(LOS ANGELES) Today the 9th Circuit ruled in favor of artist Tom Forsythe in a case involving the artist's use of the Barbie doll in his art work and Mattel's efforts to suppress that use through invoking copyright and trademark infringement. The court handed the litigious toymaker a decisive defeat, all but eliminating its hopes of preventing artists from using the image of its iconic doll to critique the values they believe it represents.

"The Ninth Circuit made a very strong statement on behalf of artists' free speech and cultural criticism in the context of corporate intellectual property," said Annette Hurst, who argued the case before the Ninth Circuit and is attorney with the firm Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin. "In light of the Court's strong direction that attorneys' fees should also be awarded, Mattel's directors and shareholders must now consider whether protracted and expensive losing legal battles against artists are really a good expenditure of corporate resources."

"We are very pleased by the Court of Appeals' decision, which accepted virtually argument we made in support of the District Court's ruling granting summary judgment to Mr. Forsythe," said Doug Winthrop, also of Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin. "This is a complete victory for Tom Forsythe and for other artists and commentators who have been attacked by overly-aggressive intellectual property owners. We also are very pleased by the Court of Appeals' reversal of the District Court's ruling denying Forsythe's request for $1.6 million in attorneys' fees. We think the writing is on the wall that Mattel is going to have to pay a substantial sum for having brought this baseless action."

The case, Mattel v. Walking Mountain Productions, centered on the corporate control of public symbols and the issue of whether artists have the right to transform the intellectual property of others in order to criticize such symbols and comment on society.

Artist Tom Forsythe, of Kanab, Utah, has used Barbie dolls to parody Barbie's embodiment of America's culture of consumption and conformism. His "Food Chain Barbie" series of photos appeared in galleries and won critical acclaim in juried competitions. In August of 1999, Mattel sued the artist for copyright and trademark infringement. The firm Howard, Rice and the ACLU of Southern California stepped in to stop Mattel's use of litigation as a method of bullying artists into abandoning their First Amendment rights.

"Today's ruling is a critical victory in the effort to maintain our right to speak out and critique a world increasingly dominated by corporate speech and brands," said Peter Eliasberg, Managing Attorney at the ACLU of Southern California. "The Ninth Circuit made it absolutely clear that the corporate world can't ban satire."

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.