bendix and Paul Gutman, seek to intervene in two lawsuits filed in October 2005 by the Pacific Legal Foundation. One suit challenges the use of race in student admission to magnet schools and in a voluntary busing program. The other suit challenges the use of race when assigning teachers to district schools after being hired.

Carlos Jimenez, a history teacher at Bravo Medical Magnet in Boyle Heights who's been with the district 31 years, said he's witnessed the benefits that students at diverse schools receive. That experience compelled him to be part of the lawsuit.

"Bravo is one of the most racially and ethnically diverse campuses that I have seen in LAUSD and it is also one of the highest performing schools in the district," Jimenez said. "My students interact every day with students and teachers who are from everywhere, they speak dozens of languages in the halls, they come from different parts of the city, they look different and they have different viewpoints to offer. At Bravo just walking to class is educational."

Attorneys intervening on behalf of a coalition of parents and teachers argue that their clients do not want to return to the days of segregated schools. Further, the school district is obligated by a 1981 court order in which the district agreed to a voluntary desegregation plan that created the magnet school program, which attracts diverse student populations to specific schools and can serve as a model of academic excellence for the rest of the district.

"More than fifty years after the historic Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, school districts throughout our nation are still struggling to fulfill its promise," said Erica Teasley-Linnick, LDF assistant counsel. "LAUSD has made great strides, achieving success in areas

recognized by both parents and teachers. We should be praising their efforts, not dismantling them."

Dorothea Logan and Darryl Anderson have three children enrolled in magnet school programs. Anderson said attending almost entirely black public schools did not prepare him for the working world and after careful research he selected schools with diverse student bodies and faculty for his children.

"The education our children have received has given them the confidence and comfort to interact and befriend all types of people and successfully pursue higher education," Anderson said. "Without the consideration of race in the magnet school selection process, there is a good chance our schools would be immediately segregated - even more than they are now."

LOS ANGELES - Newly obtained documents reveal that California state officials are concerned that federal legislation called the Real ID Act will require extensive changes to existing practices at the California Department of Motor Vehicles, and will carry heavy expenses that will have to be absorbed by California taxpayers and license applicants.

The Act, passed by Congress last spring, imposes federal regulations on the design, issuance and management of state driver's licenses - turning them, for all practical purposes, into federal identity papers.

"Civil liberties groups, conservative groups, anti-immigration groups - we've all been saying that Real ID will be a real disaster and needs to be revisited by Congress," said Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. "As the survey of people actually charged with carrying out REAL ID indicates, this ill-conceived legislation is totally impractical and not realistic."

The documents are part of a national survey of state motor vehicle officials' views and preparation for complying with Real ID that was conducted by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA). The documents were first reported by the Associated Press. A copy of California's response to the survey was obtained by the ACLU.

"California officials are right to be concerned," said Valerie Small-Navarro, legislative advocate for the ACLU of Southern California. "Real ID not only means a national ID, but it will mean higher taxes and fees, longer lines, repeat visits to the California DMV, bureaucratic snafus, and, for a lot of people, the inability to obtain a license. But most important, the security it promises is illusory.

"Fortunately, the opposition to this bill is growing more broad as people figure out what it would do and what it would cost and that it will not make us safer. There is a very good chance that we can force Congress to take it up again," Small-Navarro said.

In the survey, California officials wrote that they saw major impacts to the state and its people for each of the following requirements of the Real ID Act:

' Verify and authenticate birth certificates and other required documents including proof of principal place of residence with the issuing entity. California's officials asked "How will we verify all identity/source documents when no national system currently exists to support this type of effort?"

' Capture and digitally store in a transferable format the images of birth certificates and other identity and source documents. The DMV states that this requirement, among other things, necessitates new equipment, major programming, and database development for at least 25 million records.

' Limit the period of validity of driver's licenses and ID cards that are not temporary to a maximum of eight years. The DMV notes that Senior ID cards are currently issued for 10 years, and this change requires that these applicants appear more often at the DMV.

In addition, there were many areas where the DMV thought the Real ID requirement would have an unknown impact because the federal regulations have not been issued. For example, the DMV asks whether the Real ID Act requirements are "day forward," meaning, must all California drivers have a new Real ID-compliant driver's license by May 2008?

The DMV also asks, "Will existing cardholders be required to provide an identity/source document to re-verify their identity at the time of every renewal?" and "What will be the requirements to allow for a renewal by mail or renewal by Internet program? Finally, the DMV states that the impact is unknown for the requirement that provides electronic access to all other states to information contained in the motor vehicle database.

"Congress needs to do this right and actually hold hearings, listen to all the different interests and real-world practical difficulties, and give it an up-or-down vote, none of which happened when it was rammed through last spring," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the national ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project. "Californians need to join with others around the country and help block this disastrous law before it's too late."

California's response to the AAMVA survey along with other documents is online at www.realnightmare.org.