ACLU co-operating attorney Carol Sobel filed suit in federal court today challenging the City of Long Beach's impediments to an activist community group, People for Community Empowerment, holding an Independence Day celebration at a city park.

The issue came to a head when police learned that anarchists would be tabling to distribute political literature at the event.

Sobel has been contacted by the city.

LOS ANGELES - Students at Locke High School, who are routinely subjected to intrusive searches of their persons, papers, and belongings, took action today as plaintiffs in a suit filed on their behalf in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. The lawsuit, filed against various Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) officials, alleges that students' Fourth Amendment rights have been violated by the searches.

"Our society is moving toward treating every youth as a criminal suspect," said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California. "Searches without reasonable suspicion are just one component in this trend �_ a trend that makes the false promise of providing safety in exchange for surrendering civil rights. The safety payoff never materializes, but in the meantime, students' rights do get taken away."

"By instituting repressive security measures in schools, we educate our students to be residents of a police state, not a democracy," said Ripston.

"School officials have a responsibility to treat the students in their care with respect and to provide them with a quality education," said Chris Tan, an ACLU of Southern California staff attorney and Skadden Fellow. "Instead, at Locke, they're taking time away from teaching and treating students like criminals. In so doing, they are blatantly violating the right of every student to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures."

At Locke, students are subjected to two kinds of searches, neither of which is based on reasonable suspicion. At the front gate of the school, some students who are late are chosen for searches. Students are scanned using a metal-detecting wand, and their jackets, book bags, pockets, and purses are searched. A second form of search is conducted during class time, when students are randomly selected for a search in front of the class. Students report being taken to the front of the room and patted down in front of their classmates.

Elizabeth Perea, a junior at Locke, described one of the searches:

"[A school official]...took the girls to the blackboard," said Perea. "We were told to face the blackboard. She told us to lift up our arms and open our legs. She patted down our pockets, ankles, and pant legs. She told us to untuck our shirts and to turn around. Nobody found anything on any of the students. Nobody explained why they were searching us. Instead, we each received a note afterwards explaining that we had been searched."

Perea noted that the searches humiliate and embarrass Locke students and waste time that could have spent learning.

"The searches make me very uncomfortable," said Perea. "It is absurd. We try to stay away from violence and gangs, and either way we are treated like gangbangers. They should not search us during our education time. Plus, girls have private things in our bags, like for when we get our period, and that shouldn't be shown for everyone to see."

Parents also objected to their children being treated like criminals. Nathaniel Ali-Perkins, of the African-American Parent/Community Organization, charged that the searches damaged students' self-esteem.

"We believe the searches are dehumanizing and damaging to our children's self-esteem - and, overall, program them for failure," said Ali-Perkins.

Moreover, the searches have failed as a security tool. Not once in the eight years since LAUSD instituted its random search policy has a gun been uncovered as a result of a random search.

LOS ANGELES - The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California praised yesterday's 43-29 vote in the California Assembly approving a bill to provide ten key protections to couples who register as domestic partners with the State of California. The bill, authored by Assemblymember Carole Migden, is supported by a broad coalition of groups in California, including the California Alliance for Pride and Equality (CAPE), the ACLU of Southern California, People For the American Way, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and others.

"This vote is an enormous first step toward fairness," said Heather Carrigan, Director of the ACLU of Southern California's Department of Public Policy. "No other state in the nation has taken an equivalent step without the pressure of a lawsuit to force change. California is at the very forefront of political organizing for equal rights for gay and lesbian couples, and the passage of this bill is a clear sign of that progress."

"The rights and protections identified in AB 25 are critical, minimal protections," said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California. "We all face losses and challenges in our family lives: the state should never set policy that makes those times more difficult than they already are."

AB 25 will provide domestic partners the right to sue for wrongful death, medical and financial decision-making when one partner is incapacitated, automatic inheritance in the absence of a will, inclusion in the state's simplified, pre-formatted will, the right to use one's sick days to care for a partner, and other similar protections.

Opponents of the bill attempted to influence legislators by taking out attack ads in targeted districts throughout the state. The effort appeared to backfire, as numerous legislators reported in yesterday's debate. The effort targeted legislators who are people of color, under the erroneous impression that communities of color are less likely than white people to support equal rights for gay and lesbian people.

"The right wing's tactics in this case are completely misguided," said Heather Carrigan, Director of Public Policy at the ACLU of Southern California. "Opponents of the bill simply demonstrated their own ignorance and bias when they conducted a campaign based on the stereotype that communities of color are less supportive of equality for gay and lesbian people than white people are. In fact, in polling conducted immediately after the Knight Initiative shows that 62% of Latina women voters surveyed, a higher percentage than for any other group, support the concept of civil unions for same-gender couples, and a majority of all California voters - 52% - support legal unions for same-sex couples."