News & Commentary

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas sent a letter to the city of Gardner Police Department for alleged First Amendment rights violations against a volunteer political canvasser.

D.C. Hiegert, an American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas legal fellow focusing on LGBTQ issues, and Brenan Riffel, a Kansas Reflector columnist and University of Kansas graduate student, talk with opinion editor Clay Wirestone and reporter Rachel Mipro about the harm this is causing.

“The ACLU is hopeful Ms. Garrett will have her constitutional rights vindicated in the lower court, and that her criminal judge will recognize that continuing Ms. Garrett on state supervision indefinitely due to her poverty serves no legitimate community interest,” Legal Director Sharon Brett wrote.

The ACLU claimed that the Kansas Two Step is part of a strategy to get drivers to talk to them without a lawyer present. Troopers in both stops and the head of the highway patrol are being sued personally for damages and the ACLU is asking the highway patrol for injunctive relief.

“It is settled law that it is a violation of Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause in the U.S. Constitution to force a transgender student to use a bathroom based off their sex assigned at birth instead of their gender identity. That issue is settled,” said D.C. Hiegert with the ACLU of Kansas.

The Gardner Edgerton School District is considering an anti-trans policy. Ahead of the meeting, the ACLU of Kansas said the policy wasn’t sufficient at providing teachers and staff guidance on how to handle a situation where a student doesn’t want their identity disclosed to their family.

In January 2021, 13 year-old Izzy Dieker was riding home from school in rural Kansas when the driver overheard her tell another student that she’s a lesbian. Dieker stood up for herself and with some help from the ACLU of Kansas she got the district to conduct a Title IX investigation.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas condemned a school district’s discussed transgender policy as potentially illegal and harmful, in anticipation of a deciding vote on the matter.

In 2020, the ACLU of Kansas sued the Kansas Highway Patrol over a technique colloquially called the “Kansas Two Step,” in which a trooper at the end of a traffic stop takes a couple steps away and then returns to the vehicle to ask more questions, used often with people traveling from Colorado.