By David Sapp, ACLU of Southern California at 1:40pm
Our nation’s public schools represent the highest and most revolutionary ideal of American democracy — that through education open to all on an equal basis, every child can achieve his or her full potential as a result of merit and hard work. The California Constitution, like the constitutions of every state in the Union, accordingly entitles the children of this state to a free and equal education. But, as an investigation by the ACLU of Southern California (ACLU/SC) released Friday has found, there’s no system of truly free public education in California. Public schools throughout the state openly ignore this constitutional right by requiring students to pay fees and purchase assigned materials for academic courses and for school-sponsored extracurricular activities.
Last fall, Jeremy Bowen, a 14-year-old student receiving special educational services at Westerly High School in Westerly, Rhode Island, took the courageous step of integrating into mainstream classes. Jeremy struggled with the assigned work, and his mother, Elizabeth Boyer, spent countless hours in meetings with school officials working to revise Jeremy's education plan to provide him with the support and services he needed.
In an interview with the Associated Press on July 2, President Obama commented on affirmative action. He said, "I've always believed that affirmative action was less of an issue, or should be less than an issue, than it's been made out to be in news reports. It's not, it hasn't been as potent a force for racial progress as advocates would claim, and it hasn't been as bad on white students seeking admissions or seeking a job as its critics has been."
By Meghan Groob, Media Relations Associate, ACLU at 12:14pm
Exactly one year ago today, a 17-year-old boy named Trayvon Martin was gunned down in his quiet Florida suburb in a tragedy that left our country shocked and ashamed. The incident set off a national conversation about racial profiling and the role race played in his death and subsequent police action.
Racial profiling violates the Constitution by denying equal protection under the law, as well as freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. Furthermore, the Constitution requires treaties to be treated as the "supreme law of the land," and racial profiling runs afoul of America's human rights treaty obligations.
It’s been more than a year since I was pulled off that Frontier flight at the Detroit airport for reasons I can only ascribe to discrimination and racial profiling. It was the end of a long trip home for me, but the beginning of a life-altering experience that has ultimately led me to shine a light on this great injustice. We often think of racial profiling as a problem that impacts other people. I am proof that racial profiling hurts us all.
An international human rights body is set to question the United States on its obligations under a key human rights treaty. The U.N. Human Rights Committee, an independent body of experts tasked with monitoring compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), this week released its list of issues, which will serve as the basis for its upcoming review of U.S. compliance with the treaty. The U.S. ratified the ICCPR in 1992 and is obligated to submit to periodic reviews of its treaty implementation efforts.
It's back to school this week, and students across the country will not only be catching up with friends and doing homework, but suffering the humiliation of having their cell phones illegally confiscated and searched.
That's right: it's an unfortunate fact that many school districts wrongly believe that if a student is in trouble for a minor offense, they have the right to conduct a fishing expedition in order to find evidence of other wrongdoing. Regardless of whether or not a student is permitted to have a phone on campus, if the Fourth Amendment is to have any meaning, the contents of that phone cannot be searched without reasonable, individualized suspicion that the search of the student's phone will lead to evidence of wrongdoing with the phone. This usually means that a warrant is required before the government can search our private information. At school, school administrators are required to have a reason for the search, prior to invading a student's privacy.
Our nation’s public schools represent the highest and most revolutionary ideal of American democracy — that through education open to all on an equal basis, every child can achieve his or her full potential as a result of merit and hard work. The California Constitution, like the constitutions of every state in the Union, accordingly entitles the children of this state to a free and equal education. But, as an 
