On Sunday afternoon, the LAPD yet again trampled on the free speech rights of peaceful protesters, legal observers, and journalists at a demonstration of over 1,000 people held at LAPD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. Ironically, the demonstration was against police brutality. Instead of dealing with the handful of individuals engaged in illegal behavior, the LAPD attacked indiscriminately. The police - who did not declare an unlawful assembly - intervened with a heavy hand and without warning, on horseback and in riot gear, dispersing the crowd by indiscriminately using batons and shooting rubber bullets. Two people who were wearing the brightly colored, clearly marked hats of official legal observers were standing on a public sidewalk when they were rammed by two officers on motorcycles.

Instead of cooperating with the rally organizers, the police responded with violence, turning a tense situation into a volatile one.

We already know that several people were hurt in yesterday's actions by the police and only hope that no one was seriously injured by the LAPD's extreme use of force and its undifferentiated attacks on a crowd of people, most of whom were trying to leave the scene.

Once again the LAPD's actions point out that the department is out of control, and underscores the critical need for truly independent, outside civilian oversight of the police department.

LOS ANGELES - In a ringing endorsement of free speech, a federal court judge today made clear that he would issue a preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of Los Angeles Municipal Code �_ 80.75, which prohibits placing "For Sale" signs in cars parked on Los Angeles city streets. The ruling came in a case brought by the ACLU of Southern California in June 2000 on behalf of Edward Burkow, a man who was fined by the City of Los Angeles in September of 1999 for placing a "For Sale" sign in his white Volkswagen while it was parked on a city street.

"Every Southern Californian knows that automobiles are also vehicles of self-expression," said Peter Eliasberg, staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California. "We use our cars as platforms to pitch our web-sites and herbal formulas, to argue about whales and fetuses, to joke with each other, to promote our acting careers, to advertize our tastes in music, fast food, politicians, deities, and sexual partners -- in short, to engage in virtually every kind of conversation that can be imagined, from the inane to the profound. The city's ill-conceived scheme to regulate one aspect of this vehicular open forum has been dealt a blow today."

Geoff Thomas, of Paul Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP, pro bono co-counsel in the case, emphasized that today's preliminary injunction was a victory for individuals' rights to engage in commercial free speech.

"While it's true that different standards apply to commercial speech, the Constitution protects individuals' commercial as well as other speech rights," said Thomas. "Too often, regulation of commercial speech means that only those with the resources to challenge a restriction are truly free. That's why it's so critical to stand up for individuals' rights to exercise commercial speech freely."

Judge A. Howard Matz rejected the city's justifications of the law, which included traffic safety and aesthetic concerns.

"Under L.A.M.C. .ﾌ_ 80.75," wrote Judge Matz, "commercial advertisements on cars could offer anything for sale, such as ads depicting jewelry, drugs, or sexually explicit magazines, except the car on which the sign is mounted."

"The court," wrote Judge Matz, "cannot fathom how a sign in a parked car is more dangerous than the same sign in a moving car."

"As to the indisputably important 'aesthetic' concerns," wrote Judge Matz, "Defendant could minimize alleged harms with measures far short of outright prohibition."

Since filing the lawsuit on June 1, 2000, the ACLU has received numerous of calls from throughout the Los Angeles region from individuals who have been fined for putting "For Sale" signs in their cars.

"This ruling is a red flag to all the cities in the region that enforce these 'For Sale' sign bans," said Michael Small, Chief Counsel at the ACLU of Southern California. "If you don't a want a losing battle on your hands, you better take get these ordinances off the books."

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