LOS ANGELES - Community leaders from the African American community, the Latino community, the disability rights community, the Jewish community, and the civil rights community gathered today at the ACLU of Southern California to debunk the underlying premise of Proposition 38 - that it will help solve the problem of inequality in California schools.

Rev. Norman Johnson, Eve Hill, Hon. Antonio Villaraigosa,

and Ramona Ripston at the press conference today

The ACLU of Southern California Department of Public Affairs also released an analysis of the geographic distribution of private and religious school seats in Los Angeles County that showed that the numbers of private school seats per capita are lower in areas with higher percentages of African-American residents, with higher percentages of Latino residents, and with lower per capita income.

"There's a gap between the resources offered to rich and to poor students and a gap between those provided to students of color and to white students," said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California. "But to close a gap you need a bridge, and Prop. 38 is no bridge. It simply presents us with another gap in a different sector and calls it a solution."

"The vast majority of private and religious schools - 78% in one survey - select only students who are performing at grade level or above," said Ripston. "That means that the students whose education has suffered the most in public schools are the very ones who don't stand a chance of leaving them."

In fact, a 1998 U.S. Department of Education survey of private schools revealed that only 15 to 31% of private schools surveyed would participate in a vouchers program if they were required to accept students with special needs, such as learning disabilities, limited English proficiency, or low achievement.

Other speakers raised questions about the real-life hurdles families will face when trying to access vouchers, including transportation costs, discrimination on the basis of academic preparation, discrimination on the basis of language ability, private schools' lower rates of participation in free or reduced-cost lunch programs, and discrimination based on ability to pay.

"Vouchers are not a reform movement or solution to the problems of public education," said Rev. James Lawson. "Black and brown children are not the ones who stand the most to gain from the passage of Proposition 38; it's the affluent children already in private schools."

"Here in California, we're beginning at last to realize that a multi-ethnic, multicultural society cannot pick and choose which children to value," said Speaker Emeritus Antonio Villaraigosa.

"A multicultural society cannot survive without building a common platform to launch our multitude of dreams."

The issue of equal access was also a concern of the disability rights community. Religious schools are exempt from the two pieces of federal civil rights education that guarantee students with disabilities access to a free and appropriate public education: the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act. In addition, only around 9% of private and religious schools in Los Angeles County offer special education.

The community leaders who came together to address access issues at today's press conference included:

--Hon. Antonio Villaraigosa, Assemblymember of the 45th District, former Speaker of the California Assembly, and Board member of the ACLU of Southern California.

--Rev. James Lawson, former vice president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and a Board member of the ACLU of Southern California. Rev. Lawson recently retired after 45 years as a minister.

--Rev. Norman Johnson, President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Vice President of the Southern California Affiliate of the Congress of National Black Churches

--Eve Hill, Executive Director of the Western Law Center for Disability Rights

--Angela Sambrano, Central American Resource Center (CARECEN)

--Daniel Sokatch, Executive Director of the Progressive Jewish Alliance

--Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California

LOS ANGELES - In the aftermath of an unprecedented election contest, ultimately decided by a U.S. Supreme Court that openly questioned whether individuals have the right to vote for President, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California Ramona Ripston called for a Constitutional Amendment to guarantee U.S. citizens the right to elect their President.

"We must change our Constitution to make it clear that every American has the right to vote," said Ripston, "and we do not exercise our franchise by the sufferance of our state legislators."

"What we thought was unshakeably secure has been shaken," said Ripston, "and now it must be clearly, fully, and finally secured. Justice Scalia's attack on our right to vote has created a crisis in confidence in our democratic process. We need a Constitutional Amendment that affirms what we have believed to be true for generations: the people, not state legislatures, have the right to elect the President of the United States."

Ripston compared Justice Scalia's comments to antiquated, anti-democratic ideas in the U.S. Constitution which have been altered over time as we have grown into a more democratic society.

"As a result of the 17th Amendment, we now vote directly for our Senators," said Ripston. "As a result of the 14th amendment, African Americans are guaranteed equality, and as a result of the 19th Amendment, women vote. The framers of our Constitution began a process whose completion they perhaps could not imagine. We imagine it today as we broaden our freedoms and secure our rights."

"Today, we call for a 28th Amendment so that our freedom to vote for President will not, in the future, be trifled with, undermined, or subordinated to other considerations," said Ripston. "In order to heal the injuries to our democracy, in order to come together as a people, we must first know that we are guaranteed the right to vote. We call on our elected leaders, we call on President-elect Bush, and we call on all those committed to democracy to rally behind this fundamental right."

LOS ANGELES - Seven months after the ACLU, other civil rights groups, and the law firm of Morrison & Foerster sued the State of California for failing to provide an equal and adequate education to thousands of children in California, the State today filed a 147 page cross-complaint against 18 school districts. The schoolchildren named in the original complaint attend schools in the 18 districts sued by the State. None of the districts was a defendant in the suit brought by the ACLU on behalf of schoolchildren. The filing of the cross-complaint comes on the heels of the state's announcement that it will be deposing all of the 46 principals of the schools that the plaintiffs attend starting on December 21, 2000 until January 15, 2001.

"The State's decision to sue the districts makes no sense," said ACLU of Southern California Legal Director Mark Rosenbaum, "because the judge has already decided that 'local districts are the state's agents for local operation of the common school system, and the state's ultimate responsibility cannot be delegated to any other public entity.' So the state is really just suing itself."

"The state's action," said Rosenbaum, "illuminates the complete absence of any effective or even rational system of accountability over public education. The state has already admitted that it has no idea whether students throughout California have textbooks or not. Nor does it have even a basic inventory of the schools where unsafe, unsanitary, and unhealthful conditions endanger our children and make it impossible for them to obtain a decent education. It appears that the only means the State has to find out what's going on at the local level is to wait for poor and minority children to bring a lawsuit. And, the only way the state can figure out to make sure that students in local districts receive the bare essentials of an education is to sue them. You could not design a more dysfunctional, 'pass the buck' system of oversight and accountability if you tried."

"By suing the districts," said Rosenbaum, "the State is forcing those districts to make a choice between spending limited funds on books, teachers, and safe facilities on one hand, and paying lawyers on the other. This behavior is consistent with the state's decision to use taxpayer funds to hire O'Melveny & Myers, one of the largest law firms in the country, to represent the state. Neither decision is in the best interest of schoolchildren or taxpayers."

"The state's harassment tactics, such as forcing principals to spend part of their hard-earned Christmas vacation being deposed by the State's own lawyers," said Rosenbaum, "outscrooge Scrooge, undermining Governor Davis' public position that education is his number one, two, and three priorities. It's like a general going to war against his troops. By suing the school districts, the state is not only playing Scrooge for the Christmas season, it is putting districts in an untenable position. By forcing the districts to defend themselves against a complaint brought by the State, the State is forcing the districts to waste money and delaying the improvements for poor and minority students that they so desperately need."