David Loy of ACLU says San Marcos school raising funds illegally

San Diego ACLU legal director David Loy objects to a religious organization involved in raising money in public schools in San Marcos Unified School District. (See story below.)

I share Mr. Loy's concern about the charity for two reasons.

First, I don't like a charity that has the goal of merely passing out meals in Africa, without addressing underlying economic problems.  I would urge citizens of San Marcos to give to Oxfam rather than this charity.

Oxfam teaches people how to fish rather than giving them a fish to eat.  They create better economic conditions, giving jobs to parents rather than meals to children.  They let the parents feed their own kids with the money they make.

The San Marcos charity simply serves meals to kids.

Well, actually, I suspect that's not all they do.  Which brings me to my second criticism: the violation of the First Amendment.

Second, I suspect that the charity is serving meals for a limited time because it wants to give religious training to kids.  After they're converted, the charity's goals have been achieved, and the feeding of the kids is no longer a priority.

I can understand that Mr. Loy would be worried about the slippery slopes that surround enterprises like this one, but if he's going to worry about the dangers of everyday activities that threaten the First Amendment, he should worry first about his own actions quashing free speech.  Why should he hold San Marcos Middle School to such an exacting standard when he is so lax about the First Amendment in other situations?

ACLU says San Marcos school raising funds illegally

By Pat Maio 

SDUT

Dec. 8, 2014

San Marcos Middle School may be breaking state law by raising money with a religious group to feed children in East Africa, according to the San Diego and Imperial counties chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The school is partnering with a local nonprofit called Friends and Family Community Connection, with the support of Illinois-based Kids Around the World, to raise $3,500 to provide 14,000 meals for children in Tanzania..


David Loy's interesting history regarding free speech and open government

 ACLU legal director David Loy didn't want the First Amendment to be enforced in an anti-free speech lawsuit against this website, perhaps because of loyalty to someone he worked with.  But I doubt that Mr. Loy was involved in an effort to deface a California Court of Appeal opinion on the website Leagle.com.  The Aug. 5, 2014 opinion, which stated that I am allowed by the Constitution to mention the names of attorneys who work for schools, was seriously defaced.  I sent the following message to Leagle.com on December 8, 2014:

Who defaced this decision?  This page was perfectly legible for several years after the 2011 decision.   On December 8, 2014, I find that a large amount of the decision has been overwritten, making it indecipherable.  Was this page hacked, or does Leagle.com want it to be largely unreadable?

10 minutes later Leagle.com had fixed the defaced Stutz v. Larkins page.

Here is part of the hacked Leagle.com page:

On December 8, 2014 I was reading David Loy's biography on the San Diego ACLU website, and I was struck by the irony of his claims to fame.  Freedom of speech?  Open government and public disclosure? 

David Loy was indeed chosen as a Top Attorney in 2009 and 2010, but I suspect the reason was NOT that he defended free speech, but that he crafted a couple of agreements with schools regarding student speech.

Those agreements generated some nice media attention for Mr. Loy.  But what was he doing behind the scenes?

He was pressuring me to remove the names of public entity attorneys from my website.  He wrote to me telling me that I must remove every mention of certain public attorneys he had worked with!

The Court of Appeal disagreed with Mr. Loy that I must remove those names.  See story in Voice of San Diego.

The Stutz v. Larkins decision on the Leagle website was largely unreadable for some time in 2014. It was fixed on Dec. 8, 2014.

Here's the decision that somebody didn't want you to see.  Clearly, David Loy didn't want this case to be heard by the Court of Appeal, so I assume he wasn't happy with the decision.

So how does David Loy get off claiming to be an expert in free speech and a champion of sunshine in government?  He most certainly is NOT a supporter of transparency in public entities, as shown by his efforts to silence public discussion of public attorneys.

Legal Director, David Loy
After graduating law school, Loy clerked for Judge Dolores K. Sloviter of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. He worked as a staff attorney with Office of the Appellate Defender in New York City and public defender and civil rights attorney in Spokane, Washington before joining the ACLU in 2006. He previously served on the Southern District Lawyer Representative Committee and the board of California Appellate Defense Counsel. Loy was named one of San Diego’s Top Attorneys 2009 and 2010 by San Diego Daily Transcript. He supervises all legal advocacy at the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties, and has particular expertise in freedom of speech and religion, open government and public disclosure, police misconduct, and constitutional criminal procedure. Loy has a law degree from Northwestern and a B.A. from Brown, and is licensed to practice in California and New York (with inactive licenses in Illinois and Washington).
--from ACLU website