Growing up with a Jewish mother and a Catholic father, Ramona Ripston learned early about intolerance. Her maternal grandparents sat shiva to mourn the marriage of her parents and snubbed their grandchildren for a decade.
As a young woman, Ripston witnessed her parents' fears as her father's colleagues from Brooklyn College in New York were summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Her early professional years were shaped by work registering black voters in the South, marching with civil rights activists and championing the causes of minorities and women.
Since arriving in California 36 years ago to direct the then-fledgling American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Ripston has been an institution in liberal circles -- and a target for some conservatives. She has fought for the rights of immigrants, for limits on government surveillance, for equal access to quality education and for equal protection under the law.
Today, Ripston's contributions will be recognized with the dedication of the ACLU's new Los Angeles headquarters, to be called the Ramona Ripston Center for Civil Liberties and Civil Rights.
Ripston will be honored at the ceremony by local luminaries and the top law enforcement officers for Los Angeles County, with whom she has often clashed on rights for prisoners and the homeless.
In an irony of fate, the new Ripston Center is directly across West 8th Street from the headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing LAPD's 9,300 officers, which has often been the target of ACLU criticism.
League President Tim Sands said he discovered the coincidence of real estate about a year ago when he ran into Ripston at a restaurant and learned of the ACLU's pending move.
"I said, 'Why don't we just build a bridge and meet about halfway on the issues?' " joked Sands, who will be among those at today's ceremonies.
"We come from a different menu," he said of Ripston. "Bottom line, she's never put on a blue suit and I've never sat in her seat, either."
There are issues the two sides will never agree on, he said, but added that there is common ground on others, such as the ACLU's support of the league's opposition to financial disclosure by LAPD officers, which the rights group considers an infringement of their privacy.
