Joyce Fiske; Ex-Chief of Southland ACLU

Joyce S. Fiske, the first female president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, died Saturday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 73.

Fiske served as the ACLU’s local president from 1977 to 1980, an especially active period in the chapter’s history. During that time, the branch spearheaded efforts to desegregate Los Angeles schools and sued the city’s Police Department over its alleged surveillance of political organizations.

“She was the most principled person I ever met and the most determined to see that what she believed was right was carried out,” said Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU’s Southland chapter.

Fiske died after a long battle with thyroid cancer.

Among those who joined a late-night vigil Friday at her home in the Park La Brea district was Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), a longtime friend and former ACLU board president.

Born in Ohio in 1925, Fiske received a bachelor’s degree in English literature and philosophy from the University of Michigan and a graduate degree from Columbia University. Her political consciousness, friends say, was shaped by the injustices of McCarthyism.

Fiske joined the ACLU after coming to Los Angeles from New York City as a young wife and mother in the late 1950s. She became a member of the Southern California chapter’s board of directors in 1969 and later served on the ACLU’s national board. She also co-founded the ACLU’s Beverly Hills-Westwood chapter.

When Fiske became president of the Southern California branch in 1977, the organization was deeply involved in a variety of causes. ACLU lawyers sued Los Angeles County over its jail medical facilities and took a trade union to court when it would not allow noncitizens to become officers.

But the organization was most prominent during Fiske’s tenure for its many battles with the LAPD.

In 1979, she joined then Assemblywoman Maxine Waters and a host of other African American leaders in calling for a civilian review board to oversee the department in the wake of the shooting of Eulia Love, a South-Central resident whose death at the hands of LAPD officers became a cause celebre in the late ‘70s and early 1980s.

“We want a police civilian review board because . . . obviously it makes no sense for the police to police themselves,” Fiske said.

The ACLU also sued the LAPD over its alleged infiltration of local political organizations. The city paid $2 million to settle the case out of court.

In recent years, Fiske had served on the board of directors of the Central American Resource Center and organized fund-raising efforts for the group. She was also publisher of the Los Angeles-based trade magazine Ceramic Scope.

Fiske is survived by her daughter, Jessica Fiske Bailey, and her son, Daniel Fiske. A memorial service is scheduled for Saturday at 5 p.m. at Holman Methodist Church, 3320 W. Adams Blvd., Los Angeles.