Vasquez

Plaintiff-Appellant Ernesto R. Vasquez appeals the district court’s dismissal of his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Vasquez alleges that Defendants, the County of Los Angeles (“LA County”) and the members of the LA County Board of Supervisors, violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by removing the image of a cross from the county’s official seal. Specifically, Vasquez alleges that Defendants’ removal of the cross from the seal conveyed a state-sponsored message of hostility toward Christians. Because we conclude that Defendants did not violate the Establishment Clause, we affirm the district court’s order dismissing Vasquez’s complaint with prejudice.

I. BACKGROUND

According to Vasquez’s briefs and the record, the version of the LA County Seal that included the image of the cross was first adopted on January 2, 1957, and contained “symbols of historical and cultural significance.” In addition to the cross, which represented the “influence of the church and the missions of California,” the seal also depicted the Roman Goddess Pomona, engineering instruments, the Spanish galleon San Salvador, a…