Category: Civil Rights

By Bruce D Coons, Barry Hager and Geoffrey Hueter / Op-Ed San Diego U-T / April 1, 2026

San Diegans face housing affordability challenges. But if policy solutions are going to work, they must be based on evidence rather than assumptions.

San Diego’s biggest affordable housing program isn’t on paper — it’s already built. Our older and historic homes are doing more for affordability than any subsidy program in the city.

A new independent analysis released recently by PlaceEconomics, “The Urban Vitality Blueprint: A Data-Driven Analysis of Equity, Affordability, and Vitality in San Diego’s Historic Districts,” examines the role that historic districts and older neighborhoods play in housing, affordability and sustainability across San Diego. The findings challenge several widely repeated claims in the city’s current policy debate.

Historic districts are often portrayed as low-density neighborhoods that limit housing growth. In reality, the opposite is true. Here are a few key facts from the report:

By Mark Joseph Stern  / Slate / April 01, 2026

On Wednesday, April 1, Donald Trump became the first sitting president to attend Supreme Court arguments in person. It must have been a brutal morning for him. The justices heard Trump v. Barbara, a challenge to the executive order purporting to strip birthright citizenship from the children of many immigrants—and it quickly shaped up to be a blowout against the administration. Seven justices expressed profound skepticism toward the government’s revisionist history of the 14th Amendment, with most sounding downright hostile toward the pseudo-originalist theory cooked up to legitimize the policy. Only Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito asked questions friendly to the administration, and none of their colleagues sounded persuaded by their strained defenses. It appears that Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship—in some ways, the centerpiece of his nativist immigration agenda—is about to go down in flames.

From the outset, the justices gave Trump’s solicitor general, John Sauer, a frosty reception. He pressed an ahistorical, atextual theory of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause, which declares that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The clause’s central purpose was to grant citizenship to newly freed slaves and their children. When ratifying the amendment in 1868, however, Congress explicitly recognized that it would also apply to the American-born offspring of immigrants. The Supreme Court affirmed that principle in 1898’s Wong Kim Ark, and ever since, these children have received U.S. citizenship at birth regardless of their parents’ immigration status. Nonetheless, Trump issued an executive order on his first day back in office ordering the government to deny citizenship to the children of immigrants who lack permanent legal status and temporary visa-holders.

By Kate Callen and Paul Krueger

After decades of neglect and a controversial parking fee that has endangered its attractions, Balboa Park could be rescued as early as next fiscal year through the determined efforts of its rightful owners, the people of San Diego.

More than 80 community advocates for Balboa Park gathered at a March 28 public forum to map out steps for saving San Diego’s embattled crown jewel. The first step: a change of the current park governance, which must happen immediately.

A new governance model would be an engine for addressing two Park priorities: raising the necessary funds to keep Balboa Park healthy and intact, and balancing the fragmented needs of numerous park constituencies.

“It is important to recognize that every blade of grass in this park has a constituency,” said former City Architect Michael Stepner, “and when you want to mow the lawn, you need to talk to everybody.”

Stepner and landscape architect Vicki Estrada led the discussion at “The Future of Balboa Park: A Community Conversation,” co-hosted by the San Diego Community Coalition and Neighbors for a Better San Diego at the Mission Valley Library.

Congrats to Mandy Havlik, Andrew Hollingworth, Angela Vedder, Dee Brown, Cori Salcido, who were elected to 3 year seats on the Peninsula Community Planning Board and Eric Law and Robert Jackson who were elected to 1 year seats.

Here are their bios from the PCPB website:

Mandy Havlik

Mandy Havlik currently serves as the First Vice Chair of the Peninsula Community Planning Board (PCPB). She is a proud spouse of a disabled Navy Combat Veteran, a mother of two, and an indigenous woman who is a registered member of the Timiskaming First Nation in Canada. Most recently, Mandy ran for City Council in District 2 in 2022 and is preparing to run again in 2026.

by Alejandra Reyes-Velarde / Cal-Matters / March 27, 2026

Just south of downtown Los Angeles, the Exide battery recycling facility spent decades leaking lead and arsenic into the soil — sickening children, causing cancer, and creating a nearly billion-dollar liability for the state of California.

A flurry of last-minute reforms to the California Environmental Quality Act at the end of last year’s legislative session exempted a broad, poorly defined category of industrial facilities from environmental review – so broad that if Exide were proposed now, it might get a pass, critics say.

Now lawmakers are trying to figure out what they actually meant when they approved those exemptions.

State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, a Democrat who represents coastal San Diego and Orange counties, introduced a bill this week seeking to more narrowly define what kinds of facilities are exempt from environmental review and to add protections for communities near developments.

Evan Anderson, who was the driver that struck and killed Tracy Condon, a woman experiencing homelessness while she sat on a curb in Ocean Beach has pleaded guilty to hit and run and possession of nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas.

Anderson on November 4, 2025, was doing some kind of parking maneuver around 5 pm with his Toyota Tundra pick-up on Santa Monica Avenue, when he hit Condon on the curb next to her wheel chair. Anderson fled, leaving his truck at the scene, but returned a few hours later and was arrested.

On Friday, March 27, the prosecutor said that Anderson will receive a sentence of two years’ probation, “with custody to be decided at sentencing.”

The maximum sentence is four years and six months in state prison, though San Diego Superior Court Judge Marian Gaston announced the defendant would likely receive probation. A year in jail is also possible. The Deputy District Attorney said he did not sign the plea agreement, which sometimes occurs if the prosecutor doesn’t agree with the terms.

OB Rag Staff Report

Our “Follow the Money” series on the biggest contributors in city elections continues with this review of the latest figures from Campaign Disclosure Reports (Series 400) of two District 6 City Council candidates, incumbent Kent Lee and challenger Mark Powell.

These reports fulfill the Rag’s promise to “scrutinize the candidates in the 2026 primary: who they are, what they’ve done, what they say, and most importantly, where their money comes from.”

District 6 includes Kearny Mesa, Mira Mesa, Scripps Ranch, Sorrento Valley, and University City.

Kent Lee

Lee is in first place in D6 fundraising totals with $60,633. That money includes the maximum $1,600 donation from 16 individuals, some of whom are listed below. According to the Voters’ Voice Initiatives, Lee has raised almost 9 times more money from outside D6 than from inside. His contributors include Rep. Scott Peters ($800), Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera ($320), and Supervisor Monica Montgomery-Steppe ($100)

Lee’s $1,600 contributors include:

City News Service – CBS8 / March 29, 2026

8 to 9 Million Turn Out Nation-Wide

A record 94,000 people participated in 21 separate “No Kings” protests in San Diego County on Saturday, organizers said Sunday.

The events were part of a nationwide day of demonstrations against the Trump administration that organizers were calling the largest single-day pro-democracy turnout on record.

The local crowds surpassed the more than 80,000 who mobilized countywide in October 2025. The figures came from an independent analysis by Take Action San Diego, the same organization that provided independent crowd counts for both previous No Kings events in San Diego, organizers said in a statement Sunday.

“What a day! San Diegans from every neighborhood, every background, and every generation came together around one simple truth: There are no kings in America,” said Wendy Gelernter, lead downtown organizer for Take Action San Diego.

5:40 pm PDT Hey everybody, we’re wrapping up our live blog, as we’ve been blogging since 8:15 this morning.

Chula Vista

5:29 pm PDT Byron Morton sent a batch of shots from Chula Vista. He reported, “There were about 250 people of all walks on the sidewalks bordering the intersection of H Street and Broadway. There were multilingual signs. Protesters blew whistles and cars honked constantly in passing.”

Downtown
4:26 pm PDT Even though the main march downtown San Diego has been over for hours, photos are still coming in to the Rag. Here’s a batch of the Waterfront march taken by OBcean Charles Landon:

By The Associated Press / 7SanDiego / March 26 -27, 2026 

The Trump administration has opened investigations into how race is considered in admissions at three medical schools, ratcheting up its pressure campaign against colleges and universities.

The Justice Department opened the investigations Wednesday into possible discrimination at the medical schools of Stanford University, Ohio State and the University of California, San Diego. Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, announced the investigations on X.

Through a series of investigations and executive actions, President Donald Trump has been ramping up scrutiny of universities he decries as overrun by liberal influence. His administration previously has targeted undergraduate admissions at selective colleges, demanding they collect data to show they are in line with a 2023 Supreme Court decision forbidding affirmative action in college admissions.

The investigations were reported first by The New York Times.

In a letter to Ohio State, Dhillon wrote that the Justice Department was seeking any documents related to “the use or lack of use of race” in evaluating applicants. She said they were also seeking all applicant-level admissions data and any reviews by the school of admissions trends or outcomes by race.

by Mariana Martínez Barba / Voice of San Diego / March 24, 2026

Four years ago, researchers found that if the city opened a safe parking lot for 24 hours every day, it would be easier to connect individuals who live in their vehicles to services.

Those findings encouraged city officials to make a safe parking lot in Mission Valley available 24 hours a day. That meant people staying at the lot didn’t have to leave during the day and could access services with more flexibility.

Other city safe parking lots have curfews, which means people staying there need to leave during the day and return at night. That’s the case at a safe lot near the airport, known as H Barracks. The city is currently in a legal battle with homeless individuals over the lot’s accessibility.

One of the researchers involved in the previous study of city safe lots still believes it’s more effective to open lots for 24 hours every day. City officials maintain that H Barracks is working as is and are not considering changing its operation hours. Homeless advocates say extended hours could help, but San Diegans living in their cars aren’t sure.

As we finish up the four weeks of Trump’s war on Iran, it’s time to offer some key observations from Southern California.

• Trump is lying about the pace of “negotiations” with Iran in order to garner more time to accumulate more US troops in the region; this is all his “art of the deal” — confuse your opponent, make them believe you’re about to “walk away” from any talks on resolution. In this case, Trump has confused the American people, the mainstream media, European allies — even his own staff at the White House. On Thursday, he stated he didn’t care about the negotiations.
• Trump earned his TACO nickname, and changed his deadline for Iran, again for the third time. Trump Always Chickens Out.
• Despite Trump’s claims the “war is already won”, Iran and Israel continue to shell each other — even escalated attacks — and more deaths and injuries mount. Iran says 1400 of its people have been killed in the strikes over the last 4 weeks.
• The Straits of Hormuz are still closed to Iran’s adversaries. Trump couldn’t get any NATO or other ally to help free the fiery zone.
• Troops, marines, sailors are on their way; there’s reports that Trump has ordered another 10,000 soldiers to the region; there’s two ships filled with sailors and marines on their way to the Mid-East; there’s a brigade of the 82th Airborne Division on its way.
• America is on the verge of experiencing the largest protest — No Kings — in history, tomorrow March 28th as over 7 million people will be marching and protesting. Thousands of San Diegans will be protesting at the  22 events just in San Diego County. (The Rag will host an all-day liveblog about the events.)
• San Diego is about to enter the war big time: thousands of Marines from Camp Pendleton have been mobilized to go; many of their families live in the San Diego region, and if there are boots on the ground, expect to see many locals on casualty lists.