News & Commentary

Atchison County will again allow residents of the City of Atchison to register to vote following a local outcry and a threatened lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, according to an email from the Kansas secretary of state’s office.

The Roe v. Wade reversal by the U.S. Supreme Court empowered states to decide abortion rights. "We're looking at those states where we can create a firewall," Kary Moss, the ACLU's political director, told Axios.

As part of the “Vote No August 2” movement, a group of young activists has formed an organization to energize people around the reproductive justice movement and appeal better to young voters.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas is arguing a state law allowing probation to be extended for the failure to pay fines and fees should be struck down as unconstitutional in a brief the ACLU filed Monday in state appeals court.

The ACLU claimed that the Kansas Two Step is part of a strategy to get drivers to talk to them without a lawyer present. On Monday, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the class action suit to continue, and the case will be tried in February in Wichita.

“If you are seeing racial disparities in one aspect of policing,” Brett said, “you will likely find those same disparities in other aspects of policing, if you only care to look.”

Data compiled from 2011 to 2019 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas shows more than 4,000 people arrested or removed by ICE during that time, many of whom have not been convicted of a crime.

The ACLU of Kansas has filed a lawsuit against KDADS. Individuals are frequently waiting nearly a year in jail for an evaluation, unable to access psychiatric treatment and are often placed in solitary confinement, something ACLU legal director Sharon Brett said is "cruel and unusual punishment."

The ACLU of Kansas and the National Police Accountability Project are suing Kansas over delays in mental health evaluations at Larned State Hospital. The class action lawsuit says individuals who face criminal charges are waiting for as long as 13 months behind bars for an evaluation.