Micha Star Liberty

Two goals fueled Micha Star Liberty when she launched her plaintiff-side, civil rights-focused Liberty Law Office, Inc. in 2005: to represent clients who have suffered serious injury or abuse and to promote systemic change in disability rights and civil rights law.

Both objectives took a severe blow when the state Supreme Court ruled in August that the Unruh Civil Rights Act doesn't apply to public schools or other public institutions, but only to private business establishments. Brennon B. v. Superior Court, S266254 (Ca. S. Ct., op. filed Aug. 4, 2022).

Liberty represents petitioner Brennon B., a severely autistic boy who was a special-education student at De Anza High School in Contra Costa County when he was sexually assaulted by students and a school employee. She was shaken by the 7-0 opinion affirming dismissal of Brennon's claim. "Shocked but not surprised, given how the argument went," she said. "I was scared for my special needs clients. This leaves public school students with a lack of fundamental civil rights remedies that private school students have."

Brennon B. isn't entirely out of luck because Liberty obtained a multimillion-dollar settlement for him with the school district in earlier litigation that left unresolved the applicability of Unruh. Brennon B. v. West Contra Costa Unified School District (Contra Costa Co. Super. Ct., filed July 5, 2016).

The high court's opinion, she said, is especially awful because it is far broader than Brennon's case; it leaves other public institutions also unprotected by the 1959 Unruh law. "Libraries, courthouses, the DMV--this is a wholesale exclusion of public entities from liability for discrimination. This is not in alignment with the State of California's position in the vanguard of offering civil rights to all our citizens."

So she's not giving up, vowing to seek a legislative solution. "The Supreme Court all but invited us to do so by its repeated references to legislative fixes," Liberty said. "We're working with our allies in the disability community and the civil rights community about how to get the conversation started with lawmakers."

Liberty is a member of the State Bar's Closing the Justice Gap Working Group and a past president of Consumer Attorneys of California. She's been outspoken in opposition to proposals for tech companies to sell legal software and services to consumers.