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In 1913, California passed the Alien Land Law, which eroded the ability for immigrants from China, India, Japan, and Korea from owning land.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach championed a similar bill just a few months ago. And just like in history, this Kansas bill weaponized racism to give the government new, overreaching powers.

The conceit of the bill is restricting people from other countries from purchasing agricultural land in Kansas, ostensibly as a measure of National defense. These bills identify special nationalities for this discriminatory regulation; Chinese people are typically the primary target.

Like many of the extremist movements that find their way into Kansas bills—more than 20 states had similar bills this session—SB 446 would address very few real-world scenarios. Around 3% of U.S. farmland is foreign-owned, with Canada and the Netherlands owning significantly more than China.

Thankfully, Kobach failed spectacularly in gaining support for this discriminatory bill. Civil rights activists were joined by The Kansas Farm Bureau, Livestock Association, Agribusiness Retailers Association, Corn Growing Association and Soybean Association in opposing the bill.

It’s seldom a bill is so bad to get such widespread opposition. The bill was publicly chastised and failed to move towards becoming law. Still, lawmakers rallied at the end of session to push through SB 172, a similarly problematic bill. Governor Kelly vetoed SB 172, preventing it from becoming law.

Sadly, that isn’t the end of the story. Though these bill were defeated, they represent a rash of anti-Asian rhetoric that has scary historical precedent.

We know the California Alien Land Law of 1913 was not the end of the story. A myriad of addition laws targeting Asian immigrants followed, including a 1922 law that would revoke the citizenship of women who married Chinese immigrants.

In 1927, Lum v. Rice found that excluding Chinese Americans from public schools did not violate the 14th Amendment.

In 1937 Washington State expanded their Land Bill to target Japanese Americans. A meme five years later, the U.S. began their Japanese Internment Camps in one of the most shameful episodes in this country's history.

The funny thing about history is, looking back, it can seem so obvious. Clearly internment camps were wrong; today, only the most ardent racists would argue otherwise.

But we seldom recognize that we, each and every moment, are making history. Every decision we make defines our path. And just as those in the history we study justified their mistakes in the moment, so too can we be sedated by fear and ostensible reasonableness to repeat those mistakes.

This month is Asian American and Pacific Islander History Month; as always pertinent history isn’t stuck in the past, but living among us today. Frighteningly, politicians seem resolute in repeating mistakes that led to hate against Asian Americans and the erosion of our civil liberties.

We need to recognize these threats for what they are, but we also must recognize our power. We have a similar power to unite, reject these attempts at division, and instead speak up for the civil liberties of all people.

This AAPI History Month isn’t just about the history behind us; it’s how we use it to write the history that lies ahead. Let’s recognize these reanimated racist attempts at overreach, and make the next chapter one that promotes our rights instead.

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• Read more about More than dirt; AAPI racism in recent Kansas bill

The 2024 legislative session is over, and it continued the turbulent trends of past years. Once again civil liberties were targeted, while we strove to advance our rights by supporting positive legislation.

Here’s how things shook out:

The Good

Decisive Defeat of Anti-Transgender Bill SB 233

This session lawmakers advanced an egregious anti-transgender bill that aimed to restrict access to critical, life-saving gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth. The bill, called SB 233, also censored state employees through severe penalties—though the criteria of what conduct violated the bill were dangerously vague.

Although lawmakers managed to pass this harmful bill, it was vetoed by Governor Kelly and proponents failed to garner legislative support to override the veto.

Safeguarding Voting Rights: SB 14 Stopped

We’re also relieved to have defeated SB 14, a bill that sought to eliminate the vital 3-day grace period for mail-in ballots. This grace period is essential in providing voters, the United States Postal Service, and election clerks with the necessary flexibility to ensure that all votes are properly tallied and counted.

Despite numerous other bills aimed at curtailing access to the ballot box, the ACLU of Kansas is relieved that these pernicious efforts have largely stalled for now. We will remain vigilant and continue to staunchly defend the voting rights of all Kansans.

The Bad

Veto Overrides Allow Attacks on Reproductive Freedom

Despite Kansas voters' resounding rejection of a state constitutional amendment that would have led to a total ban on abortion in 2022—a decision that reaffirmed the state's commitment to bodily autonomy and the right to make one's own medical decisions—antiabortion extremists in the 2024 Kansas Legislature persisted in their relentless efforts to curtail reproductive freedom.

Regrettably, two bills that further restrict access to essential abortion services were signed into law:

HB 2436: Creating the crime of coercion to obtain an abortion and providing enhanced criminal penalties for offenses committed with the intent to coerce a woman to obtain an abortion.

HB 2749: Requiring medical care facilities and providers to report the private reasons for each abortion performed to the state, a blatant violation of patient privacy and reproductive autonomy.

We’re upset and outraged at these abhorrent bills and the dangers they pose for Kansans; we will continue to challenge these affronts to reproductive freedom in Kansas.

The Important

The Fight to End Juvenile Fines and Fees 

Currently, youth in Kansas can face a litany of fines and fees when they interact with the criminal legal system. The ACLU of Kansas, alongside our coalition partners, supported a bipartisan bill denoted as HB 2568/SB 416 that would eliminate these costs for kids.

With its bipartisan support this bill passed unanimously out of the House Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee in 2023—a rare and encouraging feat. However, this year House and Senate leaders prevented it from receiving a full vote, allowing it to die.

While the bill will need to be reintroduced in the 2025 legislative session, the strong support and momentum built this session gives advocates hope that a successful bill can be passed to address this important issue and provide much-needed relief to Kansas youth and families.

The Ongoing Fight Against Anti-DEI Legislation

The ACLU of Kansas is deeply concerned that Governor Kelly allowed HB 2105, an anti-DEI bill that applies to higher education, to become law without her signature. This is a deeply troubling outcome, and we remain determined to confront the persistent threat of harmful legislation that seeks to undermine diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in Kansas. As we look ahead to the 2025 legislative session, the ACLU of Kansas will redouble our efforts to prevent the introduction and passage of any such regressive bills.

Now that you’re caught up with where things stand, remember you don’t have to wait until next session to join us in fighting for civil liberties. Join us for an event, or check to see how you can take action. It’s a year-long job defending civil liberties—and we hope you’ll fight with us.
 

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• Read more about Legislative Session 2024 Recap: The Good, The Bad, and The Important

Hercules Finley has devoted much of his life to helping kids in trouble

Hercules Finley (yes, that’s his birth name) spent 25 years in the Sedgwick County Jail, not as a resident, but as a volunteer chaplain, in service and obedience to his ministerial calling. As his time there grew longer, the faces changed.

“I looked up and I was the oldest person in there,” said Finley, now 68. “At first, the people in there were close to my age. Before I knew it, the average age was like 30. They were getting younger and younger.”

Finley then turned his service and attention to youth, and to helping stem the flow of youth into the juvenile justice system where profiteers hunt and hound them. It has become his life’s focus.

Like the ACLU of Kansas, Finley said the staggering debt juvenile offenders continue to accrue keeps him deeply concerned about their future, and the future of the communities they come from. He supports ACLU efforts to eliminate juvenile fines and fees.

He’s been working out of a Wichita middle and high school, helping students with social and emotional learning. Later this year, he will begin work in a community-based project called, “School Halls, Not Prison Walls,” a prison prevention program founded by his friend, Dr. William Polite, director of equity, diversity, and accountability with Wichita’s school district.

Finley said his ministry took him to every prison in Kansas. Those experiences convinced him that his work needed to begin earlier and upstream.

“I’ve always been an advocate for the imprisoned,” he said. “But we have to work to make sure we get to kids before they end up in that school-to-prison pipeline.”

Polite’s program aims to turn potential dropouts into what he calls, “math-letes,” a play on the word athlete. Along with mentorship, they believe a strong mathematics foundation will boost graduation rates while simultaneously lowering incarceration rates.

Finley was his first recruit.

“We have to put faces on that data,” Finley said about the high rates of incarceration for Black males in particular. “We have to get in their face and say, ‘hold up, we see you.’ We have to make it known that there’s a future for them.’”

He said he and Polite make weekly visits to juvenile detention centers hoping to fish yet another youth drifting toward prison.

Like the Roman hero whose name he shares, Finley is known for his strength and for his numerous and far-ranging adventures, though Finley’s work could rival the 12-Labours of the historical Hercules.

The monstrous prison industrial complex stands perhaps as more frightening than the Nemean Lion or the Lernean Hydra the historical Hercules defeated. Where there is profit, there’s sometimes also predation, he said.

We must awaken people to the systemic calamities claiming so many young lives he said.

“We have to help these kids,” Finley said. “At this age, I’d like to think that I have nothing to lose. I’m all in.”

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• Read more about A Herculean effort