California Courts Won’t Bar KKK
from Adopt-a-Highway Program

Alleging discrimination, the white supremacy group won a victory in state court over the right to join the popular highway clean-up program. Clan members vow they’ll collect more white trash than any other organization.

by George Wolfe

FALLBROOK, Ca. -- The California supreme court Monday upheld the 1st Amendment rights of a Ku Klux Klan group to participate in a highway litter cleanup program.

The court's decision means that the chapter, SoCalKKK, must be allowed into the state’s Adopt-A-Highway program, designed to save money by using volunteers to pick up trash. Volunteer groups are publicly thanked with signs along the highway acknowledging their help.

— Nancy Niedlings, spokesperson
Dept. of Transportation

“We didn’t mean for the uniforms to look at all alike,” said Department of Transportation spokesperson Nancy Niedlings. “I guess we’ll be working on a different look for our guys next year – something that doesn’t suggest lynching or hate mongering. Until then, we’re encouraging our roadside crews to wear bullet proof vests and football helmets.”

Off the record, opposing lawyers said that the mistaken worker identity argument was a lame ruse, and that “we just don’t like their kind -- you know, bigots -- representing our fine state.”

Lou Hermann of La Jolla, Grand Wizard and attorney for the KKK, said that the group simply wants to do its part in community service and to express its "solidarity with the Southern Californian community – even Jews, negroes and spics – I mean, Hispanics. The whole mangy lot of them, really, can't we all just get along?”

Leaders of the group vowed to make up for the unfair negative public perceptions of their group by “picking up more white trash than any other organization in the program.”

The chief justice for the state’s high court wrote that "the desire to exclude controversial organizations is simply not a legitimate governmental interest that would support the enactment of speech-abridging regulations. To say 'no' to this group would be like saying 'no' to Charles Manson and his gang: It would set a terrible precedent."