Court Cases

On Nov. 5, 2008, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, along with the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Lambda Legal, filed a writ petition in the California Supreme Court challenging the validity of Proposition 8. Proposition 8, passed by a narrow majority of California voters in the November 2008 election, purports to amend California's Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Equality California and six couples who did not marry before the election but would like to be able to marry now.

In August 2007, the AFL-CIO and other groups filed suit to stop government officials from implementing a Department of Homeland Security regulation that created widespread concern about anti-immigrant discrimination in employment and unnecessary and unjust terminations.

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 period City employees had conducted a number of raids in areas where homeless people live, indiscriminately seizing and immediately destroying clothing, medication, tents and blankets, as well as irreplaceable personal possessions such as family photographs.