Archive

Today, in a 6 to 1 decision, the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, the ballot measure that eliminated the right of same sex couples to marry. In the ruling authored by Chief Justice Ronald George, the Court stated "We emphasize only that among the various constitutional protections recognized in the Marriage Cases as available to same-sex couples, it is only the designation of marria... Read More

After your support drove the California Legislature to send a letter rejecting the Department of Motor Vehicle's proposal to begin embedding biometric information—face and fingerprint scans—into drivers' licenses, a senate subcommittee voted yesterday to delete the facial scan proposal from the DMV's contract with drivers' license providers.Senators Simitian and Lowell, who voted to delete the pro... Read More

A Federal judge approved an historic $2.35 million class action settlement to hundreds of Fresno's homeless residents. United States District Judge Oliver W. Wanger had previously ordered that the City and the California Department of Transportation had violated homeless residents' constitutional rights in the practice of immediately seizing and destroying personal property. Throughout a two-year ... Read More

For Rochelle Hamilton, starting high school was the beginning of relentless harassment from teachers and school staff because she's openly gay. One teacher told her, "You're going to hell. This is a sin." Another said, "What's wrong with you? What are you, a man or a woman?" After months of asking the school and the district to intervene – to no avail – Rochelle and her mom reached out to the ACLU... Read More

The ACLU of Northern California announced today that it has reached a settlement agreement with the Vallejo City Unified School District on behalf of a high school student who faced anti-gay harassment and discrimination from teachers and school staff and was required to participate in a school-sponsored "counseling" group designed to discourage students from being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans... Read More

In February 2009, a Fresno television newscast aired a video of a police officer repeatedly punching Glen Beaty, a homeless man, as two officers took him into custody. In the video, Beaty does not appear to be struggling, resisting, or doing anything else that could warrant this level of force: he is lying on the ground as one officer holds his arm and the other punches him in the head. His arms a... Read More

Join the math club, take a drug test. That was the rule in the Shasta Union High School District until today, when a California Superior Court judge put a stop to the district's policy of requiring students to consent to random drug testing in order to participate in school-sponsored activities like marching band and math club. The court granted a preliminary injunction, voiding the district's dru... Read More

A big thumbs up to the San José City Council for standing up for free speech and against censorship on Tuesday night and voting against the installation of internet blocking software on library computers.After 18 months of hard work by the ACLU, coalition partners, and concerned individuals like you who contacted Council members to support open access, free speech prevailed in San José. The City C... Read More

A federal appeals court today ruled that a landmark ACLU lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan Inc. for its role in the Bush administration's unlawful extraordinary rendition program can go forward. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court dismissal of the lawsuit, brought on behalf of five men who were kidnapped, forcibly disappeared and secretly transf... Read More

On Tuesday, April 21, at 7pm, the San José City Council will consider a proposal that would limit public access to important information by imposing filtering on the Internet terminals in public libraries. If you live or work in San José, please attend this meeting and join us in opposing this proposal.The Council meeting agenda includes a proposal by Councilmember Constant that would require the ... Read More