Resource: Consent Decree Compliance Campaign - Overview & Demands

In October of 1996, the BRU [Bus Riders Union] won a landmark civil rights Consent Decree, following the class action civil rights lawsuit brought against the Los Angeles MTA in 1994. The case, Labor/Community Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union et al. v. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, was brought by the BRU and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund to challenge racial discrimination in the transportation policies of the MTA. [...] The agreement, signed by both the MTA and the BRU, is a 10-year contract in which MTA is obligated to improve L.A.'s bus system and make the bus system and the transit dependent its first priority for funding. The agreement places the Bus Riders Union in a unique role as the court-appointed class representative of L.A.'s 400,000 bus riders.