"ACLU's affirmative action suit appealed"
San Francisco Examiner
May 6, 1996
ASSOCIATED Press
LOS ANGELES-Lawyers for Gov. Wilson and University of California
regents are appealing a court ruling that allowed an American Civil Liberties
Union suit challenging rollback of affirmative action.
The ACLU suit alleges that the regents violated the state open meetings
law when they decided to roll back affirmative action at UC last summer.
Wilson and the regents argued last month that the suit should be dismissed
because a 30-day statute of limitations had expired. But San Francisco Superior
Court Judge William Cahill rejected that reasoning last week, calling it
"antithetical" to the intent of the open
meetings law.
Although such appeals are usually rejected, regents attorney Jeffrey Blair
said Cahill's ruling was being appealed because of the "important circumstances"
of the case, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.
ACLU attorney Dan Tokaji said the appeal is a ploy to avoid a Monday deadline
for the governor's response to the lawsuit.
The ACLU suit, filed on behalf of the UC Santa Barbara Daily Nexus and one
of its student journalists, alleges that the governor's private telephone
conversations with several regents before their meeting last July were in
effect a "serial meeting" of the board. The Open Meetings Act
requires that, with only a few exceptions, the regents meet in public.