News & Commentary

Lawmakers in Kansas have introduced seven bills in recent weeks focusing on abortion and transgender rights, such as SB 180, which received pushback from groups such as the ACLU of Kansas on the basis that it excludes transgender people from certain spaces.

Kansas lawmakers are moving forward with legislation that would define biological sex and ban transgender athletes from women sports. However, Aileen Berquist, Policy Director for the ACLU of Kansas, argued that the bill is not about women’s rights.

Kansas citizens face criminal penalties for using cannabis to ease their medical suffering. For example, according to the Kansas ACLU’s press release, last December a Hays, KS man who was terminally ill and and facing the final stages of inoperable cancer had police search his room.

According to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Kansas Highway Patrol trooper used a tactic referred to as the “Kansas Two Step,” in which troopers target motorists with out-of-state license plates or those traveling to or from Colorado, where recreational marijuana is legal.

“My understanding is that they are jumping from state to state, pushing a very specific agenda,” Berquist said. “The people who are opponents of this bill are living, working, having children and fighting this hatred in our communities every day, and they deserve to have their voices heard.” 

Puberty blockers, mastectomies, surgeries that remove “any body part or tissue” and prescribing estrogen to males or testosterone to females to treat gender dysphoria could be essentially unavailable in Kansas to people under 18 due to a bill in the Statehouse would cost doctors their licenses.

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) - A Sedgwick County judge said Thursday that the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) challenge to jury selection and death qualification in capital murder cases is valid.

A law professor told a Wichita judge that the way juries are chosen in death penalty cases and then reach the verdict is unreliable. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had Scott Sundby, professor of law at the University of Miami School of Law, testify on Tuesday.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kansas and ACLU National's Capital Punishment Project are trying to prove that it is impossible to get fair and impartial juries in capital murder cases in Kansas.