The Shawnee Mission School District will require First Amendment training for all administrators, adopt new policies for non-school sponsored events, offer apologies and $1 damage payments to the plaintiffs, and more, as part of settling a lawsuit filed last year by the ACLU of Kansas.

“The building belongs to the people of Kansas and by shutting down speech, the state is preventing our clients from being able to exercise their First Amendment right to petition their government.”

“Unless the goal is to continue denying Kansans their voting rights and leaving them vulnerable to identity fraud, why would we keep using this program?” said the ACLU of Kansas’ Interim Executive Director Lauren Bonds.

The ACLU of Kansas has requested an investigation of the Tonganoxie Police Department in relations to an August 2018 incident in which Tonganoxie officers detained a black man moving into his own home, a letter to Attorney General Derek Schmidt said.

A federal appeals court will hear arguments in the American Civil Liberties Union’s challenge to a law crafted by former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach that illegally mandates documentary proof of citizenship (i.e., a passport) to register to vote, with the aim of making it harder to vote.

"It’s not enough that Sec. Kobach’s flawed Crosscheck program left hundreds of Kansas voters vulnerable to identity theft by exposing sensitive data, but now they want to argue that they were legally authorized to do so,” Bonds said. “We vehemently disagree.”

The ACLU of Kansas and the Shawnee Mission School District have reached a settlement agreement in which the school district will adopt new measures for non-school sponsored events, the ACLU of Kansas announced March 5.

Organizers want to influence legislation regarding criminal justice reform policies relating to civil asset forfeiture, defelonizing all classes of drug crimes, and standardizing diversion practices state-wide.

Alejandro Rangel-Lopez, a lead plaintiff in a recently settled lawsuit that forced Ford County election officials to open two, new Dodge City polling places, will share with a U.S. House committee Feb. 14 at 8:30 a.m. EST how he got involved in the effort.