News & Commentary

Appellate judges deemed Kansas Highway Patrol's practice of targeting drivers from specific states to be unconstitutional.

The ACLU of Kansas also criticized the bill’s passage. “Bathroom bans are grounded in prejudice and misinformation,” said Logan Demond, ACLU of Kansas policy director in a statement on the organization’s website. “And they don’t actually make anyone safer.”

The case led by the ACLU against KHP is best known for challenging the Kansas two-step, a controversial technique used by troopers to extend traffic stops and eventually search vehicles.

Monica Bennett, legal director of the ACLU of Kansas, said the result was KHP must retrain its troopers to “observe and respect the rights of all people traveling Kansas highways.”

Logan Demond, ACLU of Kansas policy director, posted a statement to the organization’s website that said, “Bathroom bans are grounded in prejudice and misinformation and they don’t actually make anyone safer.”

Micah Kubic, ACLU of Kansas Executive Director, said in part in a statement on the group’s website: “This bill undermines our state’s strong constitutional protections against government overreach and persecution. It subjects people to unacceptable privacy violations and puts them in harm’s way. Discriminatory laws like this bill violate the fundamental rights guaranteed by the state constitution. They contradict what it means to be a Kansan.”

Following a challenge by the ACLU, a federal judge said Kansas troopers thwarted the 14th Amendment. But a federal appeals panel decided better training is enough to remedy the violations.

The ACLU of Kansas also criticized the bill’s passage. “Bathroom bans are grounded in prejudice and misinformation,” said Logan Demond, ACLU of Kansas policy director in a statement on the organization’s website. “And they don’t actually make anyone safer.”

Logan DeMond, ACLU of Kansas policy director, said in a statement that the bill opens up all Kansans to “scrutiny and gender policing by strangers.”