News & Commentary

 

U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren granted the ACLU’s motion to send back to state court our challenge to the creation of a two-tiered voter registration system in Kansas.On November 21, 2013 we filed a lawsuit  in Shawnee County District Court charging that by creating a two-tiered voter registration system Kansas was dividing eligible voters into separate and unequal classes, in violation of the Kansas Constitution. When Secretary of State Kris Kobach responded by removing our suit to federal court, we in turn filed a motion to send the case back to state court.  Now that Judge Melgren has agreed with our motion we will file additional papers in Shawnee County District Court in the next few weeks."ACLU lawsuit against Kobach returned to Kansas court", Topeka Capitol-Journal, 04/08/2014

 

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear two cases on city ordinances that sought to require proof of citizenship when trying to rent housing. These ordinances would levy fines against landlords who rent to undocumented immigrants seeking housing.“Today, the ordinances’ supporters failed in their final, last ditch attempt to resurrect these laws, which have been blocked for years without ever going into effect,” said a statement by Omar Jadwat, supervising attorney of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. “Now that these appeals are over, we look forward to Farmers Branch and Hazleton joining cities across the nation that are looking at ways to make their cities welcoming places for immigrants, rather writing hostility and discrimination into municipal law.”Read more here: "Kobach’s drive against illegal immigration set back as U.S. Supreme Court declines cases", Kansas City Star, 03/03/2014

Kansas Senate bill  401 would make it easier to prosecute teachers, librarians or school principals for exposing students to offensive materials. The bill was drafted in response to a sexual education poster shown by a teacher in the Shawnee Mission School District.  ACLU Advocacy Director Holly Weatherford, commenting on the current language proposed in the bill, said it is “facially unconstitutional.”“The way this bill is currently written, it is so overly broad that it’s hard to even evaluate what all of the implications or consequences are of its reach,” she said. Read more here: "Kansas Senate weighs bill to ease prosecution of teachers over offensive materials", Wichita Eagle, 03/02/2014 

Remarks at the Equality Kansas rally by ACLU of Kansas executive Director Gary Brunk."The road our nation has traveled in the quest to expand liberties has never been straight or easy.  The Declaration of Independence boldly asserted that all men are created equal, but the Constitution condoned slavery.  As historian Garry Wills convincingly argues, at Gettysburg President Lincoln had to leapfrog back over the Constitution to the Declaration to restore the centrality of the idea “that all men are created equal.”  Even then, it was many decades after Gettysburg before we began making real progress in the struggle for equality for African-Americans, just as it took decades before we made real progress in the struggle for equality for women.   Today we can acknowledge that the fulfillment of rights of Africa-Americans and women has improved, but we still have a long way to go before we are near the end of the road to equality.And so it is for other groups marginalized and discriminated against in our society.  In the last few years our country has taken astonishing steps towards equality for LGBT people.  I am proud to say that the ACLU has played a critical role in that progress, including our historic victory in convincing the Supreme Court  that the Defense of Marriage Act violated equal protection by denying married gay couples recognition under federal law.We have made progress, but much remains to be done. Hardly anywhere is that as true as in our own state, where under the guise of religious liberty some legislators want to legalize discrimination against LGBT couples.But this fight in Kansas is not about religious liberty, it’s about giving persons with certain convictions the right to impose their views on others.  This is, pure and simple, an attempt to institutionalize the tyranny of a set of ideas that increasingly most Americans reject.Today, as civil libertarians, as people who are religious, as people who are not religious but care about working to fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence, we are called on

Under the guise of “religious freedom,” Kansas House Bill 2453 would allow discrimination against LGBT people.  The opposition to the bill has been tremendous, coming from not only advocates and citizens who believe in equality, but also from concerned business leaders.  While the legislation seems derailed for the time being, the ACLU will be watching closely for attempts to revive it. 

On December 7, 2012, Missouri Western State University’s Department of Nursing and Allied Health added a new social media policy to its Student Handbook.  That ill-considered policy prohibited students from “post[ing] unfavorable remarks about any academic or clinical institution, faculty, staff or patients” or transmitting “any . . . institution-related image that . . . would cause embarrassment.” The policy also required that “[a]ny images of health professions students in uniform posted on social media sites must reflect a positive image.”  Finally, the policy included broad language prohibiting students from making any controversial statements or using profanity on social media.

On December 18, 2013, the Kansas Board of Regents approved revisions to its policy on “Suspensions, Terminations and Dismissals” of faculty and staff of the seven universities and twenty-six community colleges and technical schools under its authority.  In the revisions announced last week, the Board has imposed vague and overbroad restrictions on the use of social media by faculty and staff.As an editorial published in The Kansas City Star on December 18 observed, “[t]he policy is in response to the uproar created by a University of Kansas professor’s inappropriate tweet and appears to be a ham-handed attempt to mollify conservatives in the state Legislature.”In the aftermath of the Navy Yard shootings in mid-September 2013 in which a lone gunman killed twelve people and injured three others, KU journalism professor David Guth posted a tweet that read “The blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you.”The Kansas State Senate leadership immediately called for KU to fire professor Guth and threatened to cut the university’s funding if he were not fired.  On September 20, the university placed Guth on extended administrative leave.The Regents’ new social media policy presents a major threat to academic freedom.  Specifically, by couching the policy’s restrictions in vague and overbroad terms, the Regents have created an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty in which faculty and staff will likely suppress their expression of opinions and conclusions on controversial topics in order to avoid incurring the wrath of the administration and the state legislature.  That is an unhealthy prospect for the academy in Kansas.Because of these concerns, on Friday, December 20, 2013, the Legal Director of the ACLU of Kansas signed off on a letter of concern written by the Legal Director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.  The National Coalition Against Censorship also joined the FIRE and the ACLU.  In the letter, we called for the Regents to rescind the ill-advised new social media policy and to issue a strong reaffirmation of the rights of freedom of expression and academic freedom on its campuses.We will continue to monitor this situation, and we would like to hear about any instances in which the administrations of the Regents’ institutions enforce this social media policy.