News & Commentary

The ACLU of Kansas has released a response regarding the Kansas Attorney General’s letter to six Kansas Public School districts allegedly not disclosing a student’s pronouns shared in school to the student’s parents.

A little more than a year ago, ACLU Kansas and other voting-rights groups filed a lawsuit against the city claiming that its at-large election system unlawfully dilutes the votes of Latinos – depriving them of proper representation.

“The thing that’s consistent about all of those is that they’re all attacks on democracy, all attacks on voting rights,” Kubic said. “Precisely the sort of attacks that have already been rejected by Kansans, rejected by courts and rejected by common sense.”

The ACLU of Kansas suggested the law may be unconstitutional and Alejandro Rangel-Lopez, campaign manager for New Frontiers, a southwest Kansas civic engagement group, said the proposed state council would create a new burden and potential discrimination for immigrant families.

“What they’re trying to do is excise transgender people from the protections of state code,” said Sharon Brett, an attorney at the ACLU of Kansas, referring to lawmakers in her state who passed a law last year that narrowly defines sex.

“Every day there are new attacks on voting rights in this country and Kansas is no exception,” Kubic stated. “Democracy is not just about voting rights. Democracy is the idea that everyone matters.”

Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas, said body cameras would not fix the problems that came up in the two-step lawsuit, in which the ACLU represented motorists. However, he said cameras can be an important tool to encourage accountability.

The ACLU noted that the criminalization of marijuana is a racial justice issue - especially in Kansas. This has disproportionately impacted Black Kansans, who ranked 12th in the nation for the largest racial disparities in arrest rates for marijuana possession in 2018.

Sharon Brett, legal director of ACLU of Kansas, said state government opposition to legal distribution of medical cannabis interfered with personal health care choices of Kansans and conflicted with polling that demonstrated statewide popularity of medical marijuana reform.