ACLU

Judge Jerri Zhang has yet to issue her ruling in a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood that seeks to strike down the state’s ban on abortions Friday, when a voter-approved amendment protecting abortion access goes into effect.

A crumbling correctional facility in Hutchinson lacks air conditioning and has small cells. State prison officials say Kansas could be sued in federal court if it doesn’t build a new facility.

The American Civil Liberties Union joins law firms to argue that capital trial juries in Kansas are racially discriminatory.

The 13-day trial included testimony from transgender minors, who — along with their families and health-care providers — challenged the constitutionality of a 2023 Missouri law restricting physicians from prescribing gender-affirming medical care to minors.

Transgender adolescents are seeking to block a Missouri law passed last year that bars them from beginning puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, arguing the ban is unconstitutional and discriminatory. The trial begins Monday.

Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, a coalition of statewide abortion rights groups, has until May 5 to gather more than 171,000 signatures to get a constitutional amendment on November’s ballot. The ballot initiative would legalize abortions up to the point of "fetal viability."

Missouri has one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country, but a new initiative petition would legalize the practice up to the point of "fetal viability." To qualify for the November ballot, the coalition has until May 5 to gather enough signatures from across the state.

The Girard School District Board of Education voted unanimously to remove a district dress code policy that stipulates boys’ hair cannot “touch the collar of a crew neck t-shirt … or extend below the earlobes.” The ACLU warned the policy violated religious freedom, after an 8-year-old member of the Wyandotte Nation was forced to cut his hair.

The 8-year-old boy, a member of the Wyandotte Nation, started growing his hair out after attending the Nation's annual gathering. School officials at a Gerard elementary warned his family that his hair needed to be cut to comply with the dress code, which the ACLU says violates his religious freedom.

The Secretary of State is appealing a Sept. 25 ruling striking down the ballot language he wrote for six proposed constitutional amendments on abortion. A Cole County judge ruled that Ashcroft's summary was argumentative and biased.

In a ruling Monday, Circuit Judge Jon Beetem wrote that the summaries crafted by Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft were "argumentative" or unfairly biased against the abortion rights ballot initiatives, and ignored their protections for contraceptives.. Beetem rewrote each of the six ballot summaries himself.

A judge heard arguments over a series of proposed amendments to Missouri's constitution seeking to legalize abortion, this time over the ballot language proposed by Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft. The ACLU argued that Ashcroft's summary was biased against the amendments, like a "referee playing for one of the teams."