LOS ANGELES - Today, at 11:00 A.M., the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California announced the filing of a class-action lawsuit to end discriminatory treatment of girls' softball players in the City of La Puente. The legal complaint, filed by the ACLU/SC in federal court today, claims that the girls are "being denied equal and adequate access to City-owned resources made available to the local boys' baseball league, on the basis of their gender."

The case was filed by nine girls on behalf of all girls who play softball in the City of La Puente. The nine plaintiffs range in age from 9-17 years.

"This week, as we watch the nation's most competitive teams play in the World Series, we are putting the City on notice that boys aren't the only ones with big league dreams," said Ranjana Natarajan, staff attorney with the ACLU/SC. "The girls of La Puente deserve better than this - they deserve an equal playing field."

The suit documents the blatant inequality that exists between the facilities used by local boys' teams and girls' softball teams. For example, boys enjoy fields with level grass and dirt, bullpen areas, new and operational concession stands, stadium lighting for night games, metal bleachers, clean restrooms, paved parking lots, equipment storage space, scoreboards, functional sound systems, and are maintained at least in part by the City. The girls' fields lack each of these attributes.

The girls, their parents, and coaches have made repeated public requests to City officials, including the Mayor and City Council, for access to City-owned playing fields. The City has consistently denied these requests and failed to improve the girls' facilities.

"These girls face some daunting challenges in their communities," said Soly Perez, staff attorney with the ACLU/SC. "Whereas the average high school female drop out rate in the entire state is 2.5 percent, the drop out rate in the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District is more than three times that amount at 7.7 percent. Experts agree that girls who participate in extracurricular activities, especially sports, substantially decrease their risk of dropping out of school. These girls have plenty of hurdles to overcome. Having to fight the City to gain the respect and equality they are legally entitled to should not be added to that list."

"Girls leave La Puente to play in other softball leagues because they have better facilities," said Amorette Avila, a 17 year-old pitcher on a team called Girls In Black. "If we had better facilities, we could play better and get noticed by recruiters. It would also help girls get softball scholarships."

"We're not asking for special treatment - we just want to play on nice, safe fields, just like the boys," she added.

We are disappointed by the Ninth Circuit's en banc decision. We remain firmly convinced that using voting equipment officially declared by the state to be obsolete, in a number of counties with a high concentration of minority voters, violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act. Indeed, we continue to believe that the geographical and racial disparities at issue in this case are far more troubling than the legal claims presented in Bush v. Gore. As a result, we remain deeply concerned over the fairness and accuracy of California's October 7th election. We can only hope, along with all Californians, that it will not turn into another Florida debacle.

With the election just two weeks away, we do not believe we should prolong the uncertainty any longer. At this point, it is important that the candidates, the campaigns, and the voters know that the election will be held on a date that is certain.

Therefore, we have reluctantly decided to accept the Ninth Circuit's verdict and will not ask the Supreme Court to review the decision. We will, however, press forward vigorously with our national campaign for election reform and will fight to ensure the fairness and accuracy of all voting procedures in every future election, including the 2004 Presidential contest.

LOS ANGELES - The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today issued a decision in the case of Southwest Voter Registration Education Project v. Shelley, also known as the 'punch card' voting machines case. In victory for California voters, the court ordered the postponement of the California recall election until all California counties complete the transition away from faulty and decertified 'punch card' voting machines. The plaintiffs, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Los Angeles, the NAACP, California State Conference of Branches, and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project had filed suit against California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley over the continued use of decertified 'punch card' voting machines in the upcoming recall election.

The ACLU/SC argued that the continued use of obsolete, decertified 'punch card' voting machines, the same ones at the center of the Florida 2000 election controversy, in six California counties would have the effect of disenfranchising voters in those counties, including urban areas with large concentrations of minority voters.

'This is a victory for California voters,' said Alice Huffman, president of the NAACP, California State Conference of Branches. 'California voters deserve to go to the polls with the knowledge that their votes will be counted. We can't afford a repeat of the 2000 Florida election debacle.'

The state of California has already conceded that the machines are obsolete and because of a previous ACLU/SC suit are scheduled to be replaced by March 2004.

'Today's court decision represents a victory for democracy and fairness,' said Antonio Gonzalez, executive director of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project. 'Rather than proceeding with an election that would have made Florida 2000 look like a festival of democracy, the court has prudently decided to wait until the election can be conducted right by replacing the outdated voting machines and helping to insure that proper financing is available to conduct a fair and transparent election.'

Currently, six California counties continue to use outdate, decertified, 'punch card' voting machines. The six counties are: Los Angeles, Mendocino, Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Clara, and Solano.

'The ACLU/SC does not take a position on the California recall, our interest is in seeing that every single Californian goes to the polls with the confidence that his or her vote will be counted,' said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the ACLU/SC. 'This is a victory for democracy and for California voters. The message is clear: we must not sacrifice political equality in favor of political expediency.'