Responsibility For Ensuring All Students Receive Adequate Education Falls Squarely On Atlanta Independent School System

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 30, 2009

CONTACT: Will Matthews, ACLU, (212) 549-2582 or 2666; media@aclu.org

Debbie Seagraves, ACLU of Georgia, (770) 303-8111; dseagraves@acluga.org

ATLANTA – After the Atlanta Independent School System (AISS) severed its contract with Community Education Partners, Inc. (CEP) to run the city’s alternative school, the American Civil Liberties Union today dropped the private, for-profit company from its federal lawsuit challenging the inadequate education provided by the school to its students. AISS declined to renew its $7 million annual contract with CEP to run the school – one of the most dangerous and lowest performing in the state – after the ACLU and the ACLU of Georgia filed a lawsuit last year against CEP and AISS for violating students’ constitutional rights.

AISS remains a defendant in the lawsuit and now bears full responsibility for improving the school’s performance and practices, which have been abysmal by nearly every available measurement.

“The appalling performance of the school while run by CEP highlights the significant problems inherent to the privatization of public education and AISS deserves credit for ending its relationship with CEP,” said Reginald T. Shuford, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Racial Justice Program. “It is of paramount importance, however, that this be only a first step. It is now incumbent upon AISS to honor its commitment to provide all of its students with an adequate public education.”

The ACLU’s initial lawsuit charged violations by the school district and CEP of students’ constitutional rights under federal and state law, including the students’ rights to due process and to be free from unreasonable searches. The school, managed by CEP since 2002, was designed as a privately-run, taxpayer-funded alternative middle and high school for students with behavioral problems. However, the placement process is often arbitrary and students referred to the school are routinely denied meaningful opportunities to challenge compulsory assignment to the school.

CEP’s administration of schools in other cities has also come under attack. CEP has run alternative schools in Houston, Philadelphia, Richmond, Orlando and Florida’s Pinnellas and Bay districts through contracts with public school systems since 1995. In 2005, CEP’s annual revenues totaled $70 million. Since its contract began with AISS in 2002, Atlanta’s taxpayers have paid CEP more than $50 million.

“The driving motivation of private, for-profit educational companies is not to provide quality education, but rather to make money,” said Debbie Seagraves, Executive Director of the ACLU of Georgia. “And, too often, these companies are not held accountable. Here in Atlanta, it’s the children and taxpayers who have paid the price.”

Classes at Atlanta’s public schools begin on August 10.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs in the case include Shuford and I. India Geronimo of the ACLU Racial Justice Program, Chara Fisher Jackson of the ACLU Foundation of Georgia, Nancy Abudu of the ACLU Southern Regional Office and lawyers from the Davis Bozeman Law Firm PC and Covington & Burling LLP.

A copy of the ACLU’s 2008 lawsuit is available online at: www.aclu.org/crimjustice/juv/34423lgl20080311.html

Additional information about the ACLU Racial Justice Program is available online at: www.aclu.org/racialjustice

Additional information about the ACLU’s work to combat the School to Prison Pipeline is available at: www.aclu.org/stpp

Additional information about the ACLU of Georgia is available online at: www.acluga.org

Forum will be Saturday, August 1st, 10 a.m. to Noon, at Our Lady of the Americas Catholic Mission

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, July 28, 2009

CONTACT
Azadeh Shahshahani, ACLU of Georgia, 404-574-0851, ashahshahani@acluga.org
Rev. Tracy Blagec, ABLE, 404-218-7913, tblagec@aol.com

Atlanta – Atlantans Building Leadership for Empowerment (ABLE) and the ACLU of Georgia announce a “Know Your Rights/Tell Your Story” Racial Profiling Forum in Gwinnett County. The forum begins a campaign against racial profiling and provides community members of diverse backgrounds an opportunity to share testimonies of racial profiling and to learn about their rights when encountering law enforcement. The ACLU of Georgia will compile those testimonies into a human rights report. Both the forum and the report will shine light on the problem of racial profiling in Georgia, with the ultimate goal of passing anti-racial profiling legislation in the Georgia Legislature.

The forum comes after the recent announcement by the Department of Homeland Security that Gwinnett County will be awarded a 287 (g) Agreement, making it the fifth agency in Georgia to allow for local enforcement of federal civil immigration laws.

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation earlier this year reported that ICE was not exercising proper oversight over local or state agencies and that local law enforcement were focusing resources on arrests for minor violations. Despite claims by the Department of Homeland Security that the new standardized Memoranda of Agreement (MOA) include significant improvements, an ACLU review found that those changes have little or no positive operative effect and provide for even less transparency, as the new agreement now declares that documents related to 287(g) are no longer public records. This leaves counties with new 287(g) agreements even more susceptible to racial profiling.

“The new 287(g) MOA leaves the door open for local law enforcement to continue abuses of power such as racial profiling under the guise of federal immigration authority,” said Azadeh Shahshahani, the ACLU of Georgia National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project Director. “The signing of another 287(g) Agreement in Georgia highlights the importance of meaningful checks against human rights violations and racial profiling at the state level.”

“The signing of another 287g agreement in Georgia makes it necessary now more than ever for our Georgia Legislature to pass anti-racial profiling legislation,” said Rev. Blagec of ABLE. “As Americans, we must demand more, rather than less, accountability and transparency from our government and law enforcement agencies.”

Senator Gloria Butler, who sponsored anti-racial profiling legislation at the Georgia Legislature and who plans to re-introduce similar legislation, will be the guest speaker.

The “Know Your Rights/Tell Your Story” Racial Profiling Forum will be held on Saturday, August 1, 2009 at Our Lady of the Americas Catholic Mission, 4603 Lawrenceville Highway, Lilburn, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Forum co-sponsors include: Coalition for the People’s Agenda, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, Council on American-Islamic Relations – Georgia chapter, Raksha, CLILA, Cobb Immigrant Alliance, Georgia Rural Urban Summit, Georgia Detention Watch, and Metro Fair Housing Services, Inc.

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ABLE is a multi-racial, interfaith regional coalition of congregations, unions and grassroots organizations that develops and empowers ordinary people to become leaders who effect change in their communities for the common good of all.

The ACLU of Georgia’s mission is to advance the cause of civil liberties in Georgia, with emphasis on rights of free speech, free assembly, freedom of religion, due process of law and to take all legitimate action in the furtherance of such purposes without political partisanship.

The adopted policy was presented by the ACLU of Georgia to the Supreme Court of Georgia Committee on Access and Fairness in the Courts

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, July 27, 2009

CONTACT:
Azadeh Shahshahani, 404-574-0851, ashahshahani@acluga.org

Atlanta – The ACLU of Georgia today applauded the adoption by the Georgia Judicial Council, the policy-making body for Georgia courts, of a policy clarifying that religious head coverings can be worn in Georgia courthouses. The policy which balances courts’ security concerns with individuals’ fundamental right to religious liberty was presented by the ACLU of Georgia to the Supreme Court of Georgia Committee on Access and Fairness in the Courts at their June 12th meeting.

“We are thrilled that the Georgia Judicial Council has decided to adopt this policy, thereby ensuring that no one in Georgia will ever have to choose between their fundamental right to free expression of religion and their right to gain access to a courthouse,” said Azadeh Shahshahani, the ACLU of Georgia National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project Director who attended the June 12th meeting of the Committee on Access and Fairness in the Courts and presented the policy. “This is a step in the direction of ensuring that the guarantee of religious freedom is assured to all Georgia residents, regardless of their faith.”

The ACLU of Georgia advocated for the adoption of this policy after learning about troubling reports of incidents at the Douglasville Municipal Court where Muslim women were faced with the choice of removing their headscarves or the denial of access to court. In an incident on December 16, 2009, Lisa Valentine, also known by her Islamic name, Miedah, was arrested when Judge Keith Rollins of the Douglasville Municipal Court found her in contempt of court for refusing to remove her headscarf. Valentine and other Muslim women were refused access to the Douglasville Municipal Court, even after they expressly conveyed to court officials that the wearing of the headscarf is an expression of their faith.

Ms. Valentine and her husband accompanied Shahshahani to the June 12th meeting of the Committee on Access and Fairness in the Courts where Ms. Valentine was provided with an opportunity to speak about the experience she faced at the Douglasville Municipal Courthouse.

“I am very happy to know that no person of faith will ever have to suffer at any Georgia courthouse the type of egregious treatment I suffered because of the expression of my faith,” said Ms. Lisa Valentine.

The Anti-Defamation League and the Georgia Association of Muslim Lawyers also submitted letters in support of the policy which has now been adopted by the Georgia Judicial Council.

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The ACLU of Georgia’s mission is to advance the cause of civil liberties in Georgia, with emphasis on rights of free speech, free assembly, freedom of religion, due process of law and to take all legitimate action in the furtherance of such purposes without political partisanship.

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Government Policies Cause Rise In
Law Enforcement Profiling, Says ACLU of Georgia

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 30, 2009

CONTACT:

Debbie Seagraves 770-303-8111

ATLANTA – Widespread racial profiling by law enforcement agents as a result of Bush-era policies remains a pervasive problem in Georgia and throughout the United States, according to a report out today by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Rights Working Group (RWG). Government policies are a major cause of the disproportionate stopping and searching of racial minorities by law enforcement agencies, according to the report, which was submitted today to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

“Racial profiling remains a widespread and pervasive problem throughout the U.S., impacting the lives of millions of people in the African American, Asian, Latino, South Asian, Arab and Muslim communities,” said Chandra Bhatnagar, staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program and the main author of the report. “The U.S. government must take urgent, direct action to rid the nation of the scourge of racial and ethnic profiling and bring this country into conformity with both the Constitution and international human rights obligations.”

Today’s report includes information about ongoing racial profiling in Georgia, specifically detailing problems in Georgia counties that have entered into 287(g) agreements and racial profiling in drug enforcement.

“’Operation Meth Merchant’, a 2005-2006 law enforcement campaign in which 48 South Asian merchants where entrapped by confidential informants in North Georgia for supposedly knowing that items sold to their customers were going to be used to make methamphetamine, devastated families and lives of those impacted.”, said Deepali Gokhale, Campaign Organizer of the Racial Justice Campaign Against Operation Meth Merchant. “After the main breadwinner was locked up and deported, many of the families were forced into homelessness, poverty, bankruptcy and were traumatized by the experience. Contrary to its stated intent, getting rid of South Asians through a racially targeted government campaign has done nothing to decrease the production and use of methamphetamine in North Georgia. If instead, the government’s real intention was to follow a directive called ‘Operation Endgame’, to force immigrants into returning ‘home’, where many of them no longer had community ties, by criminalizing them and making it impossible to survive, they were successful.”

Today’s report came in response to a last-minute Bush administration submission to CERD in January 2009 that was plagued by omissions, deficiencies and mischaracterizations. In both its initial report to CERD in April 2007 and the follow-up submission in January, the Bush administration relied on the Justice Department’s 2003 “Guidance Regarding the Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement Agents” to support claims the government was taking steps to eliminate racial profiling. However, that document doesn’t cover profiling based on religion or national origin, doesn’t apply to state or local law enforcement agencies and doesn’t include any mechanisms for enforcement or punishment for violating the recommendations. It also contains a blanket exception to the recommendations in cases of “national security” or “border integrity.”

As a result of U.S. reliance on the vague Justice Department guidance and other Bush policies, people of color have been disproportionately victimized through various government initiatives including FBI surveillance and questioning, special registration programs, border stops, immigration enforcement programs and the creation of “no fly lists,” according to today’s report.

CERD is an independent group of experts that oversees compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a treaty signed and ratified by the U.S. in 1994. All levels of U.S. government are required to comply with the treaty’s provisions, which require countries to review national, state and local policies and to amend or repeal laws and regulations that create or perpetuate racial discrimination.

The ACLU and RWG’s report to CERD is available online at:

http://www.aclu.org/intlhumanrights/racialjustice/40055pub20090629.html

The Bush administration’s final report to CERD is at:

www.state.gov/documents/organization/113905.pdf

ACLU Racial Justice Program Director Dennis Parker talks about the pervasive nature of racial profiling and about the ACLU’s new report to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Watch the podcast here.

Tuesday, the ACLU released “The Persistence of Racial and Ethnic Profiling in the United States: A Follow-up Report to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination” documenting the pervasive problem of widespread racial profiling by federal, state, and local law enforcement agents as a result of Bush-era policies. The report, by the ACLU and the Rights Working Group, illustrates that government policies are a major cause of the disproportionate stopping and searching of racial minorities by law enforcement agencies and was submitted to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in response to a U.S. government submission. The report contains information from twenty two affiliates and several national projects highlighting racial profiling at the national, state, and local levels under a variety of federal programs and calls on Congress to pass the End Racial Profiling Act (ERPA), which would compel all law enforcement agencies to bar racial profiling, create and apply profiling procedures and document data on stop, search and arrest activities by race.

For additional information on human rights and racial discrimination, please visit the ACLU’s CERD webpage.