News

Major civil rights organizations have reached a settlement agreement with the Dinuba Unified School District (DUSD) to ensure that young English learners have an equal chance to succeed. The agreement, which was finalized at a school board meeting last week, comes as the result of a lawsuit filed in May by Dinuba parents and teachers. The plaintiffs are represented by the ACLU of Southern Californ... Read More

The San Diego U.S. Attorney is treading dangerous legal ground with a legal opinion that seems to be threatening Del Mar city employees with prosecution if they comply with an ordinance on medical marijuana up for a vote in November. In a letter sent today, the ACLU of California called on Laura Duffy, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California, to assure voters that the federal govern... Read More

Download the Summer 2012 ACLU of Northern California Newsletter and read about our latest events and initiatives. Read More

Yesterday afternoon, the California State Senate approved the TRUST Act (AB 1081-Ammiano) with a vote of 21-13. Assemblymember Tom Ammiano is the bill's author; Sen. Kevin de León served as floor manager for the vote and presented the bill to the Senate. Read More

California’s budget negotiations are an exercise in high stakes tradeoffs. And as legislators accept deep cuts to education and the safety net, the ACLU is challenging Californians to acquire a real-time sense of how the state’s bottom line would fare if prisons and jails were placed at the center of the chopping block. Read More

Citing badly deteriorated conditions at the West Contra Costa school district's Community Day School Program, the ACLU of Northern California and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights today filed suit on behalf of two concerned taxpayers against the school district. The lawsuit seeks to compel the district to relocate its Community Day School Program (CDSP) and to provide adequate staffing, inst... Read More

The ACLU of Northern California has been named the Community Organization Grand Marshal for San Francisco Pride 2012. The ACLU has a decades-long history advocating equality for LGBT people. It brought its first LGBT rights suit in 1936 and over many decades helped what became a strong movement for LGBT equality. Today, the ACLU remains in the thick of the battle, fighting for the recognition of s... Read More

Today, parents and teachers in Dinuba, CA filed suit against the Dinuba Unified School District and the State of California, charging that the school district and state are violating students’ fundamental right to equal educational opportunity. The lawsuit seeks to stop this Central Valley school district from denying basic instruction in reading to 1st and 2nd grade English learners and from usin... Read More

Three organizations concerned with civil rights and civic participation are asking the California Supreme Court to clarify and protect the voting rights of 85,000 Californians before the October 22, 2012 voter registration deadline. Read More

Today, the California State Assembly unanimously approved AB 2530 authored by Assembly member Toni Atkins. A straight-forward bill that would prohibit the most dangerous forms of shackling of pregnant incarcerated women, AB 2530 has garnered support from Republicans and Democrats alike. Read More

With students across California being suspended and expelled at alarming rates – and with no evidence that this severe discipline actually makes schools safer – Assemblymember Tom Ammiano has introduced AB 1729, a bill to encourage effective school discipline. The bill will be heard in Assembly Appropriations on Wednesday, May 16. Read More

Today, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU-NC) and the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild demanded that the Oakland Police Department explain if it plans to abandon its Crowd Control Policy, in favor of vague standards that fail to provide specific guidance to officers in the field and that invite a repetition of last fall’s botched handling of... Read More