Statement of Ramona Ripston, ACLU of Southern California Executive Director

Tonight the Westminster School Board majority is poised to take action that will gamble with Westminster students' education and well-being. If they continue down this destructive path, dollars will be diverted from the classroom to fighting for their own personal positions in the "culture war" that ring-wing ideologues have declared on those of whom they do not approve. In doing so, these board members have profoundly betrayed the public trust.

The ACLU is watching this situation with deep concern, both for the welfare of students who don't conform to gender norms, and for the education and welfare of every student, all of whom face the consequences of the possible loss of critical funding.

Students whose gender traits don't conform to stereotypes are being sent a clear signal: hide, because you won't be protected here. And all students have, in essence, been told by the board, "Your education and your future are worth less to us than our moral posturing."

Schools should be safe places to learn for all students, and all students and parents have the right to expect that schools are places that clearly and unequivocally prohibit harassment and discrimination of all kinds.

This is a principle so simple and so obvious that stating it hardly seems necessary, but in this case it is. The position of Westminster school board is, simply put, that it wants carte blanche to discriminate against students who don't conform to gender norms. Even worse, it is willing to sacrifice the good of all students in order to pursue this discriminatory course.

The California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act of 2000, which was passed and signed into law in late 1999, addressed a serious problem: legislators passed it after hearing the disturbing stories of over 700 students from around the state, who related experiences of harassment and discrimination on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender.

These experiences included sexual harassment, violent assault, sexual assault, threats of assault, verbal harassment, and, perhaps most saddening, responses from school administrators that ranged from indifference to ignorance. Today, the problem continues. For instance, our research shows that 53% of students do not believe that their school is safe for boys who aren't as masculine as other boys. And the California Healthy Kids Survey, which surveys 7th, 9th, and 11th graders, showed that the problem of discriminatory harassment is most common among 7th graders.

This school board's commitment to preserving the right to discriminate illustrates precisely why the law was necessary. Every student deserves a safe place to learn, regardless of the biases of school board members. The ACLU strongly urges the Westminster school board to reconsider its position.

LOS ANGELES - The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California filed a federal lawsuit today seeking the release of a non-citizen who is being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody indefinitely after having served his sentence.

When he was six years old, Sopheap Puth's family fled Cambodia and the dreaded Khmer Rouge regime. The family applied for and was granted status as political refugees in the United States. Mr. Puth later became a permanent resident of the United States, and he has a wife and three-year old son who are U.S. citizens. In September 2003, Mr. Puth was ordered removed from the U.S. by an immigration judge because of a criminal conviction for car theft. After Mr. Puth served his sentence and was released on parole, he was detained by ICE, formerly the INS.

He is being held in custody at the Mira Loma Detention Center in Lancaster, California, north of Los Angeles, where he has been held for over six months since he was ordered removed from the country.

"My husband has served his sentence," said Rebecca Puth, Sopheap Puth's wife. "All we want is a chance for our son to spend time with his father."

The ACLU-SC's lawsuit relies on a 2001 Supreme Court case, Zadvydas v. Davis, which held that immigration officials may not detain non-citizens for more than six months after they are ordered removed unless there is a significant likelihood of removing them in the reasonable foreseeable future. In Mr. Puth's case the government has been unable to remove him to Cambodia thus far, and it has not shown that it will remove him in the near future. The ACLU-SC's suit calls on the government to release Mr. Puth from detention under an order of supervision.

"We do not dispute that the government has the right to remove Mr. Puth," said Ranjana Natarajan, staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California. "All we ask is that they follow established law and not detain him indefinitely. The U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the government may not indefinitely detain non-citizens when it cannot remove them within the reasonable foreseeable future."

"He should have a chance to be with his three-year old son, even if it's just for a few months," she added.

Mr. Puth is one of hundreds of immigrant detainees from across the country who have been forced to sue the government in order to be released from indefinite detention. The government continues to insist on its right to detain such immigrants, even when removal is not imminent.