The Brief

After earning a bachelor’s degree in art history five years ago, Erin Aguilar struggled to establish a career in the art world — or even secure an internship.

“Nothing was happening,” she said. “It was kind of disheartening.”

At a community arts center in Boyle Heights about two years ago, she spotted a pamphlet for a museum studies program at East Los Angeles College; she signed up. Now Aguilar is close to completing her coursework at ELAC, and she's an intern at the Getty, one of L.A.'s most prominent arts institutions.

ELAC’s Museum Studies Certificate Program consists of coursework in art history, library science, anthropology, and studio art. And, perhaps most importantly, the program guarantees an internship — a big deal in a competitive industry.

Exposure to new career options

Art history professor Surana Singh created the program with her colleagues at ELAC and at the Vincent Price Art Museum, which is housed on campus. They wanted to expose students to a broad range of career options.

ELAC launched the program during the pandemic. Some courses continue to be offered online, but about half of them are in person.

Dr. Surana Singh co-developed the museum studies program and teaches its capstone course.

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When they look to the future, Singh said, art history students often envision museum and gallery curators, who, among other duties, oversee how art and artifacts are selected and displayed. Curators are important, she added, but there are many other roles that might be a better fit.

“Our goal is for students to find what their interest is through the readings, through the lectures, and then through the internship experience,” she said. “Maybe someone interns in a curatorial practice, and then they realize: ‘Oh! curation’s not for me’ — but they learn that within this environment, and then they can take that with them.”

Such was the case for Aguilar. When she first enrolled in the program, she was set on becoming a curator. Now that she’s been exposed to other career options, Aguilar has found that she’s more interested in archival and conservation work. “We don’t all need to be curators,” she said.

A chance to explore

Many students in the program already have bachelor’s degrees, but not the career they envisioned.

ELAC student Jessica Ardon.

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ELAC student Erin Aguilar.

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Sara Castro, who earned her bachelor's in history at Grinnell College in Iowa, also applied to ELAC following a frustrating experience in the art world.

To get her foot in the door, Castro worked in visitor services at a mid-size museum for about two years. But when she was ready to move forward, she hit a wall.

“It's so hard [to move up] in museums, unless you have a master's or Ph.D. or, like, eight years of work experience,” she said.

For her internship, Sara Castro worked at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Come fall, she will begin a master’s program in cultural studies at Claremont Graduate University.

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But before investing in graduate school, Castro wanted more information. “I just wanted to have the space to explore and learn about the different areas in museums,” she said.

ELAC enabled her to do that. In January, Castro was an intern in the National Gallery of Art's interpretation department. The internship covered her airfare and lodging. She also received two stipends, one for daily expenses and another for winter clothes. To help her and her fellow interns get settled, two Vincent Price Art Museum staff members also went along.

Some of her classmates are skilled artists. Others are “more like me,” she said. “[We] were, like: ‘How do you make art? What is it?’ That was really fun. It kind of got me out of my comfort zone, [and it] gave me a good perspective.”

In depth with cultural studies

While students complete their internships, they’re also required to take a lab on campus. Singh’s capstone class meets every Friday on the third floor of the Vincent Price Art Museum. She and her students gather in the “Museum Learning Lab,” a room teeming with art books — everything from Kehinde Wiley to Richard Avedon to 1,000 Chairs. The course gives students time and space to reflect on their internships, and on how museums shape our views.

Singh and her students leave no issue unturned. Their conversations encompass everything from didactics (the labels that accompany art and artifacts) to museum hours.

Grounded in cultural studies — an interdisciplinary field that examines how culture is created, shared, and maintained — Singh’s capstone course pushes students to examine structures of power and how they’re reproduced. This includes conversations about who gets to be in museum leadership and how communities are represented. They also discuss the historical role of museums, how they can be problematic, and how they can be transformed.

Professor Singh with students in the capstone course. These students are currently interns at the Getty Villa, LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, and other institutions.

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Located on campus, the Vincent Price Art Museum has permanent collection of fine art.

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When Jessica Ardon, a Cal State Northridge graduate, was comparing different museum studies programs, this perspective drew her in. ELAC’s program, she said, delves deep into questions like: “How do you make a museum more inclusive?” and, “How do we mend wounds with people who've been excluded from these spaces?”

“I wanted to be part of that,” she said.

Ardon is also an intern at the Getty Villa. On a Friday morning earlier this month, she paired up for class discussion with a student who interns at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in downtown L.A. Their conversation was grounded in an assigned TED Talk titled “We Must Decolonize Our Museum,” which encourages museum professionals to craft exhibitions alongside the communities they aim to represent — instead of bringing them on as consultants just as an afterthought. From there, Ardon and her classmate went on to discuss the ethics of exhibiting human remains; the implications of having a 16th-century Aztec headdress on display at a museum in Austria; and a book called Whitewalling: Art, Race & Protest in 3 Acts.

Building an enduring network

Singh’s capstone course also coaches students, so they can get the most out of their internships. At their respective work sites, all students are assigned a mentor. They help students craft résumés and cover letters. They also provide job interview tips and advice on how to build a career in the art world.

For Ardon, this part of the program has been especially helpful. Looking back on another internship, she regrets not taking a more proactive role in her learning. But, she added, it also helps that the mentors she and her classmates have been assigned are wholly committed to the experience. “They’re very much on top of it,” she said.

On top of sharing practical skills, Ardon said her mentor is always checking in. And if there’s someone at the Getty she’s too shy to approach, her mentor is happy to make an introduction.

For alumna Cicely Beltran, the professional relationships cultivated at ELAC have been longlasting. The museum studies program helped draw her back to the college after she quit over a decade before to raise her family.

ELAC alumna Cicely Beltran.

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Growing up, Beltran walked past this David Botello mural almost every day. It's one of the many community art pieces that sparked her interest in art.

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She continues to be in conversation with her former professors as she pursues a bachelor’s degree in art education at Cal State Long Beach. She’s also developed a strong bond with her colleagues at the Vincent Price Art Museum, where she works part-time as a guide. When she goes in for work, she said, “it does not feel like I'm going to a workplace . . . I'm going to a place with a real sense of community.”

Perhaps most significantly, the museum studies program helped Beltran reshape her own narrative, after so many years away from the classroom.

In her professor’s view, there was no gap in Beltran’s educational journey. Singh helped her see that “the whole time I was at home, raising my son, I was still researching art, writing about art, thinking about art, making art.”

“It was super validating,” Beltran said. “It made me feel like I hadn’t wasted all those years.”

Long Beach was recently recognized as one of the country’s top digital cities for its digital equity work and programming, something officials say is an effort that won’t lose steam in 2026 despite federal funding cuts.

The survey was from the national research and advisory institute, the Center for Digital Government, which focuses on policies and practices in state and local governments. Long Beach was among five cities nationwide to grab high marks in the Digital Cities Survey, which looks at how local governments use technology to address social challenges.

Lea Erikson, Long Beach’s director of technology, credited the recognition to the city’s approach to digital equity.

“We're not relying on federal funds to advance our work. And so even though it does definitely minimize what we can do, I'm really proud of what we have been able to do despite that,” Erikson said.

Why was Long Beach named? 

Over the years, the coastal L.A. County city has grown into an epicenter for digital equity to grant more residents access to the internet.

According to the survey, the city advanced digital equity, among other things, through programs such as its “Pitch Long Beach!” — an initiative that allows the public to submit pitches on how to implement and explore technology as a way to improve city services.

Long Beach has also partnered with the California Emerging Technology Fund to launch a multilingual internet service enrollment hotline to help residents navigate telehealth, job searching and online learning.

“One of the things I think makes Long Beach a leader in this space is we have a dedicated staff to digital inclusion, and they're not dependent on federal funds, so they're actually funded by local government resources,” Erikson said.

Why are programs at risk? 

In May, the Trump administration canceled the $2.75 billion Digital Equity Act, which the president called “racist” and “illegal.”

The cancellation put a stop to programs all over the country, including digital courses for seniors and laptop distributions in rural areas.

The Federal Communications Commission voted in September to end E-Rate discounts to libraries and schools for hotspot lending and school bus Wi-Fi. Officials said the initiatives “exceeded” or were “inconsistent” with the commission's authority. This decision effectively shut off funding for digital loaning programs.

Locally, the repercussions were felt instantly. Los Angeles County Library announced it would sunset its laptop and Wi-Fi hotspot lending programs shortly after the decision.

What are officials saying for 2026 and beyond? 

Erikson said federal headwinds won’t stop the city’s digital equity work.

The city is working to create its own fiber-optic network by 2027 to offer free Wi-Fi in public places in an effort to save residents money and get them online.

“We're hoping to have that go out to bid … next year. We would hopefully have that done in about a two-year timeframe, so it might be a little delayed, but we have local funding for that as well,” Erikson said.

Los Angeles police officers used more than 1,000 less-lethal munitions and wounded six protesters on June 8, according to a state-mandated report released by the department.

The protests continued, along with the LAPD’s use of crowd control munitions, but the department has missed the deadline for several reports required by state law.

LAPD used less-lethal munitions for crowd control on at least four separate days in June — including the first “No Kings” protest on June 14 — and has not published reports on those incidents.

Court documents identify more than a dozen people who were struck by less-lethal munitions between June 9 and June 14. At least four were hospitalized for their injuries. The LAPD has posted video evidence of officers launching volleys of 40mm rounds and tear gas at protesters, but the only new report of crowd control weapons being used after June 8 is from an incident months later on Oct. 25.

The delay puts the LAPD in violation of Assembly Bill 48, a law that went into effect in 2022 to regulate the use of crowd control weapons like 40mm launchers, pepper balls and tear gas. All agencies that use those weapons for crowd control are required to follow up by reporting the reason the weapons were needed, how many were used and how many injuries they caused. The reports must be posted publicly to the agency’s website within 60 days in most cases, or 90 days if an extension is justified.

In a statement, the LAPD acknowledged that the department is “currently outside the 90-day public posting requirement,” saying the delay “stems from the extraordinary volume and complexity of incidents that occurred during that period.”

The department added that the forms will be posted to their website after internal review.

Hundreds of other California law enforcement agencies do not appear to follow AB 48’s reporting requirements, as LAist reported in September, reflecting what experts said was a lack of enforcement mechanism in the law.

In a statement to LAist, City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez called on the LAPD to produce the reports required by state law.

“As we face federal raids that brutalize our communities without transparency or accountability, the City of LA cannot mirror those same tactics,” the statement said. “We must act with moral clarity and protect our residents by fully complying with disclosure laws.”

Critical Incidents

The LAPD has released video evidence documenting three “critical incidents” in which people were sent to the hospital after less-lethal munitions were used against them.

State law requires law enforcement agencies to release any video recordings of incidents where either a firearm is discharged or use of force leads to serious injury or death. The LAPD posts these videos and written descriptions of the incidents on their website.

Two of the released videos show police officers shooting people in the head with 40mm rounds, though AB 48 bans aiming less-lethal rounds at the head, neck, or any other vital organs. The third shows a protester shot multiple times by less-lethal munitions before he was arrested and taken to the hospital for a fractured finger.

One video shows Marshall Woodruff, an L.A. photographer and filmmaker, get struck in both the arm and the face by less-lethal rounds as LAPD officers let loose dozens of rounds toward protesters on June 14.

In video and written descriptions of the incident, the LAPD claims the crowd began assaulting officers by throwing objects, including rocks and bottles, leading to the use of less-lethal munitions. In body camera footage made public by the department, it appears at least one object was thrown toward the officers from somewhere in the crowd.

Woodruff later told reporters he needed “four or five” hours of surgery to repair damage to his eye.

That same day, police officers shot Jack Kearns in the back of the head as he was running away. The department says in written and video descriptions of the incident that he broke through their skirmish line. Court records filed by the L.A. chapter of Black Lives Matter allege that Kearns was not noticed by police until he was nearly a block away and moving in the opposite direction.

Blood can be seen on the back of Kearns’ baseball cap in the video as he asks officers to call a medic.

Kearns told reporters in June that he suffered brain bleeding and was in the hospital for three days.

A few days earlier, on June 10, Daniel Robert Bill was shot multiple times by less-lethal munitions before he was arrested and taken to the hospital for a fractured finger.

In body camera video released by LAPD, Bill is seen standing still in front of an LAPD skirmish line when officers began to push him back with batons and opened fire with less-lethal launchers.

The police department has been accused of using less-lethal munitions against members of the media after June 8, including the use of a 40mm round that struck Australian reporter Lauren Tomasi on June 9.

A lawsuit by the L.A. Press Corps and news outlet Status Coup has identified 12 members of the media, including Tomasi, who are alleged to have been struck by less-lethal rounds from June 9 through June 14.

None of those incidents have been reported as required by AB 48.

Concerns about potential misuse

The L.A. City Council voted last week to continue allowing the LAPD to use 40mm less-lethal launchers and tear gas.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell argued in council chambers that such weapons are a "de-escalation tool” that reduces the need of the department to use deadly force.

Some civil rights attorneys and other experts have told LAist they believe the LAPD’s use of less-lethal munitions against protesters has gone too far.

Adrienna Wong, a senior staff attorney with ACLU SoCal, told LAist in June that the indiscriminate use of force against protesters that month violated the law and the First Amendment rights of demonstrators.

“We have seen evidence that kinetic projectiles and chemical agents have been used indiscriminately, have injured people that have been protesting peacefully, are journalists or are in a crowd of people, and that seems to violate the express purpose of these laws,” Wong said.

Jeff Wenninger is a former LAPD lieutenant who led a unit that investigated all officer-involved shootings and use-of-force cases from 2013 until his retirement in 2024. He told LAist he thinks the LAPD has been too quick to use less-lethal munitions.

He pointed out that one of the two circumstances where less-lethal force is allowed is in response to a risk of serious bodily injury or death, which is the same as the requirement for lethal force.

The other allowed circumstance, according to AB 48, is to “bring an objectively dangerous and unlawful situation safely and effectively under control.”

Wenninger said the law requires officers to have specific targets when using these weapons, rather than indiscriminately deploying them to disperse crowds.

“ A lot of the articulation and the justification for [less-lethal force] being used tends to suggest to me that law enforcement agencies don't actually really understand the law,” Wenninger told LAist.

Long-term pain

While they are called “less-lethal,” crowd control munitions can cause serious injury or death.

Martin Santoyo has filed a lawsuit against the LAPD for allegedly shooting him in the groin with a 40mm launcher from just feet away.

Santoyo has said in court documents that he was “lawfully exercising his First Amendment right to protest and posed no risk of harm to anyone.” Then, Santoyo claims, an officer intentionally shot him suddenly and without warning “from within several feet.”

He required emergency surgery on his testicles after he was shot, according to court documents, and he said he has endured months of “tremendous physical pain.”

Will Horowitz, a lawyer for Santoyo, told LAist his client needed a month of recovery before he was able to return to work.

The city of L.A. can also expect to feel some fiscal pain when lawsuits alleging misuse of these less-lethal munitions make their way through courtrooms and settlement negotiations.

Santoyo’s civil lawsuit includes accusations of negligence, assault, battery and violations of his constitutional rights. As cases like his mount, so will the potential liability payments that have already been rapidly increasing in recent years.

Employees at the U.S. Education Department who were fired in March got an unexpected email on Friday – telling them to return to work.

These federal workers, including many attorneys, investigate family complaints of discrimination in the nation's schools as part of the department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR). They were terminated by the Trump administration in a March reduction-in-force, but the courts intervened, temporarily blocking the department from completing their terminations.

That left 299 OCR employees, roughly half of its staff, in legal and professional limbo – because the department elected to place them on paid administrative leave while the legal battle plays out rather than allow them to work. Court records show 52 have since chosen to leave.

On Friday, an unknown number of the remaining 247 staffers received an email from the department. That email, which was shared with NPR by two people who received it, says that, while the Trump administration will continue its legal battle to downsize the department, "utilizing all OCR employees, including those currently on administrative leave, will bolster and refocus efforts on enforcement activities in a way that serves and benefits parents, students, and families."

Staff were instructed to report to their regional office on Monday, Dec. 15.

In a statement to NPR, Julie Hartman, the department's press secretary for legal affairs, confirmed that the department "will temporarily bring back OCR staff."

"The Department will continue to appeal the persistent and unceasing litigation disputes concerning the Reductions in Force," Hartman wrote, "but in the meantime, it will utilize all employees currently being compensated by American taxpayers."

The department did not clarify how many staffers it was recalling or why it was recalling them now, after keeping them on paid administrative leave for much of the year.

"By blocking OCR staff from doing their jobs, Department leadership allowed a massive backlog of civil rights complaints to grow, and now expects these same employees to clean up a crisis entirely of the Department's own making," said Rachel Gittleman, president of AFGE Local 252, a union that represents many Education Department employees. "Students, families, and schools have paid the price for this chaos."

The department did not respond to a request to share the current size of OCR's complaint backlog, but one department source who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by the Trump administration, told NPR that OCR now has about 25,000 pending complaints, including roughly 7,000 open investigations.

Gittleman said the administration's decision to keep these OCR attorneys on paid leave "has already wasted more than $40 million in taxpayer funds— rather than letting them do their jobs."

NPR could not independently verify that cost.

In October, the administration attempted to fire another 137 OCR staffers, though they were reinstated as part of a deal to end the government shutdown.

In all, just 62 employees at OCR have not received a termination notice at some point this year — about 10% of the office's January headcount.

Two days before the department notified staff they were being recalled, NPR reported on the impact these OCR cuts have had on students with disabilities and their families.

Maggie Heilman told NPR that she filed a complaint with OCR in 2024, alleging that her daughter, who has Down syndrome, was denied her right to a free, appropriate public education at school. OCR began investigating in October 2024, but it was disrupted repeatedly by the aforementioned staff cuts. Heilman's case remains one of the roughly 7,000 open investigations.

Of the administration's decision to try to cut many attorneys who protect students' civil rights, Heilman said, "it's telling families with children like [my daughter] that their hurt doesn't matter."

Since Trump took office, public data shows that OCR has reached resolution agreements in 73 cases involving alleged disability discrimination. Compare that to 2024, when OCR resolved 390, or 2017, the year Trump took office during his first term, when OCR reached agreements in more than 1,000 such cases.
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