Studies show that AI systems used to make important decisions such as approval of loan and mortgage applications can perpetuate historical bias and discrimination if not carefully constructed and monitored (Seksan Mongkhonkhamsao/Getty Images).

In a recent study evaluating how chatbots make loan suggestions for mortgage applications, researchers at Pennsylvania’s Lehigh University found something stark: there was clear racial bias at play.

With 6,000 sample loan applications based on data from the 2022 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, the chatbots recommended denials for more Black applicants than identical white counterparts. They also recommended Black applicants be given higher interest rates, and labeled Black and Hispanic borrowers as “riskier.”

White applicants were 8.5% more likely to be approved than Black applicants with the same financial profile. And applicants with “low” credit scores of 640, saw a wider margin — white applicants were approved 95% of the time, while Black applicants were approved less than 80% of the time.

The experiment aimed to simulate how financial institutions are using AI algorithms, machine learning and large language models to speed up processes like lending and underwriting of loans and mortgages. These “black box” systems, where the algorithm’s inner workings aren’t transparent to users, have the potential to lower operating costs for financial firms and any other industry employing them, said Donald Bowen, an assistant fintech professor at Lehigh and one of the authors of the study.

But there’s also large potential for flawed training data, programming errors, and historically biased information to affect the outcomes, sometimes in detrimental, life-changing ways.

“There’s a potential for these systems to know a lot about the people they’re interacting with,” Bowen said. “If there’s a baked-in bias, that could propagate across a bunch of different interactions between customers and a bank.”

How does AI discriminate in finance?

Decision-making AI tools and large language models, like the ones in the Lehigh University experiment, are being used across a variety of industries, like healthcare, education, finance and even in the judicial system.

Most machine learning algorithms follow what’s called classification models, meaning you formally define a problem or a question, and then you feed the algorithm a set of inputs such as a loan applicant’s age, income, education and credit history, Michael Wellman, a computer science professor at the University of Michigan, explained.

The algorithm spits out a result — approved or not approved. More complex algorithms can assess these factors and deliver more nuanced answers, like a loan approval with a recommended interest rate.

Machine learning advances in recent years have allowed for what’s called deep learning, or construction of big neural networks that can learn from large amounts of data. But if AI’s builders don’t keep objectivity in mind, or rely on data sets that reflect deep-rooted and systemic racism, results will reflect that.

“If it turns out that you are systematically more often making decisions to deny credit to certain groups of people more than you make those wrong decisions about others, that would be a time that there’s a problem with the algorithm,” Wellman said. “And especially when those groups are groups that are historically disadvantaged.”

Bowen was initially inspired to pursue the Lehigh University study after a smaller-scale assignment with his students revealed the racial discrimination by the chatbots.

“We wanted to understand if these models are biased, and if they’re biased in settings where they’re not supposed to be,” Bowen said, since underwriting is a regulated industry that’s not allowed to consider race in decision-making.

For the official study, Bowen and a research team ran thousands of loan application numbers over several months through different commercial large language models, including OpenAI’s GPT 3.5 Turbo and GPT 4, Anthropic’s Claude 3 Sonnet and Opus and Meta’s Llama 3-8B and 3-70B.

In one experiment, they included race information on applications and saw the discrepancies in loan approvals and mortgage rates. In other, they instructed the chatbots to “use no bias in making these decisions.” That experiment saw virtually no discrepancies between loan applicants.

But if race data isn’t collected in modern day lending, and algorithms used by banks are instructed to not consider race, how do people of color end up getting denied more often, or offered worse interest rates? Because much of our modern-day data is influenced by disparate impact, or the influence of systemic racism, Bowen said.

Though a computer wasn’t given the race of an applicant, a borrower’s credit score, which can be influenced by discrimination in the labor and housing markets, will have an impact on their application. So might their zip code, or the credit scores of other members of their household, all of which could have been influenced by the historic racist practice of redlining, or restricting lending to people in poor and nonwhite neighborhoods.

Machine learning algorithms aren’t always calculating their conclusions in the way that humans might imagine, Bowen said. The patterns it is learning apply to a variety of scenarios, so it may even be digesting reports about discrimination, for example learning that Black people have historically had worse credit. Therefore, the computer might see signs that a borrower is Black, and deny their loan or offer them a higher interest rate than a white counterpart.

Other opportunities for discrimination 

Decision making technologies have become ubiquitous in hiring practices over the last several years, as application platforms and internal systems use AI to filter through applications, and pre-screen candidates for hiring managers. Last year, New York City began requiring employers to notify candidates about their use of AI decision-making software.

By law, the AI tools should be programmed to have no opinion on protected classes like gender, race or age, but some users allege that they’ve been discriminated against by the algorithms anyway. In 2021, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission launched an initiative to examine more closely how new and existing technologies change the way employment decisions are made. Last year, the commission settled its first-ever AI discrimination hiring lawsuit.

The New York federal court case ended in a $365,000 settlement when tutoring company iTutorGroup Inc. was alleged to use an AI-powered hiring tool that rejected women applicants over 55 and men over 60. Two hundred applicants received the settlement, and iTutor agreed to adopt anti-discrimination policies and conduct training to ensure compliance with equal employment opportunity laws, Bloomberg reported at the time.

Another anti-discrimination lawsuit is pending in California federal court against AI-powered company Workday. Plaintiff Derek Mobley alleges he was passed over for more than 100 jobs that contract with the software company because he is Black, older than 40 and has mental health issues, Reuters reported this summer. The suit claims that Workday uses data on a company’s existing workforce to train its software, and the practice doesn’t account for the discrimination that may reflect in future hiring.

U.S. judicial and court systems have also begun incorporating decision-making algorithms in a handful of operations, like risk assessment analysis of defendants, determinations about pretrial release, diversion, sentencing and probation or parole.

Though the technologies have been cited in speeding up some of the traditionally lengthy court processes — like for document review and assistance with small claims court filings — experts caution that the technologies are not ready to be the primary or sole evidence in a “consequential outcome.”

“We worry more about its use in cases where AI systems are subject to pervasive and systemic racial and other biases, e.g., predictive policing, facial recognition, and criminal risk/recidivism assessment,” the co-authors of a paper in Judicature’s 2024 edition say.

Utah passed a law earlier this year to combat exactly that. HB 366, sponsored by state Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, R-Syracuse, addresses the use of an algorithm or a risk assessment tool score in determinations about pretrial release, diversion, sentencing, probation and parole, saying that these technologies may not be used without human intervention and review.

Lisonbee told States Newsroom that by design, the technologies provide a limited amount of information to a judge or decision-making officer.

“We think it’s important that judges and other decision-makers consider all the relevant information about a defendant in order to make the most appropriate decision regarding sentencing, diversion, or the conditions of their release,” Lisonbee said.

She also brought up concerns about bias, saying the state’s lawmakers don’t currently have full confidence in the “objectivity and reliability” of these tools. They also aren’t sure of the tools’ data privacy settings, which is a priority to Utah residents. These issues combined could put citizens’ trust in the criminal justice system at risk, she said.

“When evaluating the use of algorithms and risk assessment tools in criminal justice and other settings, it’s important to include strong data integrity and privacy protections, especially for any personal data that is shared with external parties for research or quality control purposes,” Lisonbee said.

Preventing discriminatory AI

Some legislators, like Lisonbee, have taken note of these issues of bias, and potential for discrimination. Four states currently have laws aiming to prevent “algorithmic discrimination,” where an AI system can contribute to different treatment of people based on race, ethnicity, sex, religion or disability, among other things. This includes Utah, as well as California (SB 36), Colorado (SB 21-169), Illinois (HB 0053).

Though it’s not specific to discrimination, Congress introduced a bill in late 2023 to amend the Financial Stability Act of 2010 to include federal guidance for the financial industry on the uses of AI. This bill, the Financial Artificial Intelligence Risk Reduction Act or the “FAIRR Act,” would require the Financial Stability Oversight Council to coordinate with agencies regarding threats to the financial system posed by artificial intelligence, and may regulate how financial institutions can rely on AI.

Lehigh’s Bowen made it clear he felt there was no going back on these technologies, especially as companies and industries realize their cost-saving potential.

“These are going to be used by firms,” he said. “So how can they do this in a fair way?”

Bowen hopes his study can help inform financial and other institutions in deployment of decision-making AI tools. For their experiment, the researchers wrote that it was as simple as using prompt engineering to instruct the chatbots to “make unbiased decisions.” They suggest firms that integrate large language models into their processes do regular audits for bias to refine their tools.

Bowen and other researchers on the topic stress that more human involvement is needed to use these systems fairly. Though AI can deliver a decision on a court sentencing, mortgage loan, job application, healthcare diagnosis or customer service inquiry, it doesn’t mean they should be operating unchecked.

University of Michigan’s Wellman told States Newsroom he’s looking for government regulation on these tools, and pointed to H.R. 6936, a bill pending in Congress which would require federal agencies to adopt the Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The framework calls out potential for bias, and is designed to improve trustworthiness for organizations that design, develop, use and evaluate AI tools.

“My hope is that the call for standards … will read through the market, providing tools that companies could use to validate or certify their models at least,” Wellman said. “Which, of course, doesn’t guarantee that they’re perfect in every way or avoid all your potential negatives. But it can … provide basic standard basis for trusting the models.”

Jim Hoft, founder of The Gateway Pundit, talks with Stephen K. Bannon while appearing on an episode of Brietbart News Daily on SiriusXM Patriot at Quicken Loans Arena on July 21, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio (Ben Jackson/Getty Images for SiriusXM).

A settlement has been reached between the Gateway Pundit and two Georgia poll workers who accused the St. Louis-based far-right website of defamation in a civil suit in St. Louis Circuit Court.

Notice of the settlement was filed Monday afternoon. The parties to the dispute “provide notice to the court that the parties have reached agreement to settle all claims and counterclaims asserted in the … action, which settlement shall be satisfied on March 29, 2025,” the notice reads.

“The parties respectfully request that this court vacate the trial date set in this matter,” the notice continues, “and stay this matter until March 29, 2025, at which point the parties will dismiss this matter pending satisfaction of the terms of the Parties’ settlement agreement.”

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

As Fox News case heads to trial, far right St. Louis site faces its own defamation suit

A representative of the legal team working for the two poll workers wrote in an email that the settlement offers “mutual satisfaction” and is “fair and reasonable.” The poll workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, could not be reached.

Jonathan Burns, the St. Louis-based lawyer for Jim Hoft, the Gateway Pundit’s owner, did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.

In June, 2022, the two women provided emotional testimony to the House Select Committee Investigating the January 6^th Attack on the Capitol about the harassment, including death threats, that had resulted from false allegations they had committed voter fraud on behalf of Joe Biden during the counting of votes on election night in 2020.

Among those spreading the lies was the Gateway Pundit, which repeatedly bragged that it was the first to identify the two women as the culprits in the alleged fraud. Georgia election officials immediately debunked the allegations, but the Gateway Pundit continued to make them for years in dozens of articles.

The preliminary settlement appears to mean the Gateway Pundit will face little or no public reckoning in court for its repeated falsehoods.

The case, first filed in St. Louis Circuit Court in December, 2021, had appeared to be emerging as a high-profile test of the limits of the First Amendment, not unlike the defamation cases filed by parents of children murdered at Sandy Hook against Alex Jones and Dominion Voting Systems’ suit against Fox News.

Both of those cases ended up in huge judgments against the defendants.

A jury in Washington, D.C., awarded the two women more than $148 million in a defamation suit they had filed against former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for telling the same lies about them that they accused the Gateway Pundit of spreading.

Some legal observers saw the prospect for a similar judgment by a St. Louis jury against the defendants in the suit here – TGP Communications, which does business as Gateway Pundit; Jim Hoft, the company’s sole owner; and his identical twin brother Joe, who is a contributor to the site.

The trial in St. Louis had been scheduled to start next March 10.

False fraud claims a focus of Rudy Giuliani’s 2020 Missouri testimony, St. Louis defamation suit

But it appears that the two women have yet to collect a dime from Giuliani, so the prospect of a settlement in the St. Louis case may have appeared to be worth taking. And the apparent settlement in the St. Louis case has a precedent – in April 2022 the two women settled their similar claims with One America News Network. The terms of that agreement were not disclosed. OANN did, however, later broadcast a statement that an investigation by Georgia officials had shown that the women “did not engage in ballot fraud or criminal misconduct while working at State Farm Arena on election night.”

What may have driven the Hofts to settle, one attorney familiar with these kinds of cases said, was the failure last July of their filing for bankruptcy in Florida. Had they been allowed bankruptcy protection, the St. Louis defamation case would have been stayed indefinitely.

But instead the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Southern District of Florida in West Palm Beach dismissed the case as a bad faith filing, “reflect(ing) the use of bankruptcy as a pure litigation tactic.”

During the bankruptcy proceedings, it was revealed that Gateway Pundit had a media insurance policy that carried $2 million in gross benefits, of which $700,000 had already been spent on legal fees in defending the St. Louis case. The attorney who is familiar with similar cases said it was possible the Hofts wanted to use the remaining insurance money to settle or help settle the case and put it behind them, rather than deplete it further by continuing to fight.

The settlement may mean escape for the Hofts from the potentially knockout punch that many observers thought a St. Louis jury might deal their website, one of the most influential on the far right. It also appears to mean that whatever information had been turned up by the two women’s lawyers in pre-trial discovery will never become public.

It was known, for example, that the lawyers were seeking the company’s financial records and searching for an understanding of how precisely the Gateway Pundit turned clicks on the site’s website into cash, and therefore the extent of their financial motive for repeating their lies.

It was also known that the lawyers were scheduled to depose the Hoft brothers — or perhaps even had by the time of the agreement to settle. Now whatever the Hofts may have said in those depositions, if they occurred, will remain under protective order.

This story was originally published by the Gateway Journalism Review. 

Judge Craig Carter, a Wright County judge serving in Cole County for Missouri's gender-affirming care trial, listens to a nurse practitioner testify on the fourth day of the trial (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

A ruling on Missouri’s restrictions on gender-affirming care is likely to come by the end of the year, with the trial complete and attorneys’ reports due within 30 days.

After a 13-day trial ended last week, Wright County Circuit Court Judge Craig Carter waived closing statements and asked instead for plaintiffs and defendants to submit statements of facts and findings. Both sides presented thick stacks of evidence, with seven approximately five-inch binders sitting on Carter’s bench throughout proceedings.

Without a jury, Carter — who was assigned to preside over the Cole County case — will rule on the constitutionality of the law.

Carter’s questions at the start of the trial sounded like someone becoming familiar with the subject, asking what a nonbinary gender identity means and clarifying definitions.

But in the trial’s final days, his inquiries were more frequent and challenging for witnesses, digging into the arguments and searching for the point in which gender-affirming medication for minors switches from unlawful to lawful.

The trial comes after transgender minors, their families and health care providers challenged the constitutionality of a 2023 law restricting physicians from prescribing gender-affirming medical care to minors. It also bars Missouri Medicaid from covering gender-affirming treatment for adults and restricts prisoners from getting the care in state prisons.

Carter asked many of the questions to the state’s expert witness, Dr. Farr Curlin, a professor at Duke who specializes in medical ethics.

“So tell me your thoughts on the intersection,” Carter asked during Curlin’s testimony last Wednesday. “The state has an interest in preventing people from making life-altering mistakes, and plaintiffs have the right to seek (desired medical care).”

Curlin said the problem lies in children’s inability to consent. Typically, parents consent for their child, whereas a minor’s agreement is labeled assent.

“The norm should be the same norm that is practiced throughout pediatric ethics and it is: Is this intervention in the medical best interest of the child?” Curlin said.

A large piece of the case is whether there is medical consensus on the efficacy of medical transition.

Large medical organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics, a group founded in 1930 with 67,000 member physicians, support gender-affirming care for minors. Other organizations outside the medical mainstream — like the 700-member American College of Pediatricians which was formed in 2002 — are outspoken against the treatment.

Plaintiffs’ experts reviewed research showing positive effects of medical transition, and people who have benefited from gender-affirming care in Missouri as minors testified. The attorney general’s office, which was defending the law, tried to diminish the testimony of these experts by claiming that because most provide gender-affirming care —either by writing letters of support as a mental health provider or prescribing medication — they financially benefit from ensuring it remains legal. 

Plaintiffs waved off these concerns. 

“Only to the state of Missouri, and without any sense of irony, is actually having experience and expertise a conflict,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, an attorney with Lambda Legal, told reporters.

The state’s expert witnesses included physicians who are outspoken about their disapproval of gender-affirming care, though many had never treated a minor for gender dysphoria. During the testimony of Alabama-based plastic surgeon Dr. Patrick Lappert, attorneys showed images of gender-affirming surgeries and detailed the process and risks of infection.

In 2022, a federal court in North Carolina ruled that state health plans excluding gender-affirming care violated the Equal Protection Clause. In that case, the judge tossed out parts of the testimony of  Lappert and Dr. Stephen Levine, who also testified last week as an expert for the state of Missouri.

Tom Bastian, spokesman for the ACLU of Missouri, told The Independent in emailed answers the case’s attorneys oversaw that the state’s argument is not sufficient to justify the law. Specifically, he pointed to what he deemed a lack of expertise among the state’s expert witnesses.

“None of the state’s purported expert witnesses practice in this field, except for one, and the one who does agrees that medical interventions for gender dysphoria can be appropriate for some patients,” Bastian wrote. “Plaintiffs’ doctors, their experts and every major medical organization in the United States all agree that, in certain cases, gender-affirming medical care can be medically necessary to treat gender dysphoria in adolescents and adults.”

Another expert called by the Missouri attorney general’s office last week was John Michael Bailey. He received skepticism from Carter after it was revealed that he believes convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky is innocent. Bailey has been criticized for a retracted research article on gender dysphoria in adolescents and was the subject of an investigation by Northwestern University after he demonstrated a sex toy in an extracurricular lecture.

The Independent sent questions to the attorney general’s office, including asking about criticism of its expert witnesses, but did not receive a response.

Four people who had once identified as transgender but stopped treatment, known as “detransitioners,” also testified last about their regrets. Only one of the four received medical care in Missouri, and he was an adult when he began his transition.

“The adults that were in the room that should have been protecting them failed to do so,” Attorney General Andrew Bailey said in a podcast late last month before the trial began.

The state also introduced academic articles describing the evidence behind gender-affirming care for minors as “too limited,” both in cross-examination and through their witnesses’ testimony.

Carter asked if the law could be peeled back if research showed treatments’ success. The state’s restrictions on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors is set to expire in August of 2027 — though lawmakers have publicly discussed removing the sunset clause.

“Are you saying the kids don’t have a choice until we get further evidence showing the efficacy of these treatments?” Carter asked Curlin, the Duke medical professor. “If the studies show that this treatment is efficacious, then where do we wind up?”

“It’s not just, is it efficacious?” Curlin said. “Is it efficacious, and is it reliable enough and substantial enough to warrant the risks that these treatments bring?”

“What if the drug companies come out tomorrow and say, ‘You can take this drug, and it is absolutely reversible,” Carter asked.

Curlin said the “treatments are absolutely counter to the well-working of this patient’s health.” The medications and surgeries are not ethical in a body that is functioning well, he said.

The state repeatedly presented talk therapy as an option to treat gender dysphoria, which is distress arising from one’s body not matching gender identity.

Plaintiffs said therapy alone will not treat many cases of gender dysphoria, making medication medically necessary.

On the first day of the trial, a young man testifying under the name John Doe told the court that therapy was not enough for him. His first therapist said he was “going through a phase,” and his dysphoria only worsened.

A second, affirming therapist helped him as he began to dress more like himself at the age of 7, he said. His fear only worsened as puberty approached, and he attributes his thriving social life and success in college to his access to medication.

“It felt like once I started to receive (testosterone) shots, my overall was uphill from there,” he said. “The confidence I gained from having my body reflect who I am and what I was feeling was impactful throughout my entire life.”

Doe’s mother also testified later in the trial.

Carter noted there was “heartfelt testimony on both sides” from parents, asking about the issue of parental rights when the state withholds a type of care from their child. He discussed the Right to Try Act, which allows patients to access experimental medications for life-threatening conditions.

He also looked at the release of the COVID-19 vaccine, which had an accelerated clinical trial phase in order to give the public access sooner. The vaccine could potentially serve as a precedent of giving access to a medication without longitudinal testing.

Carter’s ruling is unlikely to be the last, with similar cases in other states appealing all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He noted the likelihood of an appeal, saying he would accept exhibits to add to the case’s file for future courts to look at, though they would not determine his ruling.

ACLU of Missouri attorney Gillian Wilcox takes notes while a witness testifies in Missouri's gender-affirming care trial in Cole County Circuit Court (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Missouri’s defense of a state law barring minors from beginning puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones will depend on whether the judge in the case puts stock in expert witnesses touting retracted studies and conspiracy theories about Jerry Sandusky.

Wright County Circuit Court Judge Craig Carter, who is presiding over a lawsuit challenging Missouri’s gender-affirming care restrictions, will have to weigh the credibility of expert witnesses alongside his judgment.

Questions of credibility came up Tuesday, when the Missouri Attorney General’s Office called as a witness John Michael Bailey, a psychology professor at Northwestern who testified about his now-retracted study entitled “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” which concludes that adolescents identify as transgender as a result of social contagion.

But it was his social media post about the accusers of Jerry Sandusky that appeared to concern Carter.

Sandusky, a former college football coach, was convicted of molesting young boys over a period of at least 15 years. Bailey repeatedly posted on social media that he believes Sandusky is innocent.

“You believe the people testifying against Jerry Sandusky are lying?” Carter asked.

“I can see that if you are not familiar with the evidence that I am familiar with, you would be shocked,” Bailey told him.

“Mmhmm,” Carter replied.

Bailey said he had listened to a podcast and lauded the work of conservative commentator John Ziegler.

“Do you know (Ziegler)? Have you talked to anybody that was an eyewitness in that case?” Carter asked.

“I have read testimony, but I have not talked to anyone,” Bailey said.

Although the underlying case was not about Sandusky, the exchange may have chiseled away at Bailey’s credibility and showed a greater pattern of basing conclusions on secondary sources.

Bailey’s research on transgender youth has been retracted, which he chalked up to pressure from activists.

The academic journal that retracted his article cited an issue with informed consent protocol, meaning participants didn’t know their responses would be in an article. On cross-examination, the circumstances of his research became clearer.

To investigate his hypothesis of whether “rapid onset gender dysphoria” caused a rise in referrals to gender clinics, Bailey surveyed parents and guardians who interacted with the website ParentsofROGDKids.com, a website for parents who believe their child has rapid onset gender dysphoria.

He said the study’s co-author Suzanna Diaz isn’t a researcher, so she didn’t create the survey with typical informed-consent procedures. He didn’t explain that Diaz is a pseudonym.

He knew Diaz was associated with ParentsofROGDKids.com but didn’t know her real name and if she ran the website.

Diaz had created the questionnaire to “weed out troublemakers.”

When Bailey looked into detransitioners and desisters, which are people who have stopped or reversed gender-affirming care, he looked to the website Reddit and looked at groups titled “detrans” and “desist.”

Plaintiffs’ attorney Nora Huppert asked if he verified that participants had previously been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Bailey admitted that he had not.

The other defense expert on the stand Tuesday was Dr. Daniel Weiss, an endocrinologist from Utah.

For 10 years in Ohio, Weiss accepted transgender adults as patients that needed cross-sex hormones, but later decided the intervention was harmful to prescribe.

“I’m opposed to it medically,” Weiss said of adults using cross-sex hormones to transition. “I think there’s no scientific evidence to support it. But if someone wants to do it, and they’re adequately informed, they can do it.”

His testimony included a look at adverse event reporting of puberty blockers, which he does not prescribe, and the discussion of risks to gender-affirming care.

When asked to compare the risks of puberty blockers to aspirin, he couldn’t make a direct comparison.

“It’s hard to compare,” he said. “With any intervention, you want to balance risk and benefit and look at all the treatment options.”

Gillian Wilcox, an attorney with the ACLU of Missouri, asked if he has published a peer-reviewed article on gender dysphoria. He hadn’t.

“My article, if I were to write one, would be rejected by most medical journals because there is no good treatment,” Weiss said. “I call it child-harming treatment. There is no good intervention.”

He has testified in favor of state bans on gender-affirming care for minors. He told Wilcox that the Center for Christian Virtue, an advocacy group with anti-LGBTQ views, asked him to testify and he was paid to prepare his testimony.

He does not have clinical experience with minors.

In the state’s pretrial brief, Solicitor General Joshua Divine wrote that defendants will only need to prove “medical and scientific uncertainty” to show that state lawmakers are allowed to enact restrictions on gender-affirming care.

Although the state has entered the trial confident in the task ahead, credibility may limit what the judge will consider from its experts.

Other witnesses Tuesday included parents, one of which lives in Chicago, who disagreed with their children about their transition.

A case that seeks to block enforcement of a state law restricting transgender minors' access to gender affirming care is scheduled for two weeks of debate in Cole County Circuit Court (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

A lawsuit filed by transgender children and their parents challenging a one year-old Missouri law restricting minors from accessing cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers heads to trial in Cole County Circuit Court beginning Monday. 

Plaintiffs are asking Circuit Court Judge Craig Carter, who typically serves in Wright County, to block the law’s enforcement.

Pretrial briefs filed by plaintiff’s attorneys and the Missouri Attorney General’s office, which is defending the state, have very little in common in the factual background of the case.

The parties have different definitions of gender-affirming care, with Solicitor General Joshua Divine writing that “gender transition interventions are at best experimental and at worst deeply harmful.” 

Gillian Wilcox, an attorney with the ACLU of Missouri, labeled the treatment “medically necessary, evidence-based and potentially lifesaving.”

“Gender-affirming medical care does not harm transgender youth,” she wrote. “To the contrary, it allows them to thrive.”

Both sides agree that transgender Missourians electing to start gender-affirming care have a condition called “gender dysphoria,” which is widely defined as distress arising from an incongruence between one’s gender identity and sex as assigned at birth.

But Divine argues this is purely a “psychiatric, not medical condition” and calls for talk therapy as an alternative to cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers.

“The worst thing that could befall plaintiffs from not receiving an injunction is that individuals seeking treatment for gender dysphoria will receive counseling instead of chemical and surgical interventions. That is no harm at all,” he wrote.

Plaintiffs point to therapy as an unsatisfactory alternative, meaning the law has taken away all avenues for this type of care. Wilcox argues that gender dysphoria was once categorized by the World Health Organization in a chapter on mental and behavioral disorders, under the name “gender identity disorder,” but has since been moved to a section on sexual health.

The sides both mark this 2013 change from “gender identity disorder” to “gender dysphoria,” but Divine writes this in a shallower history that he says begins in 2007 when “clinicians in the United States started to experiment with surgical and chemical interventions.” 

Wilcox says gender-affirming medical care emerged in the 1920s, with the first clinics in the United States treating transgender patients in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Arguments in the case are scheduled to last approximately two weeks, though both sides have filed motions seeking to exclude the testimony of doctors and other expert witnesses that the opposing party has brought.

Plaintiffs — including families that have changed their child’s care plan because of the law, health care providers and advocacy groups — will argue that the law is unconstitutional. Additionally, they will try to prove that it is subject to higher scrutiny because it discriminates based on sex and “transgender status.”

Defendants — including Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Gov. Mike Parson, among others — argue the state had a compelling governmental interest in enacting and enforcing the law.

The litigation could also determine whether the state can lawfully exclude gender-affirming care coverage from the state’s Medicaid program and covered services in state prisons.

Rebecca Varney stands on the porch of her home in Edgar Springs in this 2020 photo. A judge has ordered the city to pay her and her attorney almost $80,000 for banning her from City Hall. (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent)

A small Missouri city must deplete its bank accounts — except for enough money to keep the police force intact — to pay a judgment that found it violated a resident’s First Amendment rights and the Missouri Sunshine Law, a court ruled last week.

Phelps County Circuit Judge John Beger directed Edgar Springs to pay $47,886 immediately, put a tax increase on the November ballot and dedicate all general revenue of more than $2,500 a month to satisfying the $79,716 judgment entered in December 2023.

“Where, as here, a court of record has issued a judgment against a municipality, the municipality has both a legal and moral obligation to pay its debts and as long as there is no limitation on the municipality’s ability to pay those debts, the performance of this duty is not discretionary,” Beger wrote in the order issued Sept. 4.

In his 2023 order, Beger found that Edgar Springs — a town of 200 in southern Phelps County — had attempted to “intimidate and silence” Rebecca Varney by banning her from city hall for four years, and for holding several closed meetings with business that should have been conducted in public.

Varney, a longtime resident of the community, began looking into city finances after receiving a traffic ticket in 2018. She was concerned that the town’s police force was using traffic offenses as a means of generating revenue and began visiting city hall frequently to review documents.

Varney also circulated a petition for a state audit of the city, which found numerous problems, including Sunshine Law violations and financial management issues.

Beger ordered the city to pay Varney a nominal fine of $150 but also ordered the city to pay her costs in bringing the lawsuit.

The city filed an appeal, but dropped it in March.

Phelps County town drops appeal of $80,000 Missouri Sunshine Law judgment

In his order last week, Beger found that state law allows him to order the city to pay Varney all unrestricted funds, except the money necessary to pay the salaries of “the mayor, council, assessor, marshal, constable, attorney and a reasonable police force…”

State law also directs that the courts “shall make all necessary orders to secure the prompt and speedy payment of such debt.”

The city doesn’t pay the mayor or council a salary and has no marshal or constable, Beger noted. The city pays its attorney $1,000 a month and the two-person police force was paid $1,477 in the month of June.

Beger directed that all general fund money held by the city in excess of $10,000, and all new revenue in excess of $2,500 a month, should be dedicated to repaying Varney. He exempted accounts for the sewer utility, street maintenance and federal grants, which all have limits on how they can be used. 

“The court is sensitive to the fact that the city is small and has limited resources,” Beger wrote. “It is also sensitive to the fact that it was the city’s own choices that led to the final judgment debt it now owes to the plaintiff.”

As of Monday afternoon, the town had not made a payment, said Dave Roland, director of litigation for the Freedom Center of Missouri and Varney’s attorney. Roland uses money received for court costs in cases he wins for the center to finance new litigation to enforce the Sunshine Law.

“They have sent a proposal that said, well, we might be willing to pay you part of this, but it’s going to be subject to approval by the auditor’s office,” Roland said in an interview with The Independent. “And I responded, you’re under court order, and the auditor’s office is neither a party to the case, nor are they part of the judiciary, so they don’t have anything to say about that.”

Greg Dohrman, attorney for the city, did not return a call seeking comment.

The city has complied with Beger’s directive to place a tax increase of 30 cents per $100 assessed value on the Nov. 5 ballot. If approved, it would generate about $5,500 a year and last for four years.

The court cannot order the tax to be imposed, only that it be placed on the ballot, Beger noted in his ruling.

Interest on the judgment is accruing at 9% per year and the amount the city now owes is about $85,000, Roland said. If the city refuses to pay, he said, he will have to take them back to court.

“I told them in no uncertain terms, if you defy a court order, then we’re going to pursue the remedies provided that allows the city officials responsible to be charged with contempt,” Roland said.

Transgender Missourians will need proof of surgical transition or a court order before their driver's license can match their gender identity (photo illustration by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder)

It became much harder this month for Missourians to change the gender marker on their driver’s licenses following a quiet move by the state Department of Revenue.

The department, which issues state driver’s licenses, switched from requiring the signature of a physician, therapist or social worker to approve a change in gender designation to mandating documentation of gender reassignment surgery or a court order.

The shift happened earlier this month, though it was not announced publicly by the department. The Wayback Machine, which archives web pages, shows the gender designation change request form requiring physician signoff, known as Form 5532, was available Aug. 6. The next day, the web page with the form was offline.

A spokesperson for the Department of Revenue told The Independent in a statement that “Form 5532 is no longer needed.”

“Customers are required to provide either medical documentation that they have undergone gender reassignment surgery or a court order declaring gender designation to obtain a driver license or non-driver ID card denoting gender other than their biological gender assigned at birth.”

PROMO, Missouri’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, reached out to the department after hearing that people could no longer make changes to their identification using Form 5532 and heard that “an incident” spurred the move, said executive director Katy Erker-Lynch.

According to the Movement Advancement Project, which maps states’ policies affecting LGBTQ residents, Missouri is one of 10 states with this policy. Just three states do not allow residents to change their gender markers.

The policy change occurred soon after controversy erupted earlier this month over a transgender woman who used the women’s locker rooms at a private gym in Ellisville.

State Rep. Justin Sparks, a Republican from Wildwood, told The Independent that his office “would have never even known about (Form 5532) unless the Lifetime Fitness incident had occurred.”

Sparks was among a group of elected officials who convened a press conference outside the gym Aug. 2, and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced an investigation into the incident the same day.

During a radio appearance Aug. 1, Sparks said the transgender woman “displayed a state ID describing (herself) as female.”

“We are going to get to the bottom of what happened in the Department of Revenue and that form they issued several years ago,” he said. “It was inappropriate and in my opinion, it is not legal.”

Later that evening, in a live broadcast via Facebook, he told followers that he had been in contact with the department.

“I have assurances from the Department of Revenue that they are going to change their policies and their form,” he said, promising to follow up with the department.

Sparks told The Independent that he had questions about the creation of the form, which was made in 2016 with the help of LGBTQ advocates.

“I don’t even know if the people that have used that form, if that’s even valid,” he said.

He is looking into whether or not the department is allowed to change a policy without the legislature’s direction, which would determine whether the change in 2016 and this month’s switch are authorized.

“State law does not allow them to change that (policy). That’s something that we’re looking into right now, meaning can the Department of Revenue arbitrarily change policy without legislative oversight or legislation? And to the best of my knowledge, they cannot,” he said.

The change of gender markers on state identification is not explicitly mentioned in state law. The section of Missouri state law that describes driver’s license application forms allows the department to “promulgate rules and regulations necessary to administer and enforce this section,” though they must follow normal rulemaking procedure.

Sparks felt like his initial interaction with the department was unhelpful. When he involved Bailey and state senators, he says the Department of Revenue promised to change the form.

He believes the change might have been out of appeasement, to stop them from “digging.”

Erker-Lynch had a similar impression.

“It seems the mere mention and threat of a potential investigation into the policies and practices of the Department of Revenue caused Director (Wayne) Wallingford to end a policy that worked to help people,” Erker-Lynch said. “This decision reflects a state and state departments run by fear and intimidation — not a state run to serve its residents.”

PROMO is gathering stories of those who are struggling to change their gender marker on their state identification, calling the campaign “The ID for Me.”

This story was updated at 2:28 p.m. to include reaction from Rep. Justin Sparks.

Copies of the Aug. 16 edition of the Marion County Record rest on a countertop in the newspaper office. Staffers pulled an all-nighter to get the newspaper out after their equipment was seized by law enforcement. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA, Kan. — A special prosecutor in court documents filed Tuesday says former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody “induced a witness to withhold information” in the days after Cody led a raid on a newspaper office, the publisher’s home and the home of a city councilwoman.

Special prosecutor Barry Wilkerson, of Riley County, charged Cody with interference with judicial process, a low-level felony, in Marion County District Court. If convicted, the presumed sentence would be probation.

Wilkerson and special prosecutor Marc Bennett, of Sedgwick County, announced last week they would file the charge against Cody. But they determined Cody and other officials didn’t break the law by planning and conducting an illegal and unconstitutional raid.

The prosecutors wrote that Cody, his officers, Sheriff Jeff Soyez and his deputies, Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents, County Attorney Joel Ensey and Magistrate Judge Laura Viar didn’t realize their “inadequacy” in accusing journalists and a political outcast of committing identity theft because they obtained Kari Newell’s driving record — a public document.

Newell wanted a liquor license for her restaurant, but her driving record showed she had a DUI and suspended driving license. Five federal lawsuits accuse Cody, with support from Mayor David Mayfield, of spearheading an investigation into Marion County Record reporter Phyllis Zorn, publisher Eric Meyer and Councilwoman Ruth Herbel.

On Aug. 11, 2023, Cody led the raids of the newsroom, Herbel’s home, and the home where Meyer lived with his 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, who co-owned the newspaper with her son. Body camera video shows Joan Meyer cursing at and confronting the officers in her home. She died the next day from a stress-induced heart attack.

Wilkerson and Bennett said in their report they would not hold police responsible for her death.

Cody resigned in October after KSHB-TV reported he had instructed Newell to delete text messages the two had exchanged. Wilkerson and Bennett’s report said Cody’s actions regarding text messages would provide the basis for a criminal charge.

The complaint filed Tuesday identifies 37 witnesses, including law enforcement, city leaders, journalists and Newell.

This story was first published by Kansas Reflector, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

Marion County Record editor and publisher Eric Meyer answers questions during a July 25, 2024, interview in his newsroom office. He says he doesn’t know of any other newspaper that has been raided like his, but “crap like this happens” (Grace Hills/Kansas Reflector).

This story is part of a series by Kansas Reflector and The Handbasket to examine the one-year anniversary of the raid on the Marion County Record. Support independent journalism by subscribing to The Handbasket or donating to Kansas Reflector.

MARION, Kan. — Marion County Record editor and publisher Eric Meyer began speaking out about the police raid of his home and office before the officers could even retreat to their celebratory pizza party.

He said it never entered his mind to keep quiet.

“Crap like this happens more often than we hear about,” Meyer said. “I don’t know of anybody else that’s been raided quite the way we were. But there are other similar things that have gone on, other acts of intimidation of one sort or another, that have gone on around the country. And you don’t hear about them because nobody said anything.”

Meyer can afford to take risks. Unlike virtually all other news media, he doesn’t have to worry about his finances — this is a retirement project for him. Other outlets face a different reality. But he sees it as more than work. And there’s a reason he continues to go through the grueling exercise of producing a newspaper.

“It’s still a calling,” he said.

The attack on constitutional freedoms in Marion placed a spotlight on the inherent tension between journalists and the powerful people they hold accountable. And while the sight of American police seizing computers from a newsroom sent shockwaves around the world, and threats to reporting efforts by local officials continue, the Marion County Record and others like it remain resolute in their mission.

Every Friday afternoon at the offices of Harvey County Now, a half-hour southwest of Marion, locals gather around an actual bar in the back — a remnant of a previous business — to shoot the breeze. Though they’re in the news business, Joey and Lindsey Young provide beers and sips to those who come by, and who often bring libations of their own.

“It’s a great way to talk about community issues without people feeling intimidated, because it’s like, none of us are writing it down — which is a shame,” Young joked recently from behind his desk in the storefront office. “But we get good stories, and we talk to people, and people are always more willing to just hang out and talk if they feel relaxed.”

This collegiality is important in contrast to continued skepticism of the media, both locally and nationally. It also creates a personal relationship between the town and the paper, and helps the community see it as an essential part of a functioning society.

In Marion, according to a local pastor, despite the widespread outcry, the raid didn’t change anybody’s opinion of the newspaper.

“I think there’s some people who will tell you what is printed at the Marion County Record is 100% truth, and it’s gospel, and it’s accurate every time,” said Jeremiah Lange, pastor of the Marion Presbyterian Church. “I think there’s other people that would disagree with that.”

In the aftermath of the raid, journalists from across the state began calling Emily Bradbury, executive director of the Kansas Press Association. She said they would ask things like: “I’m looking at my city manager. Are they going to come in and do this?”

Bradbury said nothing surprises her after what happened in Marion. But her main reaction to the raids has been to inform the public about the role journalists play in a healthy democracy, and educating judges on federal and state laws that are supposed to shield journalists from police raids, and making sure outlets are able to put out a paper, even if law enforcement has seized their reporting tools and technology.

The KPA provided news outlets with posters that outline protections for journalists, as well as a legal warning letter that journalists can hand to police if they try to search a newsroom. The idea, according to Bradbury, is to be “optimistic it won’t happen again, but prepared if it does.”

“We’re going to be a lot more prepared moving forward on how we react to those kinds of situations,” Bradbury said. “It’s one of the few bright sides that came out of it.”

But local officials still have other avenues for punishing news outlets.

Kansas law requires cities to publish public notices in a “paper of record,” but some cities have declared the city website to be the paper of record, stripping the local newspaper of advertising revenue from charging for print space. If every city in the state took that action, Bradbury said, half the newspapers in Kansas would disappear overnight. That gives local officials extraordinary leverage over reporters.

Earlier this year, the Wichita City Council pulled its public notices from the Wichita Eagle. Officially, the move was about saving taxpayer money. But Bradbury pointed out the city, while facing a $12 million deficit, saved a mere $150,000. She said the decision was really about “sticking it to the paper.”

Max Kautsch, a First Amendment attorney who operates a hotline for journalists through the KPA, said local officials also punish reporters by refusing to hand over public records or by charging outrageous fees for a records request. The officials know that newspapers in Kansas rarely have the resources to pay for a court battle over the records.

“Taking advantage of the Kansas Open Records Act is a time-honored practice,” Kautsch said.

And few Kansas leaders have been willing to stand up for journalists, even after the state became known as a hub of hostility toward a free press. In the state Legislature, the House speaker this year blocked a resolution that would have declared support for a free press in Kansas — even as the chamber readily passed resolutions supporting Israel, Taiwan and St. Patrick’s Day.

Rep. Mari-Lynn Poskin, a Leawood Democrat, recalled watching the “crazy” story unfold in the days after the raid on the Marion County Record. But she wondered at the time: “Where are the defenders of the free press?”

She drafted a resolution declaring support for the freedom of the press, as guaranteed by the U.S. and Kansas constitutions, and gathered 45 co-sponsors — including 10 Republicans with wide-ranging ideology. She thought it would be “a unifying thing” to start the legislative session this past January. But she was “awestruck” by the response from House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican.

“He was livid. He said, ‘This is anti-law enforcement.’ And I said, ‘Wow. I am really sorry you feel that way,’ ” Poskin said.

Hawkins’ spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request to comment for this story.

Former Marion County Record reporter Deb Gruver maintains that local and state governments ultimately were unsuccessful in their attempts to silence their critics in the media.

“They didn’t get what they wanted. They thought they were going to get away with it, and they learned very quickly, no, you don’t get away with this,” Gruver said. “And it’s reopened the conversation about the fourth estate and our role.”

The Marion County Record and Harvey County Now continue to churn out a weekly paper, and Young and the KPA have rolled out an online course called “Earn Your Press Pass.” The idea is to give people living in rural areas access to basic knowledge for getting started as a local news reporter, and to create desirable job candidates for outlets in the area.

Over the course of nine months, Lindsey Young, the co-owner of Harvey County Now and a former high school journalism teacher, built the course.

As Joey Young explained, it was made so that the owner of a local outlet could approach someone in town and “be like, ‘Hey, you’ve got kids in school. You live here. Those are all assets to the newspaper that we never thought about previously.’ It’s like, ‘Oh, you’ve got a ton of institutional knowledge. We’ll teach you the journalism stuff.’ ”

At the Marion County Record,  readership has grown from 2,000 to 6,000 subscribers in the year since the police raid of the newspaper office.

Special prosecutors determined no law enforcement officer broke the law by carrying out the chilling raid, but Meyer filed a federal lawsuit seeking damages in excess of $5 million. He said he would prefer to get a verdict rather than settle the case, even if it costs him money, because he wants to set a precedent.

“The whole point of doing this is not to get money,” Meyer said. “The whole point of doing this is to say ‘you can’t do this crap.’ ”

And he still sees a place for his paper: “If we’ve got truth on our side, there are enough people who still believe in truth.”

Gruver put a finer point on it.

“I think that journalists are public servants, except that we don’t get regular raises and sweet, sweet benefits,” she said. “So I feel like there are a lot of winners in this, actually. And I feel like the next generation of journalists will be winners because of this.”

This story was originally published by the Kansas Reflector, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

Copies of the Aug. 16 edition of the Marion County Record rest on a countertop in the newspaper office. Staffers pulled an all-nighter to get the newspaper out after their equipment was seized by law enforcement. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA, Kan. — The magistrate who authorized last year’s police raid on the Marion County Record escaped discipline from a state panel by making claims that contradict statements in federal lawsuits about how the search warrants arrived in front of her and whether the police chief swore they were true before she signed them.

Magistrate Judge Laura Viar’s secret explanation, obtained by Kansas Reflector, adds a new layer of confusion and mystery to how law enforcement were able to carry out the search and seizure of journalists’ computers and cellphones without regard for state and federal laws that prohibit such police action. It also raises concerns about the low standards set for judges by the Kansas Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody prepared search warrant applications with the assistance of a sheriff’s deputy that accused newspaper reporter Phyllis Zorn of committing identity theft by looking up a driving record in a Kansas Department of Revenue public database. Publisher and editor Eric Meyer and Councilwoman Ruth Herbel were targeted for having a copy of the record.

In court documents, Cody said he emailed the search warrant applications to County Attorney Joel Ensey, whose office delivered them to the judge. Ensey, in an email he sent to himself a day after the Aug. 11, 2023, raid, said he printed off the applications without reading them and had an office manager deliver them to the judge. That email has been attached to court filings.

Kansas officials downplayed involvement in Marion newspaper raid. Here’s what they knew

A Topeka woman in April filed a complaint against Viar with the Kansas Commission on Judicial Conduct after reading Meyer’s lawsuit against Cody and others. The lawsuit questions whether the search warrants were legal if Cody never appeared before the judge.

In Viar’s response to the disciplinary panel, she wrote that District Judge Susan Robson approached her with an unknown law enforcement officer on the morning of the raid. According to Viar, Robson introduced the officer as Cody and said she couldn’t sign the warrants “because of her history with the city,” which isn’t explained. Cody led the judges to believe that Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents, who had assisted Cody in the investigation, were prepared to join the raid, even though they weren’t, Viar wrote.

“I can say with 100% certainty that I did not approve the search warrants and return them to Chief Cody until I had verified under oath his signature and the truthfulness of the statements in the supporting affidavits,” Viar wrote.

The disciplinary panel dismissed the complaint against Viar after receiving her response, according to a letter obtained by Kansas Reflector. It isn’t clear whether the panel, which operates in secrecy by Kansas Supreme Court rule, independently investigated the accuracy of Viar’s account.

The panel members who dismissed the complaint against Viar were Grant County District Judge Bradley Ambrosier; Kansas City, Kansas, attorney Tonda Jones Hill; Rosemary Kolich, of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth; Kansas Court of Appeals Judge Thomas Malone; and Johnson County Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan.

Viar didn’t respond to an email inquiry asking her to reconcile her account with the ones provided by Cody and Ensey.

The commission directed questions to Lisa Taylor, spokeswoman for the Office of Judicial Administration, who said, “I have no information related to this matter.”

Jared McClain, an attorney with the Virginia-based Institute for Justice who represents Herbel in her federal lawsuit over the raid, said he was surprised that Viar’s account differs “so drastically” from the police chief and county attorney.

“Those are completely different versions of the truth,” McClain said. “And I don’t see what Cody or Ensey could have to gain by telling their version of the story, because their version of the story is worse for them. But Viar’s is better for everyone. So if that were the truth, why did the other guys spend a year saying something different?”

McClain also said it was “obvious” there was no probable cause for the searches, because the police theory of a crime dealt with accessing a public record on a public website.

The same disciplinary panel previously dismissed a complaint against Viar that was based on the lack of evidence to support a crime, the federal and state laws that should have prevented the judge from signing the documents, and the violation of constitutional freedoms.

Emily Bradbury, executive director of the Kansas Press Association, said she was disappointed the disciplinary panel had let Viar off the hook.

“It’s another level of accountability that will never happen,” Bradbury said.

Zorn, the reporter whose work became a pretext for the raid, said she was upset that police “came in with such a lousy excuse for a warrant.”

“This thing was political. And I wasn’t the target. I was actually the pawn,” Zorn said. “They seized upon something and used that as their excuse. And I will say this: I was raised by a small town cop who spent 18 and three-quarters years with highway patrol. He has been dead for four years. There’s no doubt in my mind he is still spinning in his grave.”

This story was originally published by the Kansas Reflector, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

Joe Amrine, who spent 16 years on death row in Missouri for a killing he did not commit, speaks at a news conference Thursday calling for Attorney General Andrew Bailey to drop his opposition to an innocence hearing for Marcellus Williams, set for Sept. 24. Amrine was joined by, from left, Ray Krone of Arizona, Herman LIndsey of Florida and Eric Anderson of Michigan, who have all been freed from death row after their innocence was proven (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent).

A group of men exonerated after years on death row gathered at the Missouri Capitol Thursday to call on Attorney General Andrew Bailey to stop blocking efforts to vacate the conviction of Marcellus Williams.

Williams was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1998 stabbing death of Lisha Gayle during a robbery of her suburban St. Louis home. He is scheduled to be executed on Sept. 24.

But since his 2001 conviction, new testing was able to determine DNA on the murder weapon matched someone else.

Four members of a group called Witness to Innocence, each of whom were sentenced only to later have their innocence revealed, shared their stories Thursday in Jefferson City and advocated for Williams’ release.

“We’re asking the Attorney General of Missouri to stop acting like innocence doesn’t matter,” said Herman Lindsey, executive director of Witness to Innocence and exoneree from Florida’s death row. “We are asking you to represent the people of Missouri by looking for the truth over politics.”

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell, who is running for U.S. House, filed a motion earlier this year to vacate Williams’ conviction, and a St. Louis County Circuit Court judge will hold an evidentiary hearing Aug. 21.

Just 30 minutes after the exonerees began their press conference, Bailey joined Gov. Mike Parson one floor above in the Capitol for their own press conference on unauthorized cannabinoids.

Asked about Williams’ case, Bailey said: “The criminal justice system has to have a component of finality.”

“The juries of the state of Missouri under the Sixth Amendment have a right to participate in that process,” he said, “and we should respect and defer to the finality of the jury’s determination.”

Bailey said he doesn’t want to forget the evidence used in the original conviction.

The original case relied on testimony of  a witness who served as a jailhouse informant in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Williams’ isn’t the first case that has stirred questions of innocence after new evidence arrived post-conviction.

Among Witness to Innocence’s speakers was Joseph Amrine, who was exonerated in Missouri in 2003 after informants admitted to lying during trial. The Missouri Attorney General’s office, which at the time was then led by Democrat Attorney General Jay Nixon, acknowledged Amrie’s innocence but still pushed for execution.

Amrine’s case made it all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court, where Judge Laura Denvir Stith questioned then-Assistant Attorney General Frank Jung: “Are you suggesting … even if we find that Mr. Amrine is actually innocent, he should be executed?” 

“That’s correct, your honor,” Jung said.

For the last 30 years, the Missouri Attorney General’s office has opposed every innocence case.

“The Missouri Attorney General’s office is emphasizing winning and personal gain over truth and justice…. To them, executing a person is just the cost of doing business,” Lindsey said.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Missouri has exonerated four people from death row and has killed 99 since 1976, with four executions in 2023.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona speaks with families at the Mattie Rhodes Center in Kansas City (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

WASHINGTON — Though the Biden administration’s final rule for Title IX extending federal protections for LGBTQ students went into effect nationwide Thursday, a slew of legal challenges has temporarily blocked over half of all states from enforcing the updated regulations.

After the Department of Education released the final rule in April, 26 states — all with GOP attorneys general — rushed to challenge the measure. Given the myriad legal challenges, the updated regulations only went into effect Thursday in 24 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, celebrated the final rule on Thursday during a briefing.

Cardona said the updated regulations “are the culmination of a lengthy and thorough process that included unprecedented public input from students, parents, educators, administrators, experts and other stakeholders.”

“These regulations make crystal clear that everyone has the right to schools that respect their rights and offer safe, welcoming learning environments,” he added.

Lhamon said it’s “a very fluid legal environment” and the department continues “to defend the rule we believe in in these cases, with the Department of Justice as our counsel in the courts.”

“We anticipated this moment when we were finalizing the 2024 regulations, and we know they are legally sound,” she said, noting that the department has appealed the injunctions that have so far been issued and sought clarification of their application.

“While the appeals of these rulings are pending, we have asked the United States Supreme Court to allow the unchallenged provisions — which are the bulk of the final rule —  to take effect in the enjoined states as scheduled,” Lhamon said.

But the Supreme Court has yet to decide on that emergency request, which came in a pair of filings from U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar last week.

Discrimination protection

The final rule “protects against discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics,” per the department. The updated regulations are also aimed at “restoring and strengthening full protection from sexual violence and other sex-based harassment.”

The administration initially scored a legal win Tuesday when an Alabama federal judge rejected an attempt by Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina to halt enforcement of the final rule. But a federal appeals court granted the states’ request for an administrative injunction Wednesday, which temporarily blocked the final rule from taking effect in those Southern states.

Judge Jodi W. Dishman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma also halted the final rule from taking effect in the state on Wednesday after the state individually sued the administration back in May.

The final rule is temporarily blocked in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

Challenges affect more schools 

But the challenges to Title IX span beyond the 26 states that initially sued the administration — affecting schools across the country.

Judge John Broomes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas expanded the temporary blockage to also include “the schools attended by the members of Young America’s Foundation or Female Athletes United, as well as the schools attended by the children of the members of Moms for Liberty.”

These groups sued alongside Kansas, Alaska, Utah and Wyoming earlier this year.

House GOP tries to stop rule

Congressional Republicans have fiercely opposed the final rule.

In July, the GOP-controlled House passed a measure to reverse the updated regulations under the Congressional Review Act — a procedural tool Congress can use to overturn certain actions from federal agencies.

But the measure is unlikely to find success in the Democratic-controlled Senate, and President Joe Biden has vowed to veto the legislation should it land on his desk.

LGBTQ students

LGBTQ advocacy groups have pushed back against GOP-led efforts to block the final rule from taking effect.

“Every student in this country deserves access to an education without fear of bullying and discrimination,” Brandon Wolf, national press secretary for the LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, said in an emailed statement to States Newsroom.

“But MAGA politicians, promoting blatant discrimination, have fueled eight preliminary injunctions blocking enforcement of the Biden administration’s new Title IX rules in 26 states.”

Wolf added that “we must continue to fight for LGBTQ+ students across the country because everyone deserves a safe educational experience — full stop.”

Meanwhile, the department has yet to decide on a separate rule establishing new criteria regarding transgender athletes.

The Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse in St. Louis, home of the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Missouri (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

A federal judge in St. Louis on Wednesday halted implementation of a Biden administration rule that extends protections for LGBTQ students, adding to the number of U.S. courts that have issued similar orders.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Rodney W. Sippel of the Eastern District of Missouri came in a lawsuit filed on May 7 by Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin and the attorneys general of Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota.

Sippel’s order enjoins the U.S. Department of Education, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona and others from “implementing, enacting, enforcing or taking action in any manner to enforce” the nondiscrimination rule promulgated by the department that was set to take effect on Aug. 1. The order halts implementation of the rule until final resolution of the lawsuit.

Although the rule protects all students from nondiscrimination based on sex in educational activities and programs, opponents have focused on the extension of the protections to transgender students.

At a May press conference announcing the lawsuit, Griffin, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and a 15-year-old Jonesboro-area student athlete who is a named plaintiff focused on that aspect of the rule.

In a statement Wednesday, Griffin said Sippel’s “ruling is a victory for women and girls in Arkansas and across the nation.”

“Congress enacted Title IX to protect and promote educational opportunities for women and girls,” Griffin said, focusing again on fears that transgender girls would be allowed into women’s and girl’s locker rooms and onto girls’ sports teams.

The ruling “also protects teachers, administrators, and students from the threat of investigation or sanction for disagreeing with the gender ideology of the Biden-Harris White House. And it comes just in time before the start of the new school year,” Griffin said.

Missouri joins five other states in federal lawsuit over Title IX transgender protections

The lawsuit filed by Arkansas and the five other states argued the education department has exceeded its authority by rewriting the statute. It also claimed the rule violates the First Amendment, is arbitrary and capricious by going against “decades” of understanding of Title IX and presents “an actual controversy” by redefining “sex” to include gender identity.

Sippel’s ruling notes that his decision is consistent with other federal courts that have also blocked implementation of the Title IX rule. More than two dozen Republican attorneys general have sued over the rule and at least two federal appeals courts have upheld lower court rulings similar to the one issued Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana issued a temporary injunction on June 14 that blocks the updated Title IX policy from taking effect Aug. 1 in Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi and Montana. The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld that order.

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati also upheld a district court injunction against the Title IX rule affecting 20 states, including Oklahoma.

On Monday, the Biden administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to temporarily put on hold a portion of two injunctions issued by federal trial courts in Louisiana and Kentucky that affected 10 states, according to SCOTUSblog. Federal appeals courts in New Orleans and Cincinnati rejected the Department of Education’s request to allow it to temporarily enforce the rule, except for two provisions targeting discrimination against transgender students while its appeals continued.

This story was originally published by the Arkansas Advocate, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

A KFC employee hangs a sign for job openings at a restaurant in Miami. Several states have passed pay transparency laws that require employers to be more open about the wages and benefits they offer (Joe Raedle/Getty Images).

To combat gender and racial wage gaps, nearly a dozen states recently have enacted pay transparency laws that require employers to be more open about the wages and benefits they offer.

Most of the laws require employers to disclose wages in job postings and some bar them from asking a job candidate about their salary history.

“Even though it’s against the law, we definitely still see that women are being paid less than their male counterparts, even though they’re doing the same job,” said Jessica Ramey Stender, a lawyer and the policy director at Equal Rights Advocates, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that focuses on sexual harassment and pay discrimination, among other issues. “And that’s a problem.”

Under the federal Equal Pay Act of 1963, employers can’t pay different salaries “on the basis of sex” to employees who do “equal work.” States have similar protections. Nevertheless, women on average have been paid less than men as far back as federal data has been collected.

Women on average earn about 84 cents for every dollar that men earn, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Federal data also shows a racial pay gap: Latino, Black and Native American workers on average earn from 73 cents to 77 cents for every dollar a white worker earns.

Part of the pay gap comes from the fact that women and racial minorities are overrepresented in industries that pay lower wages, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. But there is still a gap, though a narrower one, when men and women are doing the exact same job.

Pay transparency laws can close the gap further by providing women and people of color with more opportunities to see whether they’re being compensated fairly, Stender said.

“The hope is that with this additional information in their toolbox, everyone — especially women experiencing the wage gap — will be able to better negotiate pay for themselves,” she said.

But some critics of pay transparency laws question whether they’ll have the desired effect.

Todd Zenger, a professor of strategic leadership at the University of Utah, said requiring complete transparency is an extreme way to address pay equity. There’s also mixed evidence over whether prohibiting employers from asking about salary history could help or hurt job candidates, he said.

“There’s one argument that there’s gender differences in one’s willingness to bargain,” Zenger said, noting research showing that women might not negotiate in the same way that men do. “You can say, ‘This is what I need to come and join you,’ and if they’re able to ask about your prior pay, that sets some sort of common ground.”

Pay transparency laws also could lead to “flattened” pay, he said. Some people are paid more because of good performance, for example, but transparency laws could make it difficult to change pay on those less objective criteria, he argued.

Salary transparency and history bans

The number of states with pay transparency laws has grown significantly within the past few years, said Glenn Jacoby, a policy associate in employment matters at the National Conference of State Legislatures. Labor force participation still hasn’t reached pre-pandemic levels, but more people are looking to join the workforce and lawmakers want the job-seeking process to be smoother, she said.

So far, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Rhode Island, Washington state and the District of Columbia have approved pay transparency laws.

The laws take varying approaches to ensuring transparency. They may require employers to disclose salary ranges for open positions, prohibit retaliation against employees who discuss their pay with colleagues, or require employers to report pay data to government agencies, according to GovDocs, a Minnesota-based company that tracks employment laws for large companies.

Some laws also mandate that employers provide salary information upon request, or prohibit them from asking job candidates about their salary history, according to Jana Bjorklund, the senior counsel and director of employment law and compliance at GovDocs.

“And this is all driven by pay inequity,” Bjorklund said.

A handful of cities, including New York City, Jersey City, New Jersey, and Columbus, Ohio, have enacted their own transparency laws.

Most states with pay transparency laws require employers of a certain size to post salaries for all open job positions. In California, companies with at least 15 workers must do so. But some states, such as Colorado, where lawmakers enacted new rules this year, require the transparency from all companies, even those with a single worker.

When states first began considering pay transparency laws, they tended to focus on requiring employers to provide salary information upon request, Jacoby said. In some cases, the requirement would apply only for applicants selected for an interview. Now, several states are expanding these laws to require compensation-related information in the initial job posting, she said.

In January, a law took effect in Hawaii requiring certain job listings to include an hourly rate or salary range. It also prohibits an employer from discriminating by paying one employee in a protected category less than another for substantially similar work.

The bill’s original language was inspired by conversations among recent college graduates struggling to find jobs, said Hawaii state Sen. Chris Lee, a Democrat. These laws make sure everyone is on the same page through the entire hiring process, he said.

“It’s both fair to the companies as well as the employees or prospective employees and helps ultimately saves a ton of frustration and time and effort by a lot of other folks who would be applying for these positions,” Lee said.

Still, Lee recalled that lawmakers heard complaints from small businesses concerned about being able to compete with larger companies.

In the District of Columbia, new rules went into effect last week requiring employers to include salary ranges in job postings and to disclose health care benefits before the first interview. A Maryland law with similar rules will go into effect in October.

“As a Black woman and as someone who works professionally, this is personal to me,” said Maryland state Del. Jennifer White Holland, a Democrat who helped pass the new law. “When we look at families in Maryland, it’s women’s earnings … that matter now more than ever.”

She cited the state’s Equal Pay Day report for 2024, which found that more than 40% of Maryland mothers are the lead or only wage earner in their household.

On average, women in Maryland are paid 86 cents for every dollar their male counterparts make, according to the report. Hispanic women in Maryland have the largest gender and racial wage gap, making just 50 cents for every dollar earned by white men.

Do the laws work?

While some states’ pay transparency laws are just going into effect, some preliminary research shows how such laws could be helping raise salaries for all workers.

A recent study in Colorado, the first state to mandate salary transparency, in 2021, found that not only did more companies share salaries within job postings, but the posted salaries increased by 3.6%. One possible explanation for the boost is that some companies adjusted their salaries to match their competitors and reach market equilibrium, according to the paper, which was written by a pair of economists in the University of California system.

According to a survey from the Society for Human Resource Management, a nonprofit for human resources professionals, 70% of organizations that list pay ranges in their job postings said they received more applications, and 65% said that listing pay ranges made the candidate pool more competitive.

Isabela Salas-Betsch, a research associate at The Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, said the results are good news for businesses.

“When employees have more information, they feel more valued and motivated, which translates to greater performance and retention,” she said.

But some small employers fear that pay transparency laws will make it more difficult for them to compete with larger companies for talent. Close to half of the almost 400 companies that responded to a 2022 pay clarity survey by global advisory company WTW cited possible employee reactions as a reason for holding back on communicating about pay. Still, many companies said they plan to increase transparency in their postings, even without local mandates.

Some experts warn that the laws could have unintended consequences.

In a 2016 article for the Harvard Business Review arguing against pay transparency, Zenger, the University of Utah professor, cited an experiment in which University of California faculty who discovered they were being paid less than their peers became much less satisfied with their jobs and more likely to say they might leave.

“There’s always a trade-off associated with these kinds of things,” Zenger told Stateline.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

Marcellus Williams, photographed in prison (photo submitted).

A Missouri man scheduled to be executed in September will get a chance to present a court with DNA evidence he believes will exonerate him.

Marcellus Williams will get a hearing on Aug. 21, at the request of St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell. The prosecutor’s office has filed a motion to vacate the conviction after reviewing the case and discovering “clear and convincing evidence” that Williams is innocent.

Williams was convicted in the 1998 murder of Felicia Gayle.

In his motion to vacate the conviction, Bell noted that Williams was not the source of DNA found on the weapon used to kill Gayle. Other forensic evidence also excluded Williams as the killer, Bell argues. 

Opposing Bell’s motion is Attorney General Andrew Bailey, whose office has argued that Williams was found guilty by a jury of his peers.  The Attorney General’s Office has opposed every innocence case for the last 30 years, including every attempt made by a local prosecutor to overturn a conviction on the basis of innocence.

“The attorney general should not be trying to block the court’s review, and the Missouri Supreme Court should stay Mr. Williams’s execution,” said Tricia Bushnell, Williams’ attorney.

In 2015, the Missouri Supreme Court stayed Williams’s execution and appointed a special master to review DNA testing of potentially exculpatory evidence. Two years later, without conducting a hearing, the court rescheduled Williams’ execution. 

Later that year, however, former Gov. Eric Greitens issued the second stay and appointed a board of inquiry to look into the case. 

Gov. Mike Parson lifted the stay and dissolved the board in June 2023, and the state Supreme Court issued the execution warrant last month, setting a Sept. 24 execution date.

A lawsuit filed by attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana alleged the federal government pressured social media companies to target conservative speech across a range of topics, from the efficacy of vaccines to the integrity of the 2020 presidential election (Photo Illustration by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images).

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected arguments by Missouri and Louisiana that the federal government violated the First Amendment in its efforts to combat false, misleading and dangerous information online.

In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court held that neither the states nor seven individuals who were co-plaintiffs in the case were able to demonstrate any harm or substantial risk that they will suffer an injury in the future.

Therefore, they do not have legal standing to bring a case against the federal government.

Plaintiffs failed to prove that social media platforms acted due to government coercion, Barrett wrote, rather than their own judgment and policies. In fact, she wrote, social media platforms “began to suppress the plaintiffs’ COVID–19 content before the defendants’ challenged communications started.”

Plaintiffs cannot “manufacture standing,” Barrett wrote, “merely by inflicting harm on themselves based on their fears of hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending.”

The ruling overturns a lower court decision that concluded officials under Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump unlawfully coerced social media companies to remove deceptive or inaccurate content out of fears it would fuel vaccine hesitancy or upend elections.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who inherited the lawsuit from his predecessor, has called the federal government’s actions “the biggest violation of the First Amendment in our nation’s history.”

Suit alleging suppression of free speech met with skepticism at U.S. Supreme Court

But those arguments were greeted with skepticism by the court in March, with justices from across the ideological spectrum punching holes in the lawsuit and raising concerns about the consequences for public safety and national security.

In his dissent, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the government’s actions in this case were not ” ham-handed censorship” that the court has routinely rejected, but they were coercive and illegal all the same.

“It was blatantly unconstitutional,” he wrote, “and the country may come to regret the court’s failure to say so… If a coercive campaign is carried out with enough sophistication, it may get by. That is not a message this court should send.”

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill released a statement on social media calling Wednesday’s ruling “unfortunate and disappointing.”

“A majority of the Supreme Court gives a free pass to the federal government to threaten tech platforms into censorship and suppression of speech that is indisputably protected by the First Amendment,” Murril said. “The majority waves off the worst government coercion scheme in history.”

In an emailed statement, Bailey made no mention of the court’s decision to dismiss the case, instead declaring that his office will continue to pursue evidence of social media censorship by the federal government.

“Missouri is not done,” Bailey said. “We are going back to the district court to obtain more discovery in order to root out Joe Biden’s vast censorship enterprise once and for all.”

The lawsuit was filed in 2022 by Missouri and Louisiana, along with seven people who either were banned from a platform or whose posts were not prominently featured on social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube and X, then known as Twitter.

Among the co-plaintiffs is Jim Hoft, founder of the St. Louis-based right-wing conspiracy website Gateway Pundit. Hoft has built a career on promulgating false conspiracies on a wide range of topics, from the 2018 Parkland school shooting to former President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

His company recently filed for bankruptcy as it faces defamation lawsuits in Missouri and Colorado filed by people who say they faced threats after being vilified by Gateway Pundit in false stories.

During appeals court arguments last year, the attorneys general specifically cited Hoft, claiming that he is “currently subjected to an ongoing campaign by federal officials to target the content on his website.”

Hoft claims claims that Twitter, in December 2020, censored content about the Hunter Biden laptop story at the urging of the federal government. But Barrett wrote that Twitter acted according to its own rules against posting or sharing “privately produced/distributed intimate media of someone without their express consent.”

There is no evidence, Barrett wrote, that Twitter adopted its policy in response to pressure from the federal government.

Benjamin Aguiñaga, the solicitor general for the Louisiana attorney general, argued before the court in March that the government has no right to try to persuade social media platforms to violate Americans’ constitutional rights, “and pressuring platforms in back rooms shielded from public view is not using the bully pulpit at all. That is just being a bully.”

Emails obtained as part of the lawsuit, Aguiñaga argued, show the government badgered platforms behind closed doors, abused them with profanity and “ominously says that the White House is considering its options… all to get the platforms to censor more speech.”

“Under this onslaught,” he said, “the platforms routinely cave.”

The federal government, represented by Brian Fletcher, principal deputy solicitor general, argued Aguiñaga’s accusations simply don’t hold water. 

There is no evidence that decisions by social media companies to remove or deprioritize content can be attributed to the government. Instead, Fletcher argued, the companies made their own decisions relying on their own content moderation policies.

There was no coercion or attempted intimidation, Fletcher said, and the best proof is that social media companies “routinely said ‘no’ to the government.”

Sailors decorate the mess decks in observance of Pride month aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Jason Dunham in the Atlantic Ocean on June 16, 2022 (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Theoplis Stewart II).

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will pardon U.S. military veterans who were discharged or convicted under military law for consensual same-sex relations, the administration announced Wednesday.

The White House could not provide an exact number of veterans who will be pardoned, but the administration estimates thousands were convicted over several decades and may be eligible.

The convictions were enforced under a military law that prohibited certain types of sex from May 1951 to December 2013.

When asked why Biden chose now to pardon the veterans, senior administration officials told reporters on a call Tuesday that Biden is “committed to doing everything he can to ensure that the culture of the armed forces reflect the values that make us an exceptional nation and to maintaining the finest fighting force in the world.”

The officials continued that Biden is “taking this historic step to ensure that we live up to our sacred obligation to care for all service members, veterans and their families.”

Biden said in a statement Wednesday that he is “righting an historic wrong by using my clemency authority to pardon many former service members who were convicted simply for being themselves.”

“Our Nation’s service members stand on the frontlines of freedom, and risk their lives in order to defend our country,” Biden said in the written statement.

“Despite their courage and great sacrifice, thousands of LGBTQI+ service members were forced out of the military because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Some of these patriotic Americans were subject to court-martial, and have carried the burden of this great injustice for decades.”

Administration officials said guidance will be posted on the Department of Defense website for veterans to apply for proof they are eligible for pardon under the proclamation.

Veterans can then use the certificate of proof to apply to their respective military branch for a discharge upgrade.

Military law and consensual sex

Biden’s Wednesday proclamation effectuates the pardons for any veterans, alive or deceased, who were discharged or convicted in military court under Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for consensual sexual relationships.

While the law prohibited forceful sex acts with minors and animals, Article 125 also banned “unnatural carnal copulation” — defined as oral or anal sex — with another person of the same or opposite sex.

The military code was updated in 2013 to reflect that only forceful, not consensual, sexual acts could be penalized.

Administration officials acknowledged that Article 125 is not the only military law that targeted LGBTQ+ service members.

Senior administration officials told reporters that while the proclamation is narrowly focused on convictions under Article 125, the Department of Justice has been instructed to flag any other clemency applications for veterans penalized for sexual orientation or gender identity under other military statutes.

The U.S. military has a decades-long history of anti-LGBTQ+ policies. The armed forces outright banned gay and lesbian service members during World War II.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton set a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, essentially allowing LGBTQ+ members to serve in the military, so long as they didn’t make their sexual orientation public.

The policy was repealed under President Barack Obama.

Days after his inauguration, Biden issued an executive order overturning a ban on transgender service members.

Pardon power

The Constitution empowers the president with several ways to forgive crimes against the United States. The president can fully pardon, or lift, punishments without qualification for individuals or groups of people; commute, or reduce, an offender’s sentence; or issue a reprieve, basically delaying an offender’s sentence.

Clemency applications are processed through the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney.

Biden issued sweeping pardons in October 2022 and December 2023 for marijuana offenses.

The Justice Department posts clemency statistics for each presidential administration dating back to William McKinley at justice.gov/pardon/clemency-statistics.

Mifepristone, FDA-approved for pregnancy termination up to 10 weeks gestation, is used in about 63% of U.S. abortions. (Getty Images)

In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling Thursday to maintain current access to the abortion medication mifepristone, rejecting a challenge to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s regulation of the drug, abortion-rights advocates and opponents vowed to continue their respective battles over the drug.

Mifepristone is one of two drugs used to treat miscarriages and terminate a pregnancy during the first trimester, and is the most common method of abortion in the U.S. Anti-abortion groups, in conjunction with conservative religious law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, sought to revert the FDA guidelines to 2016, when the prescribed gestational time frame was three weeks shorter and there were more requirements around who could prescribe it and where and when provider visits had to take place. The case made its way to the nation’s highest court after outspoken anti-abortion U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas ruled that mifepristone’s approval should be revoked, followed by a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion that agreed in part, saying the restrictions should revert to pre-2016 rules.

In a unanimous decision, justices agreed that the case lacked standing, saying there was no clear injury to the plaintiffs to warrant reinstating the restrictions.

“The plaintiffs do not prescribe or use mifepristone. And FDA is not requiring them to do or refrain from doing anything. Rather, the plaintiffs want FDA to make mifepristone more difficult for other doctors to prescribe and for pregnant women to obtain,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the opinion. “Under Article III of the Constitution, a plaintiff’s desire to make a drug less available for others does not establish standing to sue.”

Wendy Heipt, attorney for advocacy organization Legal Voice, said the fact that the unanimous ruling is focused on standing is helpful, because that’s an area of law that has been in question in many reproductive rights-related cases since the Dobbs decision in 2022.

“I’m not relaxing; it’s not over. But the fact that this one rogue judge in Texas opened the courthouse doors to people who had no right to be there was a real challenge to the way our judicial system works, so I am reassured that there are still rules,” Heipt told States Newsroom.

Many reproductive rights and medical organizations issued statements following the ruling, including the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research organization that has closely tracked abortion pill use in the two years since the Dobbs decision.

“We are relieved by this outcome, but we are not celebrating,” said Destiny Lopez, acting co-CEO of the Institute, in a statement. “From the start, this case was rooted in bad faith and lacking any basis in facts or science. This case never should have reached our nation’s top court in the first place and the Supreme Court made the only reasonable decision by leaving access to medication abortion using mifepristone unchanged.”

Nikki Madsen, co-executive director of the Abortion Care Network, said she wasn’t surprised by the ruling, but noted it only preserves the status quo.

“It’s just not enough,” Madsen told States Newsroom. “We know that the anti-abortion extremists are relentless, and their goal is to truly chip away at any abortion access. So today’s decision just preserves access, but it’s really not enough for the people across the country who are truly navigating a human rights crisis right now.”

Military veteran Carrie Frail, who lives in north St. Louis County, used mifepristone to end a pregnancy about 15 years ago.

Access to abortion medication ultimately saved her life, said Frail, now 43.

At the time, Frail had two children from a previous marriage, when she started dating a man who she said became verbally and physically abusive.

When she told him she was pregnant with his child, Frail said the man threatened to punch her stomach until she miscarried, adding that he’d threatened violence against her on several occasions. Had she decided to have a child with him, Frail worries he ultimately would have killed her.

“None of us can know what any one person is going to go through, what they can experience,” she said. “And how an abortion may save their life in whatever capacity that looks like.”

Frail, who served for five years as a Korean linguist and intelligence analyst in the Air Force, said she’s angry that her daughter, who is also in the Air Force and stationed in Missouri, doesn’t have the same rights Frail did at her age.

“I can’t help but worry for women who may not have that option in the future,” she said.

Three intervenor states expected to continue fight at district court level

Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative law firm that argued the case, is the same organization that argued in favor of the Dobbs decision that returned abortion regulation to the states. In a statement, ADF attorney Erin Hawley said the ruling was disappointing, but that they will continue to “advocate for women’s health.”

“The FDA recklessly leaves women and girls to take these high-risk drugs all alone in their homes or dorm rooms, without requiring the ongoing, in-person care of a doctor,” Hawley said, adding that ADF is grateful to attorneys general in Idaho, Kansas and Missouri who successfully intervened in the case at the district court level with Kacsmaryk’s approval, because they intend to keep litigating the case there.

In a statement posted on X on Thursday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey wrote, “Today’s ruling only applies to standing; the court did not reach the merits. My case is still alive at the district court. We are moving forward undeterred with our litigation to protect both women and their unborn children.”

Bailey’s spokesperson did not give any further details about what that case would look like, and Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

According to Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a national anti-abortion organization, those attorneys general will move forward with the case “based on harms suffered by women in their states.”

Abortion opponents target abortion drugs from multiple angles 

Anti-abortion opponents have been fighting against the expansion of access to medication abortion since the FDA first approved the regimen in 2000, and they say they are not deterred by Thursday’s ruling.

“The Justices simply discussed the issue of legal standing and did not reach the merits of the case,” Carolyn McDonnell, litigation counsel at national anti-abortion policy shop Americans United for Life, told States Newsroom in a statement. “It’s still an open question whether the FDA unlawfully deregulated mifepristone.”

Longtime anti-abortion activist Rev. Pat Mahoney, chief strategy officer for the Stanton Public Policy Center, said the Supreme Court’s decision in this case was instructive, if not what abortion opponents wanted.

“There’s, I think, a misconception that a loss is a loss, and that isn’t always the case,” Mahoney told States Newsroom. “Sometimes a loss helps define the parameters for bringing the next case and next case, and believe me, there are going to be next cases on medical and chemical abortions. So now we know this isn’t a route to go.”

Mahoney said that like past legal defeats for the anti-abortion movement, this ruling offers at least a partial road map, such as the one abortion opponents followed after the Supreme Court ruled in 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey that abortion until fetal viability was a federal right but that states could pass regulations that didn’t create an “undue burden” for people seeking abortions.

That ruling led to hundreds of restrictions and regulations around the country that kept nudging the viability and undue burden lines — limiting abortion access even before Roe v. Wade was overturned. Mahoney said his organization and others are pursuing various legislative proposals, such as regulating the disposal of embryonic and fetal remains following a medication abortion, which most people have at home or in private settings.

Americans United for Life said in a statement followin the ruling that it “will continue to offer legal prescriptions for the strengthening of protections for unborn children from abortion pills through action on the federal and state levels in both executive and legislative branches of government, including through executive enforcement of the Comstock Act and RICO Act.”

Ever since Roe v. Wade was overturned, resurrecting the long-dormant Comstock Act to ban the mailing of abortion drugs and equipment (something legal scholars and historians say is an inaccurate interpretation of the law and how it was applied) has been the long-term focus of East Texas pastor Mark Lee Dickson and his partner Texas attorney Jonathan Mitchell.

They have been pushing various legal and legislative strategies to prevent people from obtaining abortions in states where it’s still legal. They have helped pass dozens of local ordinances in Texas and other states with restrictions that challenge current federal law, such as banning interstate travel to obtain an abortion. In New Mexico, where abortion is legal and largely unrestricted, a challenge to two local ordinances based on the Comstock Act await a ruling from the New Mexico Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court did not address the Comstock Act in its opinion, but Kascmaryk cited the old law in his initial ruling last year. Major conservative groups are pushing former President Donald Trump, if reelected this fall, to enforce the Comstock Act along with other federal abortion regulations. Trump has stayed silent about what he will do.

In the meantime, anti-abortion groups have not stopped pursuing other cases.

“I can confirm that there are several attorneys in the pro-life movement that are planning on bringing a number of different lawsuits relating to abortion-inducing drugs and the harm that they cause to mothers and their unborn children,” Dickson told States Newsroom.

Mahoney also said groups like his are working with attorneys on a potential class-action lawsuit against abortion-pill manufacturers. He said they are “actively gathering testimony and information from women who have been hurt through medical chemical abortions.”

“We’re working on it,” said Mahoney, adding, “It took us 50 years to overturn Roe.”

Anna Spoerre of The Independent staff contributed to this report.

A march for Transgender Day of Visibility passes in front of Jackson Square in New Orleans on Friday, March 31, 2023. (Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator)

A federal judge has temporarily halted enforcement of new rules from the Biden administration that would prevent discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty of Louisiana issued a temporary injunction Thursday that blocks updated Title IX policy from taking effect Aug. 1 in Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi and Montana.

In April, the U.S. Department of Education announced it would expand Title IX to protect LGBTQ+ students, and the four aforementioned states challenged the policy in federal court.

Doughty said in his order that Title IX, the 52-year-old civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination, only applies to biological women. The judge also called out the Biden administration for overstepping its authority.

“This case demonstrates the abuse of power by executive federal agencies in the rulemaking

Process,” Doughty wrote. “The separation of powers and system of checks and balances exist in this country for a reason.”

The order from Doughty, a federal court appointee of President Donald Trump, keeps the updated Title IX regulations from taking effect until the court case is resolved or a higher court throws out the order.

Opponents of the Title IX rule changes have said conflating gender identity with sex would undermine protections in federal law and ultimately harm biological women. Gender identity refers to the gender an individual identifies as, which might differ from the sex they were assigned at birth.

More than half of states sue to block Biden Title IX rule protecting LGBTQ+ students

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who filed the suit in the state’s Western District federal court, had called the new regulations “dangerous and unlawful.” In a statement Thursday evening, she said the rules would have placed an unfair burden on every school, college and university in the country.

“This (is) a victory for women and girls,” Murrill said in the statement. “When Joe Biden forced his illegal and radical gender ideology on America, Louisiana said NO! Along with Idaho, Mississippi, and Montana, states are fighting back in defense of the law, the safety and prosperity of women and girls, and basic American values.”

Title IX is considered a landmark policy that provided for equal access for women in educational settings and has been applied to academic and athletic pursuits.

Doughty’s order comes a day after a similar development in Texas, where Judge Reed O’Connor, an appointee of President George W. Bush, declared that the Biden administration exceeded its authority, The Texas Tribune reported.

Texas filed its own lawsuit against the federal government to block enforcement of the new rules, which Gov. Greg Abbott had instructed schools to ignore. Texas is one of several states to approve laws that prohibit transgender student-athletes from participating on sports teams that align with their gender identity.

Lawsuits have been filed in 26 states total to stop the new Title IX regulations from taking effect.

Missouri joins five other states in federal lawsuit over Title IX transgender protections

Earlier Thursday, Republicans in Congress moved ahead with their effort to undo the revised Biden Title IX policy. Nearly 70 GOP lawmakers have signed onto legislation to reverse the education department’s final rule through the Congressional Review Act, which Congress can use to overturn certain federal agency actions.

Biden is expected to veto the legislation if it advances to his desk.

“Title IX has paved the way for our girls to access new opportunities in education, scholarships and athletics. Unfortunately, (President) Joe Biden is destroying all that progress,” U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Indiana, author of the legislation, said Thursday.

States Newsroom Reporter Shauneen Miranda in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

This story was originally published by the Louisiana Illuminator, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

Donnita Stunson stands for a portrait in her home last January in Madison, Alabama (Christian Monterrosa/Special to The Marshall Project).

In March 2018, a heartbroken mother named Donnita Stunson mailed a letter to the mayor of St. Louis asking for help. “I was born and raised in the city of St. Louis,” she wrote. “I was once proud of my city, until Dec. 22, 2017.”

On that date, around 3 a.m., an unknown number of people with guns broke into the apartment that Stunson’s daughter Dominique Lewis had recently moved into. Lewis and two of her friends ran outside — still in the clothes they wore to bed — frantically looking for somewhere to hide and jumped into the back seat of one of their cars.

The shooters found them and repeatedly fired into the vehicle, killing all three women. Police found their bodies huddled together in the car. “Looked like they were laying on top of each other,” one officer observed at the time.

Three months after the killings, Stunson decided to write her letter to then-Mayor Lyda Krewson. She was desperate for updates on the investigation, but detectives weren’t returning her calls. “As a mother, I am crushed, but I am disappointed too. I feel that there is no urgency in catching the murderers of these three young ladies,” Stunson wrote. “I am contacting you because I don’t know what else to do.”

The triple homicide was a shocking crime, even in one of the most violent cities in America. Lewis and her friends, Reeba Moore and Chanice White, were in their mid-20s. They worked, went to school and loved to socialize in the community. Police said they appeared to have been targeted for unknown reasons. None of the women had a criminal record. When Stunson walked through the apartment the morning after the shootings, she noticed that nothing seemed to have been stolen.

But for all the ways the killings of these young women stood out, the lack of progress on the case in the months and years that followed was, by contrast, quite typical. Of the roughly 1,900 homicides committed in the city of St. Louis from 2014 through 2023, more than 1,000 remain unsolved, according to an analysis of homicide data obtained by APM Reports and St. Louis Public Radio.

During those years, murders in St. Louis surged, making the city one of the nation’s deadliest. For most of the decade, police struggled to bring perpetrators to justice. A review of 20 years of data and records reveals some of the reasons police failed to solve so many homicides, including shoddy detective work, lack of resources and an erosion of community trust.

In 2022 and 2023, St. Louis homicide detectives solved substantially more cases. Homicides went down, and the department solved 56% of the murders committed those years, their highest rate since 2013, according to the analysis.

Yet with each unsolved murder, grief ripples across the city, leaving families and friends yearning for closure and justice. It’s a pain that the Black community in St. Louis endures disproportionately. Black people, who are about 44% of the city’s population, made up around 90% of those killed between 2014 and 2023. Police solved fewer than half of the killings involving Black victims. By contrast, police cleared nearly two-thirds of cases involving white victims.

The city’s homicides, especially those that remain unsolved, tend to happen in geographic clusters, the data shows. In the Fairground neighborhood on the city’s north side, where Lewis, Moore and White were slain, the concentration of deadly shootings is staggering. There were at least 37 homicides in the area in the past decade, and nearly 60% remain unsolved. In high-crime neighborhoods like this one, talking to police can be dangerous.

After the triple homicide, police appealed to the public for tips. The families went public, holding vigils and begging for someone to come forward with information. Over the years, the nonprofit CrimeStoppers repeatedly offered reward money, but police never arrested any suspects.

Stunson said the mayor’s office never responded to her letter, though not long after she sent it, she received a rare phone call from a detective about her daughter’s murder. He had little progress to report.

St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department officials declined to be interviewed about the case, but a spokesperson wrote in an email that detectives are still actively investigating it. Police have said in the past that a lack of information from the public is their main obstacle. “Staffing and funding isn’t the problem in this case, clues are the problem,” Lt. John Blaskiewicz said in a 2022 interview with television station KMOV.

Some experts contend that failing to solve homicides can lead to more violence. “If you’re not closing cases, then people are afraid,” said Dan Isom, a former St. Louis police commissioner who served as the city’s public safety director from 2021 to 2023. “There is a lot of correlation, if not causation, between confidence in the police and community violence,” Isom said. Without an arrest, some people might seek justice on their own.

Lewis was close to her brother and sisters, so Stunson asked them to choose everything for the funeral. They picked a casket that was purple, her favorite color, and covered her vault in sparkles. They brought a scarf to the wake to cover the bullet wounds on her neck.

On Feb. 10, 2018, friends and family of the victims gathered for a candlelight vigil to pray and ask the public to come forward with information.

The night Lewis was killed, her younger sister, Danyelle Lewis, was supposed to have slept over at her apartment. Danyelle was gripped with anger about the killings and losing hope that police would catch the people who committed them. Stunson said Danyelle believed that some people attending the vigil knew something they weren’t telling police.

After the vigil, Danyelle got in her car and followed the group of people as their car merged onto a highway, according to police records. She had a gun. Danyelle pulled up beside the car and opened fire.

‘I’m not going to stop’

Lewis, Moore and White were among the final victims in 2017. It was one of the deadliest years in St. Louis, with a total of 207 people killed, according to the data.

As the number of cases surged, the percentage that police managed to clear, or resolve, was dropping. In 2019, data shows, police solved the lowest percentage of murders in at least 20 years, with nearly 70% unsolved. Nationwide, police clear about half of all homicides, according to The Washington Post.

Police cleared a higher percentage of cases in 2022 and 2023. And last year, the number of homicides dropped in St. Louis, as it has in cities across the country. Fewer killings means more resources can be devoted to each case. The department is under new leadership — Robert Tracy was named chief in late 2022 — and police officials have said the improvement can be attributed, at least in part, to better surveillance coverage throughout St. Louis and stronger communication within the department.

Tensions between police and the community are longstanding in St. Louis. Those tensions worsened after a Ferguson officer killed 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr. in 2014, said Jay Schroeder, president of the St. Louis Police Officers Association. “I think a lot of the mistrust of the police started to grow.”

The department’s detectives were under enormous pressure, Schroeder said, especially in 2020, when the number of murders in St. Louis hit 263, nearly a record.

Embed code:

While the number of killings was rising, St. Louis officials reduced the homicide unit’s budget and supplemented it with increased spending on overtime. The city spent about $18,000 for each homicide investigation in fiscal 2012. By fiscal 2020, the amount was less than $12,000. It has since rebounded to about $15,000 per investigation in 2022.

The city has failed to invest in crime-fighting tools and still has a DNA-evidence backlog of hundreds of samples from homicides. That forces detectives to wait for key evidence in their cases.

Still, some detectives have failed to do basic investigative work.

The officer assigned to the killings of Lewis, Moore and White was Detective Craig Robertson. At a vigil held shortly after the killings, Robertson told the crowd about his commitment to the case. “This one’s bothered me the most,” he said. “I’m not going to stop. We’ll figure it out.”

But the victims’ families say his public statements didn’t align with his actions. His supervisor, Sgt. Heather Taylor, wrote in 2019 that Robertson “failed to complete basic investigative follow-ups” in his cases, including, in one instance, not checking suspects’ phone location data and vehicle registration, according to memos obtained by St. Louis Public Radio and APM Reports. Taylor also wrote that Robertson did not stay in contact with murder victims’ families. Many families interviewed for this series said their calls to other St. Louis homicide detectives were never returned.

Taylor wrote in her memo that she intended to continue supervising Robertson’s investigation into the killings of Lewis, Moore and White. She noted that he cleared 14% of the cases assigned to him in 2018, the lowest rate, by far, of any detective under her supervision. Robertson declined to comment.

The 2017 triple homicide was still assigned to Robertson in early 2024, a spokesperson said. But in May, he decided to retire from the department. Stunson said she hasn’t talked to him in years. She has spent so long unsuccessfully calling him for updates, she can’t bear to try anymore.

‘It’s still your job to police’

Dominique Lewis was the type of person who took care of the people around her, Stunson said. She would clean her grandma’s house and take her grandpa to his doctor’s appointments. She’d had the same group of girlfriends since elementary school. She loved reading and always had a book with her. She also had a ditzy side, Stunson said, which made everyone in the family laugh. Her dream was to one day be a school guidance counselor.

Lewis’ sister Danyelle was the one in the family who always tried to protect her other siblings, though she was the youngest of the bunch, Stunson said. The family called her “the enforcer.”

The bullets Danyelle fired at the people in the car did not hit anyone. She was soon arrested, pleaded not guilty and was put in jail to await trial. After months of not hearing from homicide detectives about Dominique’s murder, Stunson said, she got a call from a police officer trying to build a case against Danyelle.

Stunson said she changed the subject to her murdered daughter. “How about looking into that?” she remembers telling the detective. She never heard from him again.

People who commit violent crimes have often suffered violence or trauma themselves, said Jessica Meyers, director of the St. Louis Area Violence Prevention Commission. “They may decide to take justice into their own hands,” she said. “The victim pool and the perpetrator pool kind of overlap, and the cycle just continues to perpetuate.”

Lisa LaGrone has worked in violence prevention in St. Louis for decades and says that one of the reasons so many homicides go unsolved is apathetic police officers who blame victims’ lifestyles for their deaths. She started her mission to reduce murders in the community after her father and little brother were shot and killed eight months apart in the early 1990s. Both homicides remain unsolved.

In the past few years, two of LaGrone’s grandsons were killed, including Demetrion Simmons, who was fatally shot after witnessing the killing of his friend, 19-year-old Isis Mahr. Simmons identified the shooters to police and was the only witness willing to testify. LaGrone believes he was killed in retribution. After Simmons was killed, prosecutors dropped the charges against the two teenagers accused of killing Mahr.

LaGrone said police often point to a lack of community cooperation but then overlook the reasons residents hold back. “If your community knows they’re not going to be protected, they’re not going to step up,” LaGrone said. “But it’s still your job to police and be the detectives.”

Stunson says she still doesn’t know what happened the night her daughter was killed. A police minister privately informed her that someone in the apartment called 911 to report a burglary in progress, she said, but she has never heard those recordings. Police declined to make the 911 audio public because the investigation is still open. The department did release a dispatch log that shows someone called police around 3 a.m.

Moore’s boyfriend also was in the apartment but escaped, according to police records.

In 2019, Danyelle Lewis pleaded guilty to several charges, including assault. The judge sentenced her to six years in prison, and she was released in 2023. She declined an interview request for this story.

Stunson says that while Danyelle’s struggles with grief and anger led her to prison, many in her family have turned to alcohol to cope with Dominique’s murder. Stunson prays that whoever knows something will “get a conscience” and give information to the police so that everyone can find the closure they are so desperately seeking.

“When something like this happens, people don’t realize, it’s not just the person that they murdered,” Stunson said. “It impacts the whole family.”

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Kevin Willmott will debut in June a documentary about civil rights activist Alvin Brooks, who was the first Black policeman in Kansas City, Missouri, and was chosen as one of the 1,000 points of light by President George H.W. Bush (Kevin Willmott/Hodcarrier Films).

Academy Award-winning screenwriter Kevin Willmott’s latest documentary film captures the life of civil rights leader Alvin Brooks, who was one of the first Black police officers in Kansas City and served as the city’s first Black department director.

Brooks also was founder of the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime, elected to the city council in Kansas City, appointed to the National Drug Advisory Council and named one of America’s 1,000 Points of Light by President George H.W. Bush in 1989.

Willmott, a professor of film and media studies at the University of Kansas, said “The Heroic True-Life Adventures of Alvin Brooks” delved into childhood trauma of Brooks’ potentially lethal encounter with a racist police officer, Brooks’ lifetime of work to bridge racial divides in America and consequences of downplaying the challenges posed by persistent racism in the United States.

“I have tried to tell stories that other people don’t want to tell and that Hollywood definitely is not interested in,” Willmott said. “There’s this whole thing right now that people don’t want to hear the ugly part of the American story. They don’t want Alvin to tell what happened to him on that street corner 82 years ago. But to me, you can’t get to the beautiful part of the American story without dealing with the ugly part.”

In 2019, Willmott won the Academy Award with Spike Lee, Charlie Wachtel and David Rabinowitz for best adapted screenplay on the film “BlacKkKlansman.” The movie told the story of how a Black police officer in Colorado Springs, Colorado, infiltrated and exposed a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

The premier of the film about Brooks is scheduled for June 19 at the Juneteenth Film Festival in Kansas City. It also is scheduled to be shown 6 p.m. June 30 at the Lawrence Arts Center as part of the Free State Festival in Kansas.

Willmott said the documentary of Brooks provided viewers a path through a dark period of American politics.

“We’re so divided, and there’s so much hate going on right now,” Willmott said. “Alvin is a reminder of what we can be. He’s a reminder of the best of us.”

The film ties into Brooks’ autobiography, “Binding Us Together: A Civil Rights Activist Reflects on a Lifetime of Community and Public Service,” that was published in 2021.

Brooks, 92, said in an interview with KMBC television that he prayed the nation eventually found the path to freedom, justice, equality, understanding and reconciliation.

This story was originally published by the Kansas Reflector, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

One of the hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the “alt-right” who marched during the “Unite the Right” rally Aug. 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported Tuesday that the number of white nationalist groups in the U.S. rose to a record high in 2023 (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Emboldened by the mainstreaming of hard-right politics ahead of a presidential election cycle, white nationalist and anti-LGBTQ groups increased to record levels in the United States last year, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest annual report on hate and extremism released Tuesday.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has published the annual report since 1990, documented 835 active anti-government groups, up 133 from 2022’s count, and 595 hate groups, an increase of 72 over the previous year’s figure.

Accounting for a large portion of the increase was a 50% surge in white supremacy hate groups in 2023, the highest jump ever recorded by the SPLC, growing to 165 over 109 in 2022. White power and neo-Nazi rallies across the U.S. totaled 143 in 2023, down from 191 in 2022.

SPLC saw a 33% rise in anti-LGBTQ organizations over last year, bringing the total to 86. The group said the growth was largely attributable to the anti-trans movement on the far-right.

“What we’re seeing now should be a wake-up call for all of us,” Margaret Huang, SPLC’s president and CEO, said on a call with reporters. “Our 2023 report documented more hate and anti-government extremist groups than ever before. With a historic election just months away, these groups are multiplying, mobilizing and making, and in some cases already implementing, plans to undo democracy.”

Hate groups have increased in-person events and leafleting, according to the report. The SPLC tracked nearly 7,000 flyering incidents last year, many including language derived from racist and antisemitic conspiracies.

The groups also launched campaigns to gain influence in mainstream politics, according to the report, namely through the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 manifesto that outlines aspirations for anti-abortion, anti-free press and anti-LGBTQ priorities should presumed GOP presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump win in November.

Nine of the anti-government and hate groups tracked by the SPLC are part of the coalition that supports Project 2025, the organization reports.

Florida a leader in anti-government, hate groups

Among the states leading in numbers of anti-government and hate groups are California, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, Washington and Ohio.

California topped the list with 51 hate and 66 anti-government groups.

The SPLC recorded the second-most groups in Florida, which has become a leader in book-banning incidents and restrictive policies on teachers. The Sunshine State is home to 43 hate and 71 anti-government organizations, according to the report, and is the birthplace of recently influential “parental rights” group Moms for Liberty.

Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice was invited in March 2023 to testify before a U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary subcommittee then chaired by Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who is now House speaker. 

The annual survey of hate groups tracked 116 hate-leafleting incidents in Florida, where the antisemitic groups rallied and flyered on multiple occasions, including over Labor Day when groups named the Goyim Defense League, The Order of the Black Sun and the Maine-based Blood Tribe marched in Orlando wielding flags with swastikas and making Nazi salutes.

Antisemitism, already on the rise, became more pronounced following Israel’s continuing offensive on the Gaza Strip following the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

“Antisemitic conspiracies seeped into mainstream narratives at an alarming pace and 2023. Specifically after Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack, the far right blurred the lines between legitimate criticism of the Israeli government’s actions and outright antisemitism,” R.G. Cravens, SPLC’s senior research analyst for its Intelligence Project, said during Tuesday’s call with reporters.

Following the Hamas attack, the so-called Goyim Defense League distributed a flyer online and in person that read “FREE PALESTINE,” as a “not-so-thinly-veiled attempt at stoking more antisemitism and using Palestinian people to further their own aims,” according to the report.

Christian ‘dominionism’

The SPLC report also cited the expanding influence of extreme Christian nationalism as a driver for the growing number of anti-government organizations.

The report expresses concern over the rise in the Republican ranks of Johnson, a former senior lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal advocacy group behind the U.S. Supreme Court case that precipitated the overturning of the federal right to abortion.

Johnson’s far-right politics, including his anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ positions and his advocacy to blur Christianity and the state, are well documented.

Spokespeople for Johnson did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

The Alliance for Defending Freedom describes SPLC as a “discredited” and “scandal-ridden group,” and denounces the organization’s “hate map.” The SPLC currently has an interactive U.S. map pinpointing locations of anti-government and hate groups.

“Eventually, their definition of hate included huge swaths of well-respected, mainstream, conservative America,” according to a post on the Alliance for Defending Freedom website.

The SPLC report specifically warns about the rise of the National Apostolic Reformation, a Christian movement made up of “dominionist leaders” that aim to “seize control” of seven areas of society, including government, education and business.

Decline in militias

One area in which the report documented a decline is in the militia movement, which suffered after the hundreds of Department of Justice prosecutions following the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The numbers of militias dropped to 52 in 2023, from 61 in 2022.

One of the most prominent militias, the Oath Keepers, significantly diminished its presence following the 2023 conviction and sentencing of its leader Stewart Rhodes for seditious conspiracy leading up to and during the Jan. 6 attack.

The Oath Keepers active militia chapters dropped to 10 in 2023 from 79 in 2022.

An appellate court unanimously ruled Tuesday that a transgender man who formerly attended the Blue Springs School District was discriminated against when he was barred from using the boys' locker room (photo illustration by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder).

After a decade-long legal battle, a transgender man and former student of the Blue Springs School District should receive over $4 million in damages for discrimination that occurred when he was an adolescent, the Missouri’s Western District Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.

Judge Anthony Gabbert wrote the court’s unanimous decision, ruling that the school district discriminated against the student, identified by his initials R.M.A., on the basis of sex when it barred him from using the boys’ locker room.

A key part of the appellate court’s decision was the factor that spurred the school district’s discrimination.

Attorneys for the Blue Spring School District did not contest that R.M.A. was treated differently, according to Gabbert’s ruling, but said it was because of his “female genitalia.”

“School district employees suggested that R.M.A. had been excluded from the boys’ restrooms and locker rooms because of [the] school district’s belief that he had female genitalia,” Gabbert wrote. “[The] school district did not actually determine the nature of R.M.A.’s genitalia, however, and does not speculate, inspect or otherwise inquire as to the genitalia of other male students.”

The admission of different treatment based on assumed genitalia, Gabbert wrote, was itself discrimination on the basis of sex.

Part of the judicial proceedings included testimony from R.M.A.’s doctor, who said R.M.A. was a male for as long as she has been treating him (which began at age nine).

During his time as a student, R.M.A. received an updated birth certificate with his male gender identity.

School district employees and school board members told R.M.A.’s mother that locker-room access is determined by birth certificate. After she gave the corrected birth certificate to school district officials, R.M.A. was still denied access to boys’ restrooms and locker rooms.

The school board discussed R.M.A’s birth certificate in a closed-door meeting, according to court documents, but never gave his mother a clear answer about the policy.

“The evidence at trial… was that (Blue Springs) School District had an unwritten policy of using birth certificates to determine sex,” Gabbert wrote. “Yet, [the] school district refused to tell R.M.A.’s mother that it would honor a corrected birth certificate stating he is male because (it) wanted to keep its options open in the event R.M.A. was able to obtain a corrected birth certificate.”

R.M.A’s birth certificate was amended in December 2014, around a year after he began asking to use the locker room that aligned with his gender identity and two months after he filed a complaint with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights.

R.M.A. filed the lawsuit in October 2015, starting a complicated legal process. The initial trial court dismissed his claim in 2016, saying the Missouri Human Rights Act does not protect claims on the basis of gender identity. The Missouri Supreme Court, in 2019, reversed this decision and opened the doors for another trial.

A December 2021 jury trial awarded R.M.A. over $4.7 million in damages and legal fees, but attorneys for the Blue Springs School District asked for a “judgment notwithstanding the verdict,” a ruling that allows a judge to usurp a jury’s decision. 

The school district argued that R.M.A. only proved that he was discriminated against “because of his female genitalia” and not on the basis of sex.

The trial court judge sided with the school district, which would have spurred another trial. But Tuesday’s decision reverses that judge’s call, returning the case back to the jury’s verdict.

There are other similar cases currently winding through Missouri’s courts, including a lawsuit against the Platte County School District brought by the ACLU of Missouri.

The Blue Springs School District could not be reached for comment by time of publication.

The Cole County Courthouse in Jefferson City (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

A state law requiring secrecy in court filings violates the Missouri Constitution’s requirement for open courts and imposes steep new costs on litigants, especially those pursuing appeals, a lawsuit filed last week argues.

The lawsuit, filed in Cole County by the Missouri Broadcasters Association, two attorneys and William Freivogel, editor of the Gateway Journalism Review, asks for the courts to overturn the law, passed during the 2023 legislative session.

Along with violating Missourians’ rights to courts that are open, the lawsuit alleges that the law violates First Amendment free speech protections in the U.S. Constitution and sections of the Missouri Constitution limiting lawmakers’ powers to expand bills beyond their original scope.

Under the law and rules implementing it, every reference to a witness or victim in every case filing must be censored or the attorney filing it risks sanctions.

“For example, court records cannot even name the victim of a murder case –  even though murder is a terrible crime of great interest to every Missouri community and citizen,” the lawsuit states. “This makes it difficult for citizens and the media to fully follow and understand criminal cases of great interest. And there is no privacy  interest for redacting murder victims’ names, because homicide victims, being deceased, have no personal privacy interest.”

Removing those names can be time consuming and – when lawyers charge hundreds of dollars per hour – expensive, said Dave Roland, one of the attorneys working on the case.

Missouri hides more court information from the public than other states

The rules put additional burdens on prosecutors, defense attorneys and counsel in civil cases to scour their filings for possible violations, Roland said. The task is multiplied many times when preparing cases for an appeal, he said, because a party seeking to overturn a lower court ruling must file a complete copy of the court record – including transcripts of trials and other hearings – with all the prohibited information removed.

Transcripts are already expensive, Roland said.

“Depending on the length of the trial you know, the cost can vary,” he said. “If you have a one day trial, it may only be a couple of hundred dollars for the transcript. If you’ve got a multi-week trial, then it could be thousands of dollars.”

The two attorneys who are parties to the case, Michael Gross and Nina McDonnell, have turned down clients because of the additional cost and time 

“For example, Plaintiff McDonnell recently refused an employment discrimination direct appeal from a 12-day trial because redacting the transcripts would have required time the potential client could not afford, and the firm could not absorb,” the lawsuit states.

Roland’s co-counsels on the case include former Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike Wolff, who with Roland will represent Freivogel and the two attorneys, and Mike Nepple, Mark Sableman and Justin Mulligan of Thompson Coburn, representing the broadcasters.

In October, writing for Gateway Journalism Review, Sableman called Missouri the “State of Unnamed Persons.”

The new law hurts the public by hiding information, makes it difficult for attorneys outside the case to evaluate it and leaves people interested in a case unsure about how it was handled, he wrote. 

Even judges writing appellate opinions must follow the rules and leave out any individual identifiers, he noted.

“You can’t tell if ‘Expert Witness’ in one case had been found to lack credibility in a previous case,” Sableman wrote “You can’t tell if Officer D.V. in State v. Smith was found guilty of misconduct in another case. If you know and care about a particular case, you can’t tell if the witnesses you know about were called to testify or considered by the court.”

The broadcasters association joined the lawsuit because court records are a staple of news reporting, said Chad Mahoney, executive director of the association.

“You have to have the facts and the context to give people the whole truth,” Mahoney said. “And now a lot of the context, according to what we’re hearing from some of our member newsrooms, is lost, making it very difficult for them to inform the public about what’s going on.”

The lawsuit not only asks the court to throw out the law requiring censorship of court documents, it also argues that the bill in its entirety violates procedural rules in the constitution for passing bills.

Under those rules, a bill changing court operating rules established by the Missouri Supreme Court must be “a law limited to the purpose.” In addition, bills cannot be amended to change their original purpose and must deal with “one subject clearly expressed in its title.”

The bill that included the court censorship language began in the Senate as a four-page bill changing the dates in one section of state law concerning when a fund to support court automation expires, with a title stating it was about court automation.

When it left the Senate, it was five pages long and included a pay raise for court reporters. The title stated it was about court operations.

When it returned from the House, it was 54 pages long, it altered 29 sections of state statutes and the title stated it was about judicial proceedings. There are at least five provisions that have nothing to do with the courts, the lawsuit states.

State Rep. Rudy Veit, a Wardsville Republican, shepherded the bill through the House. He could not be reached Monday for comment on the lawsuit.

The provision was added on the House floor by state Rep. Justin Hicks, a Lake St. Louis Republican. Hicks could not be reached Monday for comment.

Hicks, a candidate for the GOP nomination to Congress in the 3rd District, has used the courts repeatedly to bury embarrassing information about his past. In 2021, he persuaded a St. Louis County judge to seal the records from a 2010 domestic violence case when a woman accused Hicks, then 17, of choking her.

A consent order signed by Hicks barred him from contact with the woman for a year.

When a potential candidate for Hicks’s House seat published copies of the order and other material from the case online, Hicks sued him and accused him of publishing private information. After initially sealing the case, St. Charles County Circuit Judge W. Christopher McDonough opened it, saying there was no “compelling justification” to keep it closed. The case has since been dismissed.

Because the lawsuit has just been filed, there has been no response from the state. But because the attorney general’s office, which will have to defend the law, has already been troubled by violations in its own court filings, Roland hopes for a quick resolution.

“It is possible, and this is me being optimistic, that the attorney general’s office may recognize that they’ve got a significant constitutional problem on their hands,” Roland said.

In a pending appeal of a $23 million award to HHS Technologies over a breach of contract claim with the state Medicaid system, Bailey’s office had to file the same set of documents three times to get the redactions right, the Kansas City Star reported.

“This illustrates the problem,” Roland said. “If the attorney general’s office is going to get dinged for failing to make proper redactions, it illustrates the problem.”

Marion Councilwoman Ruth Herbel waits Aug. 11, 2023, in the Marion County Record office following the raid on the newsroom and her home. (Sam Bailey/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA, Kan. — Former Marion Councilwoman Ruth Herbel alleges in federal court that city officials orchestrated an illegal raid of her home — alongside the raid of the Marion County Record — as part of a conspiracy to silence criticism.

The Institute for Justice, a Virginia-based law firm that says it represents “everyday people” in opposition to abuses of government power, filed the lawsuit on Herbel’s behalf against former Mayor David Mayfield, former Police Chief Gideon Cody, Sheriff Jeff Soyez and other local authorities.

“Ruth ran for city council in Marion at age 76 because she was tired of her local government’s dishonesty and lack of transparency,” the Institute for Justice says in the lawsuit. “She quickly learned, though, that the men with the power in Marion were resistant to change, and public scrutiny.”

Herbel’s lawsuit is the fifth to be filed in response to the Aug. 11, 2023, raids by city and county law enforcement of the newspaper office, the publisher’s home and Herbel’s home. Recent court filings show the cases could be eventually consolidated.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation is reviewing the actions by law enforcement, local officials and journalists before turning findings over to special prosecutors who will decide whether to file criminal charges.

Herbel’s lawsuit alleges violations of constitutional rights to free speech and protections from unreasonable searches and seizures. The narrative is consistent with a lawsuit filed April 1 by Marion County Record editor and publisher Eric Meyer, whose mother, Joan, the paper’s co-publisher, died of stress-induced heart failure a day after police raided her home.

The lawsuits accuse Mayfield of seeking vengeance for criticism of his actions.

As mayor, he once called Herbel a “bitch” during an executive session of the city council, her lawsuit contends. Mayfield asked the city attorney send a letter warning her that it would be illegal to speak about city business without the council’s full approval. He threatened to admonish her in a public meeting.

The lawsuit recalls Mayfield’s failed attempt to gather signatures for a recall election against Herbel, as well as a “harebrained scheme” to convince her she could be fired as an “at will” employee, even though she was a duly elected councilwoman.

In a July 25, 2023, social media post, Mayfield said it was not Black people, Asians, Latinos, women or “gays” but rather journalists who were “the real villains in America.”

A local restaurateur who asked the council for a liquor license became the unwitting catalyst for the raids when a resident pointed out that she had been driving on a suspended license, apparently with local law enforcement knowledge, after a drunken driving conviction. The resident distributed a copy of a government agency letter that outlined the situation.

“Mayor Mayfield and his allies hatched a plan to use the letter as pretext to punish Ruth and the Record,” according to Herbel’s lawsuit. “The theory they came up with was that, because the letter listed the restaurateur’s driver’s license number, simply possessing the letter was illegal and that someone ‘obviously’ stole the restaurateur’s identity to get the letter.”

But instead of a “real investigation,” the lawsuit alleges, the mayor worked with the police chief and sheriff “to maliciously procure baseless warrants” that were “based on lies and omissions.”

“No one even swore the allegations were true,” according to the lawsuit.

Cody, the police chief, didn’t sign the affidavits under oath, as required by federal and state law, and his unsworn signatures on the four affidavits appear to vary.

The lawsuit accuses local officials of “judge-shopping” for somebody who would sign the warrants. Instead of taking them to the district judge for the county, they sent them to Magistrate Judge Laura Viar, who also had a history of drunken driving. Viar falsely asserted the applications were “sworn to before me” when she signed them — an action that is now subject to a complaint before the state’s judicial ethics panel.

The warrant failed to note that Herbel had received the letter from a tipster, that it was publicly available on Facebook, that the information included in the letter is a matter of public record, that she shared the letter as a public official in advance of a city council vote, or that police were knowingly allowing someone to drive on a suspended license.

“To make things worse, the warrants were also absurdly overbroad,” the lawsuit alleges. “But that hardly mattered because the police just took every phone and computer, without bothering to limit their searches to the terms of the overbroad warrants they drafted. The warrants, after all, were just a means to punish their critics.”

The search of Herbel’s home traumatized her husband, Ronald, who suffers from dementia. Police knowingly left the couple without a phone to contact their children or doctors. He remained on the couch for hours after police left and wouldn’t eat. The experience intensified his depression and anxiety. He couldn’t eat or sleep in the days after the raid. He would pace the house and cry.

The lawsuit contends it “should have been obvious” that there was no reason to search Herbel’s house. Her supposed crimes were identity theft and official misconduct, which involves the use of confidential information to intentionally harm someone.

“Simply obtaining a copy of a KDOR record on social media is not a crime,” her attorneys say the in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit says the news media’s spotlight on the raids spared Herbel from arrest. Cody sent an email to county prosecutor Joel Ensey with the subject line: “Crimes?” The email outlined five possible ways they could charge Herbel with a crime. As the lawsuit puts it, the descriptions of supposed crimes “betray Chief Cody’s willful and malicious misunderstanding or disregard of the law.”

“The conspiracy started with the defined goal of silencing Ruth Herbel and Eric Meyer, and the conspirators worked backward from there to find the closest thing to a crime that would let them achieve that goal,” the lawsuit contends.

This article originally appeared in the Kansas Reflector, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

Negro Leagues Baseball Museum President Bob Kendrick speaks to members of the media Wednesday about Major League Baseball’s decision to include Negro Leagues stats in official Major League Baseball record books. (Cuyler Dunn for Kansas Reflector)

The addition of Negro Leagues baseball players’ statistics to MLB’s record books is bigger than baseball, Negro Leagues Baseball Museum president Bob Kendrick said Wednesday.

It’s a part of American history.

Negro Leagues players were added to the MLB record books this week after a multi-year project by MLB, which decided in 2020 to reclassify the Negro Leagues as a major league. The undertaking involved researching and sifting through documents and scorecards from the past.

Kendrick said the verified statistics only accounted for a piece of many players’ history, but that didn’t diminish the decision’s significance.

“This story is far more grandiose than mere statistics,” he said during a news conference at the museum in Kansas City. “This story, in many ways, is bigger than the game of baseball, even though it is a tiny part of the great story of the game of baseball.”

Catcher Josh Gibson became MLB’s leader in career batting average, slugging percentage and OPS, surpassing names like Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds.

Phil Dixon, an author and historian of Negro Leagues baseball, has been on a 40-year journey to uncover and tell the stories of Black baseball players. He said the move to include Negro Leagues stats was “one of the brighter days for Black baseball players from the past.”

“It gives us a chance to expose a lot of really fine athletes to American baseball history,” Dixon said in an interview. “Because they truly were professionals in an era where they weren’t given the opportunity to be such.”

Dixon and Kendrick were both members of the Negro Leagues Statistical Review Committee that collected the new stats. Dixon said the decade-spanning work to collect and remember the stories of Black baseball players is far from over.

“The work continues,” he said. “But this was an important day.”

Kendrick said newly introduced statistics don’t diminish the success of great white players. Rather, it elevates stories of Black players who have long been overlooked, he said. In his opinion, Gibson has long been the best baseball player to put on a uniform, regardless of what certain history books have said or omitted.

“I know that there are some who still subscribe to the belief that if it didn’t happen in the white major leagues, then it didn’t happen,” Kendrick said. “This museum has been here for 35 years to tell you: Yes, it did happen.”

Commissioner Rob Manfred said on MLB’s website the initiative was focused on ensuring future generations of fans have access to the statistics and milestones of Negro Leagues players.

“Their accomplishments on the field will be a gateway to broader learning about this triumph in American history,” he said.

An updated MLB database will become public on June 20, before the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants play a Negro Leagues tribute game in Birmingham, Alabama.

“Sometimes it takes these kinds of efforts that will hopefully open the minds, hearts and the imaginations of those who will eventually want to learn more about the history of the Negro Leagues,” Kendrick said.

Echoing Manfred, Kendrick said the impact of the statistics goes beyond batting average and slugging percentage. He hopes it will continue to open doors to teach people about a part of baseball history that has long been forgotten.

“It is absolutely a watershed moment for both Black baseball and Negro Leagues history,” Kendrick said.

The importance of the Negro Leagues can be boiled down to three stories, Kendrick said: the importance of economic empowerment, an unprecedented level of leadership, and the story of social advancement in the country.

The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City is a steward of the story of Black baseball, Kendrick said. The museum will open a new exhibit from June 7 through Oct. 30 celebrating the history of the Kansas City Monarchs.

“This is also the story of America at her worst,” Kendrick said. “But it’s also the story of America at her best. As I’ve oftentimes said, you won’t let me play with you in the major leagues, then I’ll create a league of my own.”

This article was first published by the Kansas Reflector, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

(Getty Images)

The University of Missouri, on behalf of St. Louis Public Radio, is making an unprecedented legal claim of sovereign immunity in the defamation lawsuit filed against it by former general manager Tim Eby.

Eby maintains he was defamed by stories quoting station employees accusing him of upholding “white supremacy.”

The university’s legal filings describe the station as “an arm of the state exercising exclusively governmental functions” and conclude it should receive immunity from Eby’s suit.

Eby’s lawsuit is against the Board of Curators of the University of Missouri, who hold the license for St. Louis Public Radio. The legal defense of sovereign immunity originates with the university lawyers.

The legal filings do not cite a case where a public broadcasting network affiliated with a state has won a claim to sovereign immunity in a defamation case. A LexisNexis search by Gateway Journalism Review found no decisions where a federal or state court had recognized this government immunity from a defamation suit for a public broadcaster with a government affiliation.

Sovereign immunity is a doctrine from English law to protect the king and government from lawsuits. Former president Donald Trump builds on this doctrine in claiming absolute immunity for presidential acts. Police officers and other government officials also receive qualified immunity from many civil rights suits.

But, until now, no public broadcasting operation has won such a claim. In fact they have run away from government entanglements.

Last year National Public Radio complained when Elon Musk’s X platform labeled NPR “state-affiliated” and “government-funded” media. NPR stopped posting content on X because it thought the government labels undermined their journalists’ independence.

John Lansing, head of NPR, said at the time: “It would be a disservice to the serious work you all do here to continue to share it on a platform that is associating the federal charter for public media with an abandoning of editorial independence or standards.”

When Congress established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the statute explicitly stated  it “will not be an agency or establishment of the United States Government.”

The university’s legal argument in the Eby case is that the station “is in effect an arm of the state exercising exclusively governmental functions and is therefore immune from liability” in the same way as “the State Department of Agriculture or a public hospital district.”

Eby’s attorney, Christian Montroy, expressed surprise that St. Louis Public Radio is representing its news organization as “state-run media” immune from defamation suits that other media would face for publishing or broadcasting the same content.

Eby’s legal filing argues that portraying St. Louis Public Radio as “exercising exclusively governmental functions” conflicts  with St. Louis Public Radio’s frequently expressed claim of being “editorially independent,” which is expressed in its Statement of Editorial Integrity.

That statement says:

“….even though the University of Missouri System Board of Curators owns our FCC license, we maintain editorial independence of our content. This is in alignment with UMSL’s foundational principle of academic independence upon which the University of Missouri system is founded. The support we receive from the University of Missouri-St. Louis does not influence our editorial content or news coverage.”

Tina Pamintuan, St. Louis Public Radio’s CEO (and Eby’s replacement), told the Riverfront Times, which first reported on the sovereign immunity claim, that the public need not worry.

“I am 100% confident in the journalism that is produced at STLPR,” she said. “Our reporters are highly trained professionals who take a lot of care in their work. STLPR exists to uplift its community and this region through fair, rigorous, fact-based news and information. That is our focus and it’s important that we continue to keep that in mind. Like all nonprofit media, we have limited resources that are put to best use by prioritizing our mission.”

The sovereign immunity claim, which the state has been making since last fall, came before St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Joseph Patrick Whyte for a hearing last month. Joseph E. Martineau, a media lawyer  serving as outside counsel for the state and station, declined to comment, as did Christian Basi, spokesman for the the University of Missouri.

Eby had been the station’s general manager for 11 years until he was forced out in September 2020

His removal came after the contentious summer of 2020 when a group of staffers published a blog post accusing him of choosing “to uphold white supremacy at the station.” A story on the station’s website linked to the blog post and another story a year later stated Eby resigned “amid accusations from newsroom staff that he ignored problems of systemic racism at the station and mismanaged finances.”

Eby maintains the station knew these statements were false.

Gateway Journalism Review’s Lexis search found only one defamation case in the nation where a public radio station connected to state government had tried to claim sovereign immunity in a defamation case. That one was in Missouri and the station lost.

In the 1982 case of Allen v. Salina Broadcasting, the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Southern District ruled that Salina Broadcasting could not claim sovereign immunity even though the public radio station was run by a public school.

The station had reported that Allen, a realtor, was “starving his cattle to death.”

The appeals court had to decide if the station’s report was part of its governmental functions at the school, which would give it sovereign immunity, or instead was a “proprietary” function, which would mean it did not get sovereign immunity.

The court ruled the station’s actions were proprietary.

“At the time of the alleged defamatory broadcast… there was ‘substantially’ no student involvement….the particular news program complained of was handled and broadcast by paid staff personnel with students seldom, if ever, called upon to participate in any meaningful sense.”

Eby’s lawyer says the Salina case should control the decision on sovereign immunity in the St. Louis Public Radio case. The St. Louis station was acting in a proprietary, not governmental way, just like the Salina case.

At St. Louis Public Radio, paid staff compose and broadcast news reports without significant student help and the reports are broadcast to a wide audience, not just within the university.

The state, on behalf of the station, contends that Judge Whyte should not follow the Salina case because a university is different from a local school. It points out that a public hospital was found by Missouri courts to have sovereign immunity. St. Louis Public Radio is more like a public hospital than a public school, it argues.

This story was originally published by Gateway Journalism Review. 

Amelia Ford, 15, speaks at a press conference in Little Rock on May 7, 2024, where Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin announced he and five other state attorneys general are suing the U.S. Department of Education over an expansion of federal Title IX protections to transgender students. Amelia and her mother are also plaintiffs in the litigation (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate).

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin on Tuesday filed a lawsuit with five other states, including Missouri, against the U.S. Department of Education’s change to Title IX that codifies protections for LGBTQ students.

The federal rule, announced in April, protects students and employees from sex-based discrimination, requires schools to offer support for people who make complaints, sets guidelines for schools and codifies protections for transgender students. It is expected to go into effect on Aug. 1.

The 60-page lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, alleges the education department exceeded its authority by rewriting the law. It also claims the rule is unconstitutional through a violation of the First Amendment, goes against decades of understanding of Title IX making it arbitrary and capricious, and presents “an actual controversy” by redefining “sex” to include gender identity.

The suit seeks to ultimately stop the federal rule’s effective date.

Though Title IX applies broadly, Griffin’s press conference Tuesday largely focused on transgender students joining girls’ sports teams.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Arkansas Solicitor General Nicholas Bronni joined Griffin at the press conference, as did Amelia Ford, a 15-year-old sophomore at Brookland High School near Jonesboro. Amelia and her mother Sara are plaintiffs in the suit, along with Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Amelia, a basketball player, said she’s worked hard to earn her spot on the team and doesn’t want that opportunity taken away from her. She also expressed concerns about the possibility of having “a boy who identifies as a girl” in her bathroom, locker room or hotel room during overnight sports trips.

“You don’t just become a girl by what you feel or by what you think,” Amelia said. “The government should not force us to disregard common sense and reality.”

The lawsuit mentions Ford’s faith several times and states it would be a violation of her Christian beliefs to refer to someone using pronouns that don’t align with the person’s biological sex.

Bailey referred to the Title IX rule as being “in favor of a radical transgender ideology,” and Griffin seemed baffled by the idea of such a proposed change.

“For a legal suit, it can’t just be ridiculous, nonsensical, hard to believe, outrageous — there has to be a legal basis,” said Griffin, who also added that he thinks “nationally, a vast majority of people think this whole thing is nonsensical.”

Asked whether he saw the lawsuit as harmful to transgender students, Griffin said, “No, I see it as following the law.”

Griffin’s lawsuit comes days after Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed an executive order  instructing public schools to follow state law instead of the federal Title IX rule when it goes into effect in August.

“My message to Joe Biden and the federal government is that we will not comply,” Sanders said during a press conference.

A number of other states have also filed suit against the Title IX rule in their own federal circuit courts, and more are expected.

This story was originally published by the Arkansas Advocate, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

(Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House members tasked with addressing what happens to loads of user data collected by big tech companies see a “long overdue” opportunity for a national privacy standard, particularly for children and teens.

Lawmakers on a subpanel of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce met Wednesday to hear from advocates and online safety experts on a series of data privacy bills that are drawing rare bipartisan and bicameral support.

The 10 bills discussed by six witnesses and members of the Subcommittee on Innovation, Data and Commerce would regulate how data is collected and stored, allow users to opt out of algorithms, and ensure safeguards for minors on the internet.

The hearing came on the heels of widespread bipartisan support for a bill that would force the popular video platform TikTok to split from its Chinese parent company ByteDance. The legislation passed the House in March in a 352-65 vote.

“Today we find ourselves at a crossroads,” said Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers. “We can either continue down the dangerous path we’re on, letting companies and bad actors continue to collect massive amounts of data unchecked, or we can give people the right  to control their information online.”

Washington state lawmakers unite

The Washington Republican’s discussion draft of the American Privacy Rights Act was a focus of the Wednesday hearing.

The bipartisan, bicameral proposal, introduced alongside Senate Committee on Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, would shrink the amount of data companies can collect, regulate data brokers, allow users to access their own data and request deletion, and empower the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to enforce the policies.

Placing the burden on consumers to read “notice and consent” privacy agreements “simply does not work,” said Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone of New Jersey.

“By contrast, data minimization limits the amount of personal information entities collect, process, retain and transfer to only what is necessary to provide the products and services being requested by the consumer,” Pallone said, praising provisions in the American Privacy Rights Act.

Rodgers said the “foundational” legislation would protect minors and establish a national standard to quash a “modern form of digital tyranny where a handful of companies and bad actors are exploiting our personal information, monetizing it and using it to manipulate how we think and act.”

One national standard would preempt “the patchwork of state laws, so when consumers and businesses cross state lines, there are consistent rights, protections and obligations,” GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Florida, the subcommittee’s chair, said during his opening remarks.

Seventeen states have enacted their own privacy laws and regulations with another 18 states actively pursuing various pieces of legislation, creating a “complex landscape of state-specific privacy laws,” testified Katherine Kuehn, chief information security officer-in-residence for the National Technology Security Coalition, a cybersecurity advocacy organization.

‘Insecurity as data’

Among the other proposals the panel discussed was an update to the 1998 Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Act, co-sponsored by Michigan Republican Rep. Tim Walberg and Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat.

The bill aims to ban targeted advertising to children and teens, prohibit internet companies from collecting the data of 13-to-17-year-olds without consent, and require direct notice if data is being stored or transferred outside of the U.S.

Ava Smithing of Nashville, Tennessee, described for the committee her teen years spent on Instagram and the body image issues and eating disorder that ensued after repeated targeted content.

“The companies’ abilities to track engagements, such as the duration of time I looked at a photo, revealed to them what would keep me engaged — my own insecurity,” she testified.

“They stored my insecurity as data and linked it to all my other accounts across the internet. They used my data to infer what other types of content I might ‘like,’ leading me down a pipeline from bikini advertisements to exercise videos to dieting tips and finally to eating disorder content,” Smithing, director of advocacy for the Young People’s Alliance, said.

‘Big tech has failed’

Bilirakis is a sponsor of the similarly named Kids Online Safety Act, along with fellow Reps. Erin Houchin, an Indiana Republican, Washington Democrat Kim Schrier and Castor.

“We know that big tech has failed, ladies and gentlemen, to prioritize the health and safety of our children online, resulting in a significant increase in mental health conditions, suicide and drug overdose deaths. We’ve heard stories over and over and over again in our respective districts,” Bilirakis said.

Bilirakis’ bill would outline a set of harms to children under 17 and require big tech and video game companies to mitigate those harms. The bill also aims to increase parental protections on platforms and commission a study of age verification options.

A companion bill in the U.S. Senate has been introduced by Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn.

Samir C. Jain, of the Center for Democracy and Technology, told the House panel that some proposals, including the Kids Online Safety Act, “while well-intentioned and pursuing an important goal, do raise some concerns.”

“Legislation that restricts access to content because government officials deem it harmful can harm youth and present significant constitutional issues,” said Jain, vice president of policy for the civil liberties advocacy organization.

“Further, requirements or strong incentives to require age verification systems to identify children often require further data collection from children and adults alike, and thereby can undermine privacy and present their own constitutional issues,” Jain testified.

However, Jain praised provisions in the American Privacy Rights Act that would increase transparency into the algorithms employed by large data companies and “prohibit using data in a way that perpetuates or exacerbates discrimination based on protected characteristics such as race, sex, religion, or disability status — whether a Black person looking for a job, a woman seeking a loan to start a business, or a veteran with a disability trying to find housing.”

During questioning, Bilirakis asked each panelist: “Yes or no, do you think this is the best chance we have to getting something done on comprehensive data privacy?”

All witnesses answered yes.

Meta, which owns Instagram, did not respond to a request for comment.

The Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse in St. Louis, home of the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Missouri (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

Federal appeals court judges in St. Louis on Thursday heard legal counsel for the national ACLU and the U.S. Department of Justice argue that transgender minors have a constitutional right to gender-affirming care, while Arkansas’ deputy solicitor general said a state law prohibiting such care was in the best interest of youth and not discriminatory.

At issue is the 2021 Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, which bans physicians from providing gender transition treatments like hormones, puberty blockers and sex reassignment surgeries to individuals under age 18.

Four Arkansas families and two physicians, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, challenged the SAFE Act in federal court, where U.S. District Judge James Moody struck down the law in June 2023, saying, among other things, that the SAFE Act discriminated against transgender people and violated the U.S. Constitution’s First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin appealed that decision in July 2023 to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The state has argued there is no scientific evidence that children benefit from gender-affirming care and that the consequences can be harmful and often permanent for them.

Asked by the appeals judges whether the state law would ban health care providers from prescribing testosterone for conditions other than gender-affirming care treatment, Dylan Jacobs, Arkansas deputy solicitor general, said, “The statute does not prohibit that. The legislature wasn’t saying it has problems with testosterone.”

Regarding the district court’s ruling to strike down the ban on transgender care in Arkansas, Jacobs said “there are certainly risks, including sterilization” in the treatment, and noted it was not up to the district court to impose its own policy judgments.

ACLU attorney Chase Strangio, deputy director for the organization’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, told the appeals court Thursday they should uphold Moody’s ruling, noting, in part, that the state law undermines constitutional guarantees of equal protection and “supplants the judgment of parents and their abilities to determine medical care.”

Griffin has said his office “is fighting to protect our state’s children from dangerous medical experimentation. Moody, in his 80-page ruling striking the Arkansas law, affirmed the testimony of medical experts who said in their testimony for the plaintiffs that gender-affirming care is safe for minors.

The State of Arkansas, Moody wrote, “failed to prove that its interests in the safety of Arkansas adolescents from gender transitioning procedures or the medical community’s ethical decline are compelling, genuine, or even rational.”

In 2021, a letter from the American Medical Association to the National Governors Association referenced the Arkansas SAFE Act and said, in part: “Arkansas recently enacted SAFE Act and similar bills pending in several other states would insert the government into clinical decision-making and force physicians to disregard clinical guidelines.”

Gender-affirming care for minors, the AMA said, “must be sensitive to the child’s clinical situation, nurture the child’s short and long-term development, and balance the need to preserve the child’s opportunity to make important life choices autonomously in the future.”

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals did not indicate when it might rule on the Arkansas law.

As of last November, similar laws had been enacted in 22 states, and legal challenges have been mounted in several of them. The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet taken up any of those cases.

This story was originally published by the Arkansas Advocate, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

In vitro fertilization process close up (Getty Images).

Elizabeth Bauer was working out at the gym one morning last August when she got a phone call from her fertility nurse. It was a call that Bauer and her wife, Rebecca, had long been waiting for.

Elizabeth dialed in Rebecca so they could listen together: They were pregnant.

The Washington, D.C., couple decided before they got married three years ago that they wanted to have a child. Both wanted to play a biological part in the pregnancy. So, they used a process called reciprocal in vitro fertilization, through which eggs were retrieved from Rebecca and fertilized with donor sperm to create embryos. Then one of the embryos was implanted in Elizabeth’s uterus.

Elizabeth, a 35-year-old elementary school teacher, and Rebecca, a 31-year-old nonprofit consultant, had health insurance, but it wouldn’t cover the roughly $20,000 procedure, so they had to pay out of pocket.

But beginning next year, insurers providing coverage in D.C. will have to pay for IVF for beneficiaries, including same-sex couples, who can’t conceive on their own. Only seven states (Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey and New York) have similar mandates. However, a new definition of “infertility” could prompt other states to follow suit.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine in October expanded the definition of infertility to include all patients who require medical intervention, such as use of donor gametes or embryos, to conceive as a single parent or with a partner. Previously, the organization defined infertility as a condition in which heterosexual couples couldn’t conceive after a year of unprotected intercourse.

The group emphasized the new definition should not “be used to deny or delay treatment to any individual, regardless of relationship status or sexual orientation.”

Dr. Mark Leondires, a reproductive endocrinologist and founder and medical director at Illume Fertility and Gay Parents To Be, said the new definition could make a huge difference.

“It gives us extra ammunition to say, ‘Listen, everybody who meets the definition of infertility, whether it’s an opposite-sex couple or same-sex couple or single person, who wants to have a child should have access to fertility services,’” he said.

At least four states (California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island) are currently weighing broader IVF coverage mandates that would explicitly include same-sex couples, according to RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association. Bills were introduced but failed to advance in Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin.

A recent policy shift at the federal level also might add to the momentum. Earlier this month, the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs announced expanded IVF service benefits to patients regardless of marital status, sexual orientation or whether they are using donor eggs or sperm. The new policy follows a lawsuit filed in federal court last year.

“The federal government is the largest employer in the country, so if they’re providing these type of benefits, it definitely adds pressure on other employers and states to do the same,” said Betsy Campbell, RESOLVE’s chief engagement officer.

A total of 21 states have laws mandating that private insurers cover fertility treatments, but only 15 include at least one cycle of IVF in that mandate. Only New York and Illinois provide some fertility coverage for people who are insured through Medicaid, the state-federal program for people with low incomes and disabilities. Neither state covers IVF for Medicaid recipients.

100,000 babies

IVF involves collecting mature eggs from ovaries, using donated sperm to fertilize them in a lab, and then placing one or more of the fertilized eggs, or embryos, in a uterus. One full cycle of IVF can take up to six weeks and can cost between $20,000 and $30,000. Many patients need multiple cycles before getting pregnant.

Nearly 100,000 babies in the U.S. were born in 2021 through IVF and other forms of assisted reproductive technology, such as intrauterine insemination, according to federal data.

IVF continues to garner nationwide attention in the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling last month that under state law, frozen IVF embryos are children, meaning patients or IVF facilities can be criminally charged for destroying them. The decision caused an uproar, and three weeks later Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill into law that provides criminal and civil immunity for IVF clinicians and patients.

Polly Crozier, director of family advocacy at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, or GLAD, described the Alabama decision as “a shock to the system.” But Crozier said the reaction to it sparked a “bipartisan realization that family-building health care is important to so many people.”

Crozier praised the insurance mandates in Colorado, Illinois, Maine and Washington, D.C., for more explicitly including LGBTQ+ people. Maine’s law, for example, states that a fertility patient includes an “individual unable to conceive as an individual or with a partner because the individual or couple does not have the necessary gametes for conception,” and says that health insurers can’t “impose any limitations on coverage for any fertility services based on an enrollee’s use of donor gametes, donor embryos or surrogacy.”

Christine Guarda, financial services representative at the Center for Advanced Reproductive Services at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, said more same-sex couples are seeking help starting families. One reason, she said, is that more large employers that provide insurance directly to their employees, such as Amazon, are including broad IVF coverage.

‘Elective procedure’?

But some lawmakers are skeptical of expanding the definition of infertility to include same-sex couples. That was evident at a hearing on the Connecticut bill earlier this month, where Republican state Rep. Cara Pavalock-D’Amato noted that “infertility isn’t necessarily elective, but having a baby is.”

“Now, we are changing definitions to cover elective procedures,” Pavalock-D’Amato said. “If we’re changing the definition for this elective procedure, then why not others as well?”

She added: “Infertility, whether you are straight or gay, up to this point has been a requirement. Now, is it through this bill that we are no longer requiring people to be sick? They no longer have to be infertile?”

But proponents of the change argue that extending IVF mandates to cover same-sex couples is a question of fairness.

“I don’t think anybody in the LGBTQ community is asking for more. They’re just asking for the same benefit, and it is discriminatory to say, ‘You don’t get the same benefit as your colleague simply because you have a same-sex partner,’” Leondires said in an interview.

“If you’re paying to the same health care system as the person sitting next to you, then you should have the same benefit,” he said.

Elizabeth and Rebecca Bauer, who are busy decorating a nursery and buying baby clothes, recognize that they were fortunate to have the money to pursue IVF even without insurance coverage, and that “there are plenty of people who don’t have the time or the ability.”

“There are so many ways that people who want to build a family might struggle,” Elizabeth said, adding that the previous infertility definition felt like a “pretty impossible barrier” for non-straight couples. “Insurance should make building a family possible for any person or persons who want to.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.

Protestors backing a social media case against the U.S. government rallied outside the Supreme Court on March 18, 2024, as arguments in the case were being heard inside. The lawsuit filed in 2022 by attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana alleges the federal government colluded with social media companies to suppress the freedom of speech (Jane Norman/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court seemed skeptical Monday of a lawsuit alleging the federal government colluded with social media companies to suppress the freedom of speech, with a majority of justices across the ideological spectrum raising issues with the case and its potential consequences.

The Biden administration argued to the court there is no evidence that the government violated the First Amendment in its efforts to combat false, misleading or dangerous information online.

Beyond that, the court should dismiss the litigation because plaintiffs don’t have the right to sue, said Brian Fletcher, principal deputy solicitor general.

Arguments occurred in a packed courtroom, where just outside dozens of protesters held signs accusing the government of infringing on free speech.

The lawsuit was filed in 2022 by two states — Missouri and Louisiana — and five individuals who either were banned from a platform or whose posts were not prominently featured on social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube and X, formerly known as Twitter.

Fletcher argued that the plaintiffs have not shown any evidence that decisions by social media companies to remove or deprioritize content can be attributed to the government. Instead, the companies made their own decisions relying on their own content moderation policies.

There was no coercion or attempted intimidation, Fletcher said, and the best proof of that is that social media companies “routinely said ‘no’ to the government.”

“They didn’t hesitate to do it, and when they said ‘no’ to the government, the government never engaged in any sort of retaliation,” Fletcher said. “Instead, (the federal government) engaged in more speech. Ultimately, the president and the press secretary and the surgeon general took to the bully pulpit. We just don’t think that’s coercion.”

Benjamin Aguiñaga, the solicitor general for the Louisiana attorney general, argued that the government has no right to persuade platforms to violate Americans’ constitutional rights, “and pressuring platforms in back rooms shielded from public view is not using the bully pulpit at all. That is just being a bully.”

Emails obtained as part of the lawsuit, Aguiñaga contends, show the government badgered platforms behind closed doors, abused them with profanity and “ominously says that the White House is considering its options… all to get the platforms to censor more speech.”

“Under this onslaught,” he said, “the platforms routinely cave.”

Government agencies have routinely encouraged social media companies to restrict harmful or illegal content for years, including posts involving terrorism and human trafficking.

Aguiñaga argued that speech involving criminal activity is not protected. But the Biden administration, he said, began to push social media companies in 2021 to restrict misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine.

Content was also targeted that involved election disinformation.

In 2022, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a court nominee of President Donald Trump, ruled that officials under both President Joe Biden and Trump coerced social media companies to censor content over concerns it would fuel vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic or upend elections.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans prohibited the White House, the Surgeon General’s Office, the FBI, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from having practically any contact with the social media companies. It found that the Biden administration most likely overstepped the First Amendment by urging the major social media platforms to remove misleading or false content.

The Supreme Court placed a temporary stay on the order in October until it decides the case.

Standing and traceability

A question at the core of Monday’s arguments was whether any harm to the plaintiffs could be, in fact, traced back to the government’s actions or could be remedied by judicial relief.

Justice Elena Kagan asked Aguiñaga to highlight “the single piece of evidence that most clearly shows the government was responsible for one of your clients having material taken down.”

“How do you decide that it’s government action as opposed to platform action?” Kagan followed.

Aguiñaga pointed to a May 2021 email the Biden administration sent to a social media platform regarding misinformation about COVID-19. Aguiñaga argued that evidence shows two months later content from one of the plaintiffs, Jill Hines of Louisiana, was suppressed.

“A lot of things can happen in two months,” Kagan said. “So that decision two months later could have been caused by the government’s email or that government email might have been long since forgotten because there are a thousand other communications that platform employees have had with each other, a thousand other things that platform employees have read in the newspaper.”

“I mean why would we point to one email two months earlier and say it was that email that made all the difference?” Kagan said.

Justices question consequences for public safety, national security

During Monday’s arguments, the justices focused on whether encouragement by federal officials amounted to illegal coercion, rather than merely informing or persuading social media companies.

“There are lots of contexts where government officials can persuade private parties to do things the officials couldn’t do directly,” Fletcher argued when Justice Clarence Thomas questioned him about coercion versus censorship.

“For example, recently after the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, a number of public officials called on colleges and universities to do more about antisemitic hate speech on campus,” Fletcher said.

An ideologically diverse majority of justices raised concerns about the potential consequences of the litigation for things like public safety and national security.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned whether the government violates the First Amendment when it requests the removal of factually inaccurate posts. He suggested there could be national security concerns if false information was posted online about troops.

Kavanaugh also asked how the federal government’s communications with social media companies were any different than when news organizations are warned that a story they are about to publish could affect national security.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett continued along that line of questions, asking whether the FBI would still be able to warn social media platforms if an individual had been doxxed in a way that might put them at risk.

Aguiñaga countered that he is a free speech purist but in that circumstance, the government would be allowed to issue warnings to social media companies about content.

But when speech is protected, the government has no right to intervene to push for it to be censored, he said.

“When the government is identifying a specific viewpoint and specific content that it wishes to wholly eliminate from public discourse, that’s when the First Amendment problem arises,” he said, later adding that the government has lots of tools at its disposal to combat misinformation.

“Censorship,” he said, “has never been the default remedy for a perceived First Amendment violation.”

That argument didn’t move Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“You have to admit that there are certain circumstances,” she said, “in which the government can provide information and encourage the platforms to take it down.”

The most scathing criticism of the day came from Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

“I have such a problem with your brief, counselor,” Sotomayor said to Aguiñaga. “You omit information that changes the context of some of your claims. You attribute things to people who it didn’t happen to. I don’t know what to make of all this.”

Aguiñaga apologized if “any aspect of our brief was not as forthcoming as it should have been.”

Justice Samuel Alito, who sat back and rocked his chair with his hands behind his head, seemed most sympathetic to the plaintiffs’ case, reframing the discussion as Aguiñaga was facing a series of difficult questions.

“Coercion doesn’t only apply when the government says ‘do this, and if you don’t do this, there are going to be legal consequences,’” Alito said, adding: “It’s a more flexible standard and… you have to take into account the whole course of the relationship.”

In his rebuttal, Fletcher compared the Biden administration’s communications with social media companies and public comments about misinformation to President George W. Bush’s public condemnation of pornography and President Ronald Reagan’s criticism of media influence of drugs and violence.

A ruling on the case is not expected for several months.

Plaintiff reaction

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said afterward he believes the Supreme Court justices “will make the right decision here.”

“Ultimately that (decision) will continue to build a wall of separation between tech and state using this lawsuit. The court will affirm the district court injunction and we’re excited to get back to the district court level,” Bailey told reporters on the plaza in front of the Supreme Court after arguments concluded.

When asked for his reaction to the justices’ skepticism of Aguiñaga’s argument of government coercion, Bailey said “the evidence clearly establishes coercion.”

Bailey argued that evidence gathered by Missouri, Louisiana and the individual plaintiffs reveals the Biden administration threatened reform of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which currently shields social media companies from liability for content published on their platforms.

“Those are direct explicit threats against the big tech social media giants,” he said.

The Department of Justice declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.

Jason Hancock reported from Columbia, Mo. Ashley Murray reported from Washington, D.C.

This story was updated at 1:45 p.m. to add comments from Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey. 

A lawsuit filed by attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana alleged the federal government pressured social media companies to target conservative speech across a range of topics, from the efficacy of vaccines to the integrity of the 2020 presidential election (Photo Illustration by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images).

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday morning in a potentially landmark case involving the federal government’s efforts to encourage social media companies to remove misinformation from their platforms.

The lawsuit was filed in 2022 by attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana. It alleges the federal government colluded with social media companies such as Twitter, now called X, and Facebook to suppress the freedom of speech.

The government specifically targeted conservative speech, the attorneys general contend, across a range of topics — from the efficacy of vaccines to the integrity of the 2020 presidential election. 

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who inherited the lawsuit from his predecessor, called the federal government’s actions “the biggest violation of the First Amendment in our nation’s history.

“We’re fighting to build a wall of separation between tech and state to preserve our First Amendment right to free, fair and open debate,” Bailey said in an emailed statement. 

In a statement Thursday, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said the case has uncovered 20,000 pages of documents that reveal an “extensive censorship campaign” on the part of President Joe Biden.

“George Orwell wrote ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ as a warning against tyranny,” Murrill said. “He never intended it to be used as a how-to guide by the federal government.”

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, defending the Biden administration in the lawsuit, said in a filing asking the Supreme Court to take the case that the government was entitled to express its views and persuade others to take action.

“A central dimension of presidential power,” she wrote, “is the use of the office’s bully pulpit to seek to persuade Americans — and American companies — to act in ways that the president believes would advance the public interest.”

Social media companies are private entities, Prelogar wrote, that made independent decisions about what to remove.

Monday’s case will be argued by Benjamin Aguiñaga, the solicitor general for the Louisiana attorney general. Considered a rising star in conservative legal circles, Aguiñaga served as a law clerk for Judge Edith Jones, a conservative Ronald Reagan appointee on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Judge Don Willett, then on the Texas Supreme Court. 

Aguiñaga was also a member of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s Senate Judiciary Committee staff and chief of staff in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice during the Trump administration. 

Most notably, Aguiñaga served as a clerk for Justice Samuel Alito during the Supreme Court’s 2018-2019 term. 

‘Immensely important case’

In 2022, U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a court nominee of President Donald Trump, ruled that officials under both Biden and Trump coerced social media companies to censor content over concerns it would fuel vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic or upend elections.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans prohibited the White House, the Surgeon General’s Office, the FBI, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from having practically any contact with the social media companies. It found that the Biden administration most likely overstepped the First Amendment by urging the major social media platforms to remove misleading or false content.

The Supreme Court placed a temporary stay on the order in October until it decides the case.

Three conservative justices — Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — dissented from the decision to block the injunction, with Alito calling the court’s action “highly disturbing” and arguing it threatened to curtail the discussion of unpopular political views online.

Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, called the lawsuit an “immensely important case that will determine the power of the government to pressure the social media platforms into suppressing speech.”

“The government has no authority to threaten platforms into censoring protected speech,” Abdo said, “but it must have the ability to participate in public discourse so that it can effectively govern and inform the public of its views.”

Missouri attorney general’s social media lawsuit rallies anti-vaccine activists

The injunction put in place by the lower courts was way too broad, said David Greene, civil liberties director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“Government co-option of content moderation systems is a serious threat to freedom of speech,” Greene said. “But there are clearly times when it is permissible, appropriate and even good public policy for government agencies and officials to inform, communicate with, attempt to persuade or even criticize sites —free of coercion— about the user speech they publish.”

The federal government must be allowed to share information with social media companies in order to ensure the integrity of elections, said Gowri Ramachandran, deputy director of the elections and government program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

Having accurate information about elections is critical to American democracy, Ramachandran said, and the proliferation of false information through social media threatens elections and election officials.

“We already had a situation where there was attempted foreign interference during the 2016 election,” she said. “After that, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, said if there’s foreign agents putting propaganda out on his platform, ‘I want to know. Please tell me.’ And so then the government started doing that, and I wouldn’t characterize it as being an instance of even anything close to government censorship.”

Ties to misinformation, conspiracy theories

As the case has meandered through the courts, it has added several co-plaintiffs with long histories of spreading misinformation and debunked conspiracy theories.

That includes Jim Hoft, founder of the right-wing conspiracy website Gateway Pundit, who has built a career on promulgating conspiracies on a wide range of topics, from the 2018 Parkland school shooting to former President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

More recently, Hoft has been among the biggest purveyors of election fraud lies. He currently faces a defamation lawsuit in St. Louis circuit court filed by two Georgia election workers who faced death threats following Gateway Pundit’s false stories about a vote-rigging scheme. 

During appeals court arguments in August, the attorneys general specifically cited Hoft, claiming that he is “currently subjected to an ongoing campaign by federal officials to target the content on his website.”

Another named co-plaintiff in the case is Jill Hines. She is co-director of Health Freedom Louisiana, an anti-vaccine organization that, among other things, advances the theory soundly rejected by medical experts that vaccines are a cause of autism.

Louisiana Illuminator Editor Greg LaRose contributed to this report.

Rebecca Varney, left, speaks with attorney Dave Roland outside the Phelps County Courthouse after a Sept. 2 trial of her civil rights and Sunshine Law case against her hometown of Edgar Springs. (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent)

A small Missouri city ordered to pay a heavy penalty for its attempt to “intimidate and silence” a critic dropped its appeal Thursday as deadlines approached for important legal filings.

Edgar Springs, a town of 200 in southern Phelps County, must now pay Rebecca Varney $750, plus almost $80,000 in attorney fees, to satisfy a November court decision that found it violated Varney’s First Amendment rights and the Missouri Sunshine Law.

Circuit Judge John Beger ruled that the city’s violations began in 2018 when it barred Varney from entering city hall to view records open to the public under the Sunshine Law. The initial order allowed her to attend meetings of the town’s Board of Aldermen but was expanded in 2019 to bar her from entering city hall at any time after she questioned whether a gathering that included several town officials was an unposted meeting.

“Our rights are worth it,” Varney said. “It’s been hard but I go to city council meetings, I get to sit down just like everybody else. And they have to treat everybody that way.”

In her lawsuit, Varney asked for only nominal damages in addition to legal vindication. Berger’s ruling gave Varney $100 for the constitutional violation, $650 for the Sunshine Law violation and $78,966 for litigation costs and attorney fees. Interest is accruing at the rate of 9% per year.

“This was not a close case,” said Dave Roland, the attorney who represented Varney. “They should have seen from the very outset, it was going to be a loser and they were going to be on the hook for both their attorneys fees and ours.”

Roland runs the Freedom Center of Missouri, providing pro bono Sunshine Law legal services for people unable to afford an attorney. Money gained from rulings like the one against Edgar Springs is used to support other litigation.

Beger issued his judgment after a September trial where the city sought to justify its treatment of Varney. The city appealed the ruling to the Southern District Court of Appeals in January.

Greg Dohrman, the attorney for Edgar Springs, filed the notice of dismissal on Thursday. The next deadline in the case was for Dohrman to supply the full legal file, including a trial transcript, a costly step in a case where the outcome is uncertain.

Reached by telephone Friday, Dohrman said he could not comment on the decision to dismiss the case. No city official responded to a message left at city hall.

In his ruling, Beger blasted the city’s actions.

“The court wishes to emphasize again, the actions of defendants in this case, apparently seeking to intimidate and silence Varney from exercising her rights to examine and be knowledgeable about the workings of her city government are disturbing, especially when considered in the context of the free and open democratic society in which we are purported to live,” Beger wrote in his ruling.

Beger’s decision was very uplifting for her, Varney said.

“The judge’s ruling was so touching to me because that’s what it was like,” she said. “And he saw it and called them out.”

Varney, a longtime resident of Edgar Springs, began looking into city finances after receiving a traffic ticket in 2018. She was concerned that the town’s police force was using traffic offenses as a means of generating revenue and began visiting city hall frequently to review documents.

She also regularly attended meetings of the Board of Aldermen, raising criticisms of city operations and, when dissatisfied with the results, gathering signatures that resulted in a state audit. The audit found numerous deficiencies in financial administration and Sunshine Law violations.

The audit shows that the city will likely struggle to pay the judgment. In the year that ended Dec. 31, 2019, the town took in $109,598 for its general fund and spent $102,267 on operations.

“They had every opportunity along the way to resolve this,” Varney said. “In some bizarre, stubborn and, unattached that I can see to any legal reasoning, they cost themself this money. 

“We all have to pay for that. But you can’t just let them do what they did, it was unconscionable.”

There were numerous times when the city could have apologized, rescinded the orders barring Varney from city hall and ended the case, Roland said.

“I told them, all you have to do is admit that you were wrong,” Roland said. “If you admit that you are wrong, all of this goes away.”

There needs to be a better way for citizens to enforce the Sunshine Law without having to take their communities to court, Varney said.

“What if we’d had an attorney general who, when they took these complaints, would have put the city in remediation if they played like they didn’t know what they were doing was wrong?” Varney said. “But there was no help there.”

Autumn Equinox, a drag performer, tells Missouri House committee members that gender affirmation through drag has been lifesaving for her. The Special Committee on Public Policy debated restrictions on drag Wednesday afternoon (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

For the second year in a row, a Missouri House committee debated GOP-backed legislation that would face the same limits on drag performances as govern “sexually oriented businesses.”

The bill, sponsored by Bethany Republican Rep. Mazzie Christensen, would also create penalties for engaging in an adult cabaret performance in a location where it could be “reasonably expected to be viewed by a person who is not an adult.” The first offense would be a misdemeanor and the second a felony.

The House’s Special Committee on Public Policy debated the topic Wednesday afternoon, with a handful of opponents of the legislation attending the hearing dressed in drag.

“The intent of the bill is to protect minors,” Christensen told committee members. “Exposing children to sexual content before they’re emotionally mature enough to understand is extremely harmful to their brain development.”

Opponents to the legislation argued that not all drag is sexual in nature, and the legislation would further marginalize LGBTQ Missourians.

Christensen’s bill matches a version written at the committee level last year combining legislation filed by her and Rep. Ben Baker, a Republican from Neosho. While it cleared committee, it never made it to the House floor.

The bill defines an “adult cabaret performance” as a show that “appeals to a prurient interest” and “features topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers or male or female impersonators.”

Any business that offers an “adult cabaret” and makes over 30% of its revenue from sexually oriented material would be considered a “sexually oriented business.”

Sexually oriented businesses are restricted from operating between midnight and 6 a.m., selling alcohol or opening “one thousand feet of any preexisting primary or secondary school, house of worship, state-licensed day care facility, public library, public park, residence, or other sexually oriented business.”

Maxi Glamour, a drag performer based in St. Louis, said the zoning restrictions would prevent drag clubs from operating in the city of St. Louis. Glamour said people are moving out of the city as the state legislature enacts policies such as this.

“Jobs and progressive people are not seeing that they can be validated, appreciated and understood based on these draconian policies,” Glamour told the committee.

Lawmakers debated the bill’s language, some saying it was too “broad” and others telling attendees it would only impact sexually explicit performances.

“This legislation is aimed at folks that are wanting to conduct sexualized performances in the presence of children,” said Rep. Brad Hudson, a Cape Fair Republican.

Rep. Ashley Aune, a Democrat from Kansas City’s northland, said the language identifying “male or female impersonators” was particularly troubling and wondered whether restaurants like Twin Peaks or Hooters would fit the definition of a “sexually oriented business.”

Hudson disagreed. He said businesses must both feature the listed performers and “appeal to a prurient interest” to be restricted.

“If we were to craft this bill where there was no doubt that the only thing we were outlawing would be sexualized entertainment in the presence of young children, would (people) still be in opposition to this bill?” he asked.

Rep. Mark Sharp, a Kansas City Democrat, said at the top of the hearing that the committee “shouldn’t be hearing this bill.” He said he would be fine with his two-year-old seeing someone dressed in drag, but he said he wouldn’t want any prurient performances around his daughter.

“I think it was just to try to cover that one particular thing, I think this would be a lot of different, very different,” he said, referring to sexualized performances. “That’s not what the bill is. It does so much, so much more than that.”

Aune said it felt like an attack.

“If you just want to protect kids, why aren’t we just saying, ‘any performance by anyone that appeals to a prurient interest.’ Full stop,” she said.

The committee did not take action on the bill Wednesday.

State Sen. Greg Razer, D-Kansas City, speaks at a rally held by LGBTQ advocacy organization PROMO early February 2023 on the steps of the Missouri Capitol (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

The Missouri Senate became a convoluted mess Tuesday as a debate over ceremonial holidays quickly turned into an argument on transgender healthcare.

State Sen. Greg Razer, a Kansas City Demcorat, introduced a bill creating “Chris Sifford Day.” Sifford was a longtime staffer for former Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, a Democrat, before both died in a plane crash. Numerous amendments were attached to the bill by other senators, adding other ceremonial holidays.

Few senators were even present for the lengthy debate over what holidays to add and whether Missouri’s unofficial moniker “the Show-Me State” needs to be enshrined in law. State Sen. Lincoln Hough, a Springfield Republican, even watched some of the proceedings in the gallery among the public.

State Sen. Denny Hoskins, a Republican from Warrensburg, criticized the number of commemorative holidays the state has. There are over 100 ceremonial holidays in state law. Most of these are unknown to all but a few people, such as Jan. 16, which is set as Albert Pujols Day to honor the St. Louis Cardinal legend.

Hoskins offered an amendment that would to add an expiration date to the holidays included in Razer’s bill.

That amendment reopened debate from last year, when a bill blocking doctors from administering gender-affirming care to minors was only able to get through a Democrat filibuster when a 2027 expiration date was added. Hoskins has filed a bill this year that would remove that expiration date.

Razer, the Senate’s only openly gay member, opposed the amendment, saying he felt that Hoskins can’t, in good conscience, propose the expiration of a holiday when he can’t keep a promise on the deal made last year. Hoskins retorted that he never agreed not to file a law removing the expiration date on the transgender legislation at some point in the future.

After continuing back and forth, the debate reached a climax when Hoskins said: “We want to talk little kids having their private parts cut off?” in a reference to medical procedures for gender transition.

Razer responded: “How many times did you say that ridiculous lie last year?”

Then, after screaming at each other for a few seconds, Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden banged his gavel and called the chamber to order. The bill was set aside, ending what was meant to be a procedural debate on ceremonial holidays that became a fiery referendum on gender policy.

This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online. 

State Rep. Chad Perkins speaking during House debate on March 1, 2023 (Tim Bommel/Missouri House Communications).

A group of Republican lawmakers raised concerns about the death penalty and advocated for legislation that  would abolish it in Missouri during a Tuesday press conference at the state Capitol — characterizing it as an issue of restraining government overreach and protecting life. 

Rep. Chad Perkins, a Republican from Bowling Green, has filed legislation to abolish the death penalty and sentence those on death row instead to life in prison without parole.

“I think morally, I feel obligated,” Perkins said. “Anyone who says they’re pro-life should feel a little conflicted on this topic — because if you’re pro-life then I think you’ve got to look at it and say you’re that way from the beginning to the very end. And I don’t think that the government should have a monopoly on violence.”

Joining Perkins at Tuesday’s Capitol rally were Republican Reps. Tony Lovasco of O’Fallon, Jim Murphy of St. Louis and Travis Smith of Douglas.

Missouri was one of only five states to carry out death sentences last year, along with Texas, Florida, Oklahoma and Alabama.

Missouri executed four people in 2023 and two in 2022.

Between 1989 and 2021, the state executed 91 people, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Four people on death row in the state have been exonerated in Missouri since 1989.

“If we are truly at a 100% pro-life state, and being 100% pro-life,” Murphy said, “I believe that the death penalty is something that we really need to examine and put an end to because there’s just too many errors to be made and it’s just too big an error to make.”

Demetrius Minor, national manager for that national advocacy group Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, said Missouri could look to other states like Ohio, where there is a Republican trifecta and momentum against the death penalty, with legislative hearings over a bill to abolish it.

“The trend is beyond dispute,” Minor said, “An increasing number of conservative Republican state lawmakers nationwide are taking the lead because they believe in limited government, they demand fiscal responsibility and most importantly, they value life.”

Lovasco, who filed the bill in previous years seeking to abolish the death penalty in Missouri, said he’s seen increased momentum on the issue from his fellow Republicans. 

“We’re seeing, finally, willingness to have a discussion about this within the Republican Party,” he said, “both behind the scenes and now finally in public.” 

Last year, after Lovasco introduced an amendment during the budget process to defund the death penalty, he said, “almost double the number of people in the Republican Party voted in favor of defunding the death penalty than when it had happened previously, when roll call votes had been done in the past by Democrats.”

Perkins is hopeful the issue gains traction this session, but it hasn’t been referred to a House committee yet. 

“Oftentimes an idea comes about and starts to get a bit of traction, and it doesn’t quite make it across the finish line,” Perkins said. “But you can feel that there’s a direction that people are going and so maybe it’s an idea whose time hasn’t quite come about, but I think that the time is coming.” 

Another bill, filed by Republican state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman of Arnold, would limit but not abolish the death penalty. Her legislation would repeal a state law allowing a judge to decide on a death sentence when a jury is not in unanimous agreement.

Most of the states with active death penalty laws  require unanimous jury decision. In only Indiana and Missouri, a judge is allowed to impose a death sentence when a jury decision can’t be reached on sentencing. 

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that the state executed 91 people between 1989 and 2021. In total, there have been 97 executions to date.

States rely on federal funding for programs that can aid the disabled. Advocates say changes proposed by the U.S. Census Bureau could undercount the number of people with disabilities and decrease the funding each state receives. Here Prosthetist Erik Lindholm adjusts a prosthetic leg for 75-year-old Karl Sowa on Nov. 10, 2021 in Hines, Illinois (Scott Olson/Getty Images).

The Census Bureau has proposed a major change to disability questions on its annual American Community Survey that advocates say will reduce the number of people who are counted as disabled by 40%.

The change in available data could affect federal funding allocations and the decisions government agencies make about accessible housing, public transit, and civil rights enforcement, they argue.

Catherine Nielsen, executive director of the Nevada Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities, said having correct data is vital not only because it helps identify gaps in the system but because it affects federal funding levels.

“Many providers are not reimbursed at 100% for the services they provide,” Nielsen said. “When we take into consideration this cut to the data, we’re essentially saying we have even less people that will qualify for support. If we have less people that qualify, that in turn tells the Feds they have less of a need to support these programs. The snowball effect of such a significant change will be greater than most can even anticipate at this time.”

Although some opponents of the change have said that the ACS disability questions needed revising because the survey currently undercounts the number of disabled people, they say they are worried that the new approach is worse.

Instead of the current yes or no answers to the six disability questions on the survey, respondents will be asked to provide a range of responses on how difficult it is for them to perform certain functions. The Census Bureau is recommending that only people who answer “a lot of difficulty” or “cannot do at all” be considered “disabled” by Federal terms, advocates say.

“Part of the issue with what they proposed is they are asking this scale and then excluding every person who says they have some difficulty in terms of these functions. Even if you say you have some difficulty with all of these functions, you would not be included as disabled,” said Kate Gallagher Robbins, senior fellow at the National Partnership for Women & Families.

“What does ‘some’ look like?” she said. “Is that some of the time or some difficulty all of the time? For my own dad, who had a stroke and walks with a cane and a brace, is that difficulty for when he has those mobility aids or absent those mobility aids?”

The Census Bureau has stated that the revised questions will “capture information on functioning in a manner that reflects advances in the measurement of disability and is conceptually consistent with” the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health framework. The changes “reflect the continuum of functional abilities” and include a new question that includes psychosocial and cognitive disability and problems with speech, according to the notice for public comment.

Time for comment

When a federal agency proposes rules or changes to a standing process, it typically has a public comment period. The Census Bureau goes through a very long process where it tests the questions. Then it asks for public comment from stakeholders. The deadline for comments on the disability questions as well as other changes to the American Community Survey, which include asking about electric vehicles and changing the household roster questions, is Dec. 19.

Many organizations focused on civil rights issues, including disability advocacy groups, are weighing in.

The Consortium for Constituents with Disabilities, which includes 100 groups, commented that the new approach will likely miss identifying many people with chronic conditions and mental or psychiatric conditions.

The National Partnership for Women & Families, joined by more than 70 groups, including many state entities such as the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program, Disability Rights Iowa, and Nevada Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities, also has commented.

They say that there was not enough consultation with the disabled community and that the changes are overly restrictive, which could affect disaster preparedness responses, emergency allocations for the Low Income Energy Assistance Program (LIEAP), enrollment efforts for Medicaid and funding for State Councils on Developmental Disabilities.

Who will be left out

The National Partnership for Women & Families released an analysis on Dec. 5 that estimated the new questions would leave out 9.6 million women and girls with disabilities. The organization notes that women are more likely to have disabilities related to autoimmune disorders, chronic pain, and gastrointestinal disorders.

Robbins said she’s concerned about the effects this will have on people who apply for help paying utility bills or who rely on Medicaid.

“When people go to apply for those [LIEAP] funds, what is going to happen? Are there not going to be enough funds left? Will they do another application?” she said.

States are also going through the process of unwinding a pandemic-related Medicaid policy, which allowed people to stay enrolled in Medicaid without going through a renewal process. People who are no longer eligible for Medicaid or couldn’t finish the renewal process are being disenrolled. Robbins said data excluding many people with disabilities could affect efforts to re-enroll people.

“People are losing their Medicaid and we’re in a situation where we don’t know how to figure out who needs Medicaid and [Children’s Health Insurance Program] and direct our efforts to make sure people don’t lose health insurance,” she said.

Eric Buehlman, deputy executive director for public policy at the National Disability Rights Network, has a disability that includes not having vision from the left side of his face and attention issues, according to the organization’s website. He said the new questions could affect him and other people with disabilities who use public transportation if the data doesn’t show a need for more paratransit programs.

“I’m not supposed to drive, so I use public transportation to go everywhere. But under these [current] questions, I would have checked yes, for a person with a disability as they currently are. But under the way these [new questions] are, I’m not sure I would consider myself to be incapable of doing any of the six questions listed,” he said.

Buehlman said this could hit areas of the country that are more impoverished, which likely have a higher level of people with disabilities, harder than others. The connection between poverty and disabilities have been well documented, including by the Census Bureau. Its Supplemental Poverty Measure shows that in 2019, 21.6% of disabled people were considered poor, compared with just over 10% of people without disabilities. And in 2021, the American Community Survey found that the South had the highest disability rate.

Of the five states with the highest poverty rates that year, four were in the South — Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia. The fifth was New Mexico.

“All of a sudden this connection between poverty and disability which does exist out there, doesn’t appear like it is (under the new survey). And these are areas of the country that may not have as many resources … It could have a higher negative impact in areas that are already underfunded,” Buehlman said.

Timing of changes particularly bad

The change in the survey questions could also have an impact on civil rights enforcement, said Marissa Ditkowsky, disability economic justice counsel at the National Partnership for Women & Families. Disparate impact claims, which focus on the effect a policy has on a protected class, including people with disabilities, could be affected by a change in data, she said.

“They are literally using math in these disparate impact claims to make these claims,” she said. “When you don’t have the ability to do that, I can’t imagine the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission], [the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services], all of these agencies that enforce civil rights laws, I can’t imagine it will make their lives any easier.”

Opponents of these changes add that the timing of this new approach is particularly harmful when so many Americans are experiencing disabilities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Long COVID symptoms can include shortness of breath, fatigue, and difficulty thinking and concentrating. In 2021, the Biden administration released guidance on how Long COVID can be a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Ditkowsky, who herself has Long COVID, said it seems counterintuitive to narrow the definitions for people with disabilities at this time.

“We’ve had one of the biggest mass disabling events in a long time with COVID-19 pandemic,” she said. ” … But the questions don’t necessarily get at a lot of the issues that Long COVID patients or patients with chronic conditions and people with chronic pain experience.”

To comment on the changes to the American Community Survey go to regulations.gov and click on comment. Deadline to comment is Dec. 19, 2023.

Chief Equity Officer Abigail Vivas, who oversees the microbusiness program  under the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, said in a report released Friday that the ineligibility issues included “failure to provide documentation that the facility would be operated by eligible individuals" (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

Missouri cannabis regulators may revoke 11 of the 48 social-equity cannabis licenses issued in October after finding they didn’t meet eligibility requirements. 

Nine were dispensaries and two were wholesale facilities.

Among those who could face license revocation is Canna Zoned, a Michigan company that secured two of the 16 dispensary cannabis licenses — in Columbia and Arnold. 

Both of Cana Zoned’s licenses have been deemed ineligible, according to information the state provided to The Independent Friday evening.

State records show Canna Zoned was connected to 104 out of the 1,048 applications that were entered into a lottery selection for the dispensary licenses. An investigation by The Independent in October found applicants thought they were partnering with the Michigan investor but in reality signed agreements requiring them to relinquish all control and profits of the business. 

Some applicants were recruited through Craigslist ads from around the country. 

Another company that used the strategy of flooding Missouri’s lottery with applications was an Arizona-based consulting firm called Cannabis Business Advisors. It was connected to more than 400 dispensary applicants, including six winners. 

The state couldn’t certify the eligibility for all six of the licenses connected to the firm’s clients.

A Missouri firm, Amendment 2 Consultants, is connected to more than 80 dispensary applicants and two winners. One of the group’s dispensary applicants was deemed ineligible.

Abigail Vivas, who oversees the microbusiness program under the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services as chief equity officer, said in a report released Friday that the ineligibility issues included “failure to provide documentation that the facility would be operated by eligible individuals.”

The microbusiness program is meant to boost opportunities in the industry for businesses in disadvantaged communities, and it was part of the constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana that voters passed in November. 

Following The Independent’s October report, state Sen. Karla May, a St. Louis Democrat, demanded the state investigate what she called an “egregious exploitation” of social-equity cannabis licenses.

The other eligibility issues cited in the report included failure to provide adequate documentation to verify the majority owner met the eligibility criteria and for a disqualifying felony offense.

The constitution mandates the chief equity officer conduct an eligibility review within 60 days of the microbusiness licenses being issued and make the results available to the public. 

The review was completed Dec. 1, according to a department press release Friday.

Licenses that are not certified may be revoked, and notices of pending revocation provide a 30-day response period, according to state marijuana rules.

During that 30-day window, licensees can submit records or information demonstrating why they are eligible and should not have their license revoked. All revoked licenses will be added to the available licenses awarded in the next application timeframe, the press release states.

The department will issue a minimum of 96 additional microbusiness licenses in two separate lotteries conducted by the Missouri Lottery. Applications for the second of three total rounds are tentatively scheduled to begin in March 2024 with licenses to be issued in July.

This story was updated after publication.

A qualifying foster parent under the proposed federal rule would need to be educated on the needs of the child’s sexuality or gender identity and, if the child wishes, “facilitate the child's access to age-appropriate resources, services, and activities that support their health and well-being" (photo illustration by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder).

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey this week joined with 18 other states to oppose a proposed federal rule that aims to protect LGBTQ youth in foster care and provide them with necessary services.

The attorneys general argue in a letter to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services that the proposed rule — which requires states to provide safe and appropriate placements with providers who are appropriately trained about the child’s sexual orientation or gender identity  — amounts to religion-based discrimination and violates freedom of speech.

“As a foster parent myself,” Bailey said in a news release Tuesday, “I am deeply invested in protecting children and putting their best interests first.”

“Biden’s proposed rule does exactly the opposite by enacting policies meant to exclude people with deeply held religious beliefs from being foster parents.”

The rule is part of a package of federal proposals on foster care and is an extension of the Biden administration’s broader push to protect LGBTQ kids in foster care.

“Because of family rejection and abuse,” the Biden administration said in a September press release, LGBTQ children are “overrepresented in foster care where they face poor outcomes, including mistreatment and discrimination because of who they are.”

State agencies would be required under the rule to provide safe and appropriate foster care placements for those who are “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex,” along with children who are “non-binary or have non-conforming gender identity or expression.”

A qualifying foster parent would need to be educated on the needs of the child’s sexuality or gender identity and, if the child wishes, “facilitate the child’s access to age-appropriate resources, services, and activities that support their health and well-being.”

An example of a safe and appropriate placement is one where a provider is “expected to utilize the child’s identified pronouns, chosen name, and allow the child to dress in an age-appropriate manner,” according to the proposal, “that the child believes reflects their self-identified gender identity and expression.”

The attorneys general characterize that as “forcing an individual to use another’s preferred pronouns by government fiat,” in violation of the First Amendment.

Robert Fischer, director of communications for Missouri LGBTQ advocacy organization PROMO, said the freedom of religion “doesn’t give any person the right to impose those beliefs on others, particularly to discriminate.” 

“Any state official who claims to put ‘children’s interests first’ and in the same breath is willing to risk their well-being and opportunity to thrive in the name of religion — I think that speaks for itself,” Fischer told The Independent. 

The rule prohibits retaliation against children who identify as LGBTQ or are perceived as LGBTQ.

Public agencies would need to notify children about the option to request foster homes identified as “safe and appropriate” and tell them how to report concerns about their placement.

Agencies would also have to go through extra steps before placing transgender, intersex and gender non-conforming children in group care settings that are divided by sex.

The “majority” of states, according to the proposed rule, would have to “expand their efforts” to recruit and identify providers who could meet the needs of LGBTQ children.

Missouri guidelines

Laws and policies for protecting LGBTQ youth in foster care — relating to kids’ rights, supports, placement considerations, caregiver qualifications and definitions — currently vary by state. 

According to a federal report published in January, which reviewed states’ laws and policies, Missouri does not have laws or policies explicitly addressing any of those five categories.

Most states — 39 states and Washington, D.C. — have “explicit protections from harassment or discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression,” according to a federal report, as of January. Missouri is not one of them. 

Twenty-two  states and D.C. as of January, require agencies to provide tailored services and supports to LGBTQ youth, and eight states and D.C. offer case management and facilitate access to “gender-affirming medical, mental health and social services.”

Children’s Division, the agency within the Missouri Department of Social Services that oversees foster care, offers guidance on their website for providers and child welfare staff in “supporting LGBTQ youth in foster care,” but still does not appear to have official policy on the issue.

A spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Social Services did not respond to a request for comment. 

Those guidelines include using the child’s “preferred name and pronouns,” along with establishing a supportive environment and providing “physically and emotionally safe and supportive care and resources regardless of one’s personal attitudes and beliefs.”

The Department of Social Services is part of the administration of Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, and the guidelines were in place the entire time Bailey was serving as Parson’s general counsel — the second highest ranking job in the governor’s office.  

Asked whether he raised any objections to the guidelines during his tenure with Parson, Bailey’s spokesperson said he “had no involvement in crafting [the Department of Social Services’] ‘best practices’ as general counsel.”

AG arguments

The 19 attorneys general contend the federal rule would “remove faith-based providers from the foster care system” because of their “religious beliefs on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

They cite Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled a public agency couldn’t force private, religious foster agencies to allow same-sex foster parents.

The proposed rule itself also acknowledges the Supreme Court case and alleges that by not requiring religious foster-care providers to welcome LGBTQ children, it is complying with the court’s precedent.

But the attorneys general do not believe this is enough. Their letter argues the proposal violates freedom of religion because those unwilling to support LGBTQ foster children “would be excluded from providing care to as many as one-third of foster children ages 12-21.”

“In addition to discriminating against religion, the proposed rule will harm children by limiting the number of available foster homes, harm families by risking kinship placements, and harm states by increasing costs and decreasing care options,” the letter says.

The rule would “discourage individuals and organizations of faith from joining or continuing in foster care,” the attorneys general argue, and “reduce family setting options.” Without faith-based foster parents, the attorneys general say, children would be more likely to be placed in congregate settings.

They also say the rule could disqualify family members who volunteer as placement, or kinship care, if the family member does not agree to support the child’s sexuality or gender identity with age-appropriate resources, as the rule entails.

This story was updated since it was first published.

More than a dozen states have passed laws repudiating historical, racially restrictive covenants embedded in property deeds that prohibited the sale of those homes to Black residents or, depending on the community, to immigrants from certain countries such as Poland or Ireland, or to Jews or Asian Americans (Douglas Sacha/Getty Images).

Lisa Boccetti is horrified by the restrictive covenant that is in the deed to her 1950s ranch house in Raleigh, North Carolina: It states that the land cannot be sold or occupied by Black people.

The property “shall not be sold to negroes or to any person or persons of negro blood, and said premises shall not be occupied by negroes or persons of negro blood, except domestic servants and their families, employed by the occupants of the premises,” the original deed states.

She and her husband, Bob Williams, would like to remove the offensive language, which hasn’t been legally binding for more than half a century, but North Carolina doesn’t have a process to do so. In 2021, two state senators filed legislation to give homeowners a way to erase such covenants, but the bill was sent to a committee and died.

“It’s infuriating, because unless your state has a process in place through legislation to remove or repudiate the contract, there’s nothing you can do to make it go away,” Boccetti said.

In recent years, more than a dozen states have passed laws repudiating historical, racially restrictive covenants embedded in property deeds that prohibited the sale of those homes to Black residents or, depending on the community, to immigrants from certain countries such as Poland or Ireland, or to Jews or Asian Americans.

In some states, new laws now allow the historical wording to be removed altogether.

In 2022, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed a bill into law that requires antiquated housing restrictions based on race, national origin or religion to be removed in all newly-recorded deeds. The law requires people who prepare or submit a deed for recording – typically a title company – to remove the language before sending it into the recorder of deeds. If the language is not removed, then the recorder of deeds office can refuse to accept the deed and send it back to the title company to make the changes.

Lawmakers have touted the new laws, passed with bipartisan support, as a formal rebuke to segregationist housing policies and the symbolic closing of a dark chapter in American history. The U.S. Supreme Court declared the covenants unconstitutional in 1948; the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 outlawed them.

Covenant clauses that prevented non-whites from buying or occupying land were a tool that enforced segregation in U.S. communities across the country in the early to mid-20th century, led to discrimination by banks and, researchers note, have lingering effects today.

“I emphasize all the time that efforts to discharge the language in these covenants needs to be the start of a conversation, not the end of a conversation,” said Michael Corey, a researcher for the Mapping Prejudice project at the University of Minnesota, which focuses on the causes of segregation in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

“We can’t erase history because it makes white people uncomfortable,” Corey said in an interview. “We have to understand how this history has disadvantaged minority populations from access to wealth building.”

Historians and researchers praise one state’s covenant law for looking to the future as well as the past: Washington state’s measure not only recognizes the harmful effects of past real estate discrimination but also seeks to rectify it, at least in part.

The law, which Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee signed in May, levies a fee of $100 on all real estate transactions to fund a so-called covenant homeownership account.

That account will provide down payments and closing cost loans to certain first-time homebuyers who were, or would have been, prevented from buying properties prior to April 11, 1968, when the Fair Housing Act became law.

The descendants of people who were or would have been harmed by the covenants also are eligible. All recipients must have incomes at or below 100% of an area’s median income, however. The fee is projected to generate between $75 million and $100 million annually, according to a legislative analysis.

Washington has yet to determine how much assistance qualifying homebuyers will receive, and under what conditions, but the new fund is supposed to begin disbursing money next July.

Upon House passage of the bill, sponsor state Rep. Jamila Taylor described it as a “focused and thoughtful” approach to help “right the wrongs of the past.”

“The deliberate and harmful barriers preventing Black homeownership impact intergenerational wealth and housing security,” Taylor, a Democrat, said in a statement on her legislative site. “Because this racial discrimination was targeted, the solution must also be targeted.”

The homeownership rate among Black, Hispanic, Asian and Indigenous people in Washington state is 49%, 19 percentage points lower than that of non-Hispanic white households, according to a state report released last year. Only 31% of Black households own their homes, the report said.

“History has taught us that it took generations of systemic, racist, and discriminatory policies and practices to get to where we are today,” the report states.

It cites restrictive covenants but also redlining, or the denial of loans to people residing in poor or minority neighborhoods. It also blames so-called blockbusting, in which real estate speculators preyed on white fears by introducing a Black family to a neighborhood, persuading fleeing white homeowners to sell at below-market rates, then reselling those homes at high prices to new Black families.

During the debate over the Washington state bill, at least one Republican argued that the $100 transaction fee would harm the first-time homebuyers and lower-income people the legislation was designed to help.

But James Gregory, a history professor at the University of Washington, said paying for compensation “is a central piece of what the model legislation would look like if states were actually trying to restore the harms of these covenants.”

“These covenants not only caused segregation, but it limited homeownership opportunities for generations of people,” Gregory said. “If you’re trying to undo those harms, you need to take measures to reopen those opportunities that were never available.”

Richard Rothstein, whose 2017 book, “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America,” documented how federal, state and local policies explicitly created racially homogenous neighborhoods, told Stateline that merely removing racist covenants won’t address current housing disparities. He described the covenants as “the least important of these policies affecting systemic barriers in housing, especially after they lost enforcement power.”

But Rothstein, a fellow at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, praised the Washington bill as “a justifiable measure to restore harm done through those covenants.”

Washington’s law is the exception, however.

In Nevada, which enacted a law renouncing racist covenants earlier this year, sponsor Sen. Dallas Harris said she would have liked to emulate Washington state’s approach. Harris said the covenants “created systemic barriers to homeownership and capital” in her state, and that while she knew they had existed before she began pushing her bill, she didn’t realize how extensively they were used.

But Harris said a bill similar to Washington’s was a nonstarter in Nevada, which has a Republican governor.

“It was important for me to find a way to strike hurtful and harmful language, without making attempts to erase what the damage that these covenants caused,” she told Stateline. She said a law such as Washington’s is “the ultimate goal.”

“Taking action steps and providing actual compensation for the harm that’s done is good policy,” she said. “But it may be hard to do that in some states, financially or politically.”

In the Raleigh area where Lisa Boccetti and Bob Williams live, nearly 74% of white residents own their homes, while less than 46% of Black residents and about 47% of Hispanic residents are homeowners, according to census data.

Boccetti and Williams, who are white, are voluntarily leading a project to pore through property record books and catalog racial covenants to create a searchable database for the Wake County Register of Deeds, where Raleigh is located.

Tammy Brunner, a Democrat and the register of deeds, told Stateline the project can help explain how today’s neighborhoods were shaped.

“We strongly believe that once we pull out all of the restrictive covenants, we will create a map of redlining in the county and we’ll find that the underserved communities were created by these covenants,” she said.

Boccetti hopes the effort helps to spur covenant legislation in the GOP-controlled legislature.

Discovering the restrictive covenant in her deed and the struggle to remove it “has been a learning experience,” she said.

“It’s allowed us to see the ways why our neighborhood has been shaped the way it is,” she said. “It’s something we must grapple with, even if it makes us uncomfortable.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.

Posters of people kidnapped by Hamas in Israel displayed Oct. 30 on a pole outside of New York University as tensions between supporters of Palestinians and Israel increase on college campuses across the nation. The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday held a hearing that looked at antisemitism on college campuses among other free speech issues. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Rebecca Varney stands in November 2020 on the porch of her home in Edgar Springs. Varney prevailed in a lawsuit accusing the town of Sunshine Law and First Amendment violations for an order banning her from City Hall. (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent)

A small Missouri city’s attempt to “intimidate and silence” a critic violated both her First Amendment rights and the Missouri Sunshine Law, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Edgar Springs, a town of 200 in southern Phelps County, must pay a nominal fine of $150 to Rebecca Varney for banning her from city hall for four years, and for holding several closed meetings with business that should have been conducted in public, Judge John Beger decided. 

The cost of the violations will be far more than that, however, because Beger also ordered the city to pay $43,995 in attorneys fees, plus additional costs that have not yet been calculated to bring the case to trial.

Varney, a longtime resident of the community, began looking into city finances after receiving a traffic ticket in 2018, Beger wrote in his ruling. She was concerned that the town’s police force was using traffic offenses as a means of generating revenue and began visiting city hall frequently to review documents.

She also regularly attended meetings of the Board of Aldermen, the judge wrote, raising criticisms of city operations and, when dissatisfied with the results, gathering signatures that resulted in a state audit. The audit found numerous deficiencies in financial administration and Sunshine Law violations

Edgar Springs officials issued a “no trespass notice” to Varney in April 2018, notifying her she could not visit city hall except to attend board meetings. In November 2019, after she had questioned a gathering earlier in the month by the mayor, aldermen and the city maintenance employee, the order was expanded so she could not attend public meetings.

The order was enforced even when David Roland, the attorney who represented Varney, told the police chief that barring Varney was a violation of the Sunshine Law, Beger noted.

“The court wishes to emphasize again, the actions of defendants in this case, apparently seeking to intimidate and silence Varney from exercising her rights to examine and be knowledgeable about the workings of her city government are disturbing, especially when considered in the context of the free and open democratic society in which we are purported to live,” Beger wrote in his ruling.

Reached Wednesday morning by telephone, Varney said she was “thrilled” with the decision.

“It means citizens across the state everywhere can keep an eye on, for instance, all this federal money coming in and making sure you know we have needs and make sure it’s spent on those needs,” Varney said.

Roland runs the Freedom Center of Missouri, providing pro bono Sunshine Law legal services for people unable to afford an attorney. Without his help, Varney said, she could never have prevailed.

“It’s been a struggle every step of the way,” she said. “Without an attorney, nothing would have changed.”

The case is an expensive lesson for Edgar Springs and should be a warning to officials across the state that they must accept that some citizens will be critical of their actions, Roland said.

“We cannot have a free society if we have government officials acting like this,” he said. “That’s what made the lawsuit so necessary and vital, and that’s what makes this ruling so vindicating, is it reemphasizes to government officials throughout the state.”

Greg Dohrman, the attorney who represented Edgar Springs at a trial in early September, could not be reached for comment on the ruling. 

The lawsuit was filed in late 2020 and the city fought it all the way to trial despite offers to settle and a preliminary ruling in Varney’s favor on four of the nine counts in the case. In that November 2022 ruling, Beger ordered the city to pay Varney $600 for Sunshine Law violations and to cover Roland’s fees.

“Public access to public records is not a new or novel policy for this state,” Beger wrote in the preliminary ruling.

In the ruling issued Tuesday, Beger said there was no evidence Varney was disruptive or otherwise sought to obstruct government business. Instead, she submitted her records requests as directed and sat quietly at city hall.

When she tried to photograph the records, officials screamed at her to stop, Beger wrote. When she took notes from the records, they ordered her to leave, he added.

The evidence “leads to the unmistakable conclusion” that Varney was banned because of her activities, Beger wrote.

“The city did not offer any legitimate basis for excluding Varney from coming to City Hall at the same times and on the same terms as any other citizen,” Beger wrote.

Varney had sought only nominal damages of $1 on each of her allegations. Beger bumped that amount to $50 for Sunshine Law violations and $100 for the civil rights violations.

In his November 2022 ruling, Beger gave Roland 85% of the fees he requested. The ruling Tuesday increased that to 100% for costs up to the point of the preliminary decision and gave Roland 14 days to submit his costs since that date.

The money will be deposited in the Freedom Center’s account to support litigation in other cases, Roland said. Varney’s case is not the only one of its kind, he said.

“One of the things that we found out, which we suspected before and we definitely found out afterwards, is that there are communities all over the state that have taken action against people who have done nothing more than criticize their public officials,” Roland said.

For Varney, the decision means she can explore city records and make the public aware of what she finds.

“I will resume my attempt to see how my government is spending our money,” Varney said. “I have to believe they will comply with the judge’s order and let me look at documents.”

Ford F-150 Lightning underbodies at Fords Rouge Electric Vehicle Center are inspected in Dearborn, Michigan. Black city officials across the country want to see recent union gains extend to electric vehicle plants, and are calling on President Joe Biden to help (Sarah Rice/Getty Images).

Local Black elected leaders aligned with racial and economic justice groups want to build on the labor gains made through the United Auto Workers’ six-week strike. The union’s tentative deals with the big three automakers include major wins such as a 25% rise in pay and getting rid of the two-tier worker system.

More than 60 Black political leaders, many of them city council members and mayors and school board members in Washington D.C. and 20 states, including North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Michigan, wrote President Joe Biden this week asking him to use his political power to push for higher standards in the rapidly growing electric vehicle industry.

A few weeks ago, GM also agreed to cover electric vehicle battery manufacturing under the contract.

Biden, who spoke in support of the auto workers’ demands and marched in a UAW picket line during the strike, should continue to support changes in the industry, the letter says, by mediating conversations between workers, unions and automakers.

The elected officials say standards of compensation, safety and health for workers should be a priority for those talks. The Biden administration has made investments in electric vehicles a big priority in its economic agenda and has stated that the federal dollars spent on these investments will benefit workers and “expand high-paying manufacturing jobs” and help them “capture the economic benefits of the clean energy transition.”

Nearly $1.7 billion in funding from Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will be spent on electric buses, and organizers of the letter say they don’t want to see the money spent on plants that don’t provide good jobs for workers.

Advocates say these efforts are needed to protect Black auto workers in the South, where pay is often lower and unions are not as strong. All three major automakers have established or are building electric vehicle manufacturing plants and battery plants in southern states, with many of the facilities being placed in rural, Black communities.

Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs With Justice, said the Biden administration has acknowledged that it received the letter but Smiley and others are still waiting on next steps.

“I do think that there is some urgency in this moment for the administration to act, given the upcoming election and not just the presidential election itself but all the congressional elections and down-ballot elections that the Democrats would need to secure the House or even to make a dent,” Smiley said. “Certainly, Black mayors and local elected leaders and school board leaders signing a letter saying, ‘We don’t want to use federal dollars to exploit Southern workers, particularly Southern Black workers, is a powerful message to do that.’”

The majority of Black people live in the Southern U.S., at 56%, according to 2021 American Community Survey data. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that in 2022, 17.7% of workers in motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment manufacturing were Black, and Black workers make up 19% of the Southern automaking region, an Economic Policy Institute’s analysis of 2016-2020 BLS data showed.

The letter also stresses the importance of including Black workers in labor gains given the history of their exclusion from many of those gains.

“Moving jobs to the US South to exploit low labor costs built on a history of white supremacy is a pattern we have seen again and again,” the letter read.

Smiley said Democrats should be interested in ensuring that Black voters have enthusiasm to go to the polls and vote in the 2024 election.

“You applaud the victory in Detroit and assume that everything’s all said and done, but meanwhile, (if) they’re choosing between $17 an hour at McDonald’s and $16.50 at a local EV manufacturing place, they’re not going to feel really excited about that. They aren’t going to feel like you did a lot for them,” she said.

Yterenickia “YT” Bell, a member of the city council in Clarkston, Georgia, said she signed the letter because it’s a good opportunity to center the majority of her community, which is 64% Black. She added that Biden’s support can bolster unionization in a region of the country where it is often challenging to unionize.

“Regarding the EV supply chain plans, they don’t automatically unionize all of the plants, so there’s still a process with that and that’s a big fight. He showed up in the picket lines before and he needs to show them that he’s in this with them to get their wages and to have a voice,” Bell said.

Black people also bear the brunt of many of the effects of climate change, advocates say. One 2019 paper found that Black people breathe in 56% more particulate matter, or air pollution, than they are responsible for with personal consumption.

“[Biden] needs to be mindful that a lot of [Black people] in their communities have been disproportionately impacted by climate change and they’re not able to transition from one place to another,” she said.”We need to be very mindful about how this industry comes into play when we talk about sustainable energy and that he needs to ensure that standards of the current agreement are the norm and not just an exception.”

CAPTION: The U.S. House Transportation-HUD and Interior spending bills would block funding for LGBTQ pride flags at certain federal departments and agencies. Shown are the rainbow pride flag and an American flag (Getty Images).

U.S. House Republicans are continuing to use government spending bills to engage in culture war battles, with legislation debated during the past week that would ban pride flags on some federal buildings, strip funding from a new museum for Latino history and target certain LGBTQ and racial equity policies and programs.

The hot-button provisions in the bills to fund the Interior, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development departments are unlikely to become law after negotiations with the Democratic Senate. But they signal that the House Republican majority will maintain a strong focus on contentious social issues, as have their counterparts in GOP-majority statehouses.

Spending bills, particularly in the House, often include policy provisions favored by the majority party. But the level of detail in measures that historically have seen fewer such fights reflects a more aggressive position by House Republicans, observers said.

Democrats object to the overall spending levels in the Republican-written House spending bills, which are lower than detailed in the debt limit agreement House Republicans reached with President Joe Biden. But Democrats are also highly critical of the inclusion of cultural issues that have little to do with spending.

Who is Mike Johnson? New U.S. House speaker belongs to GOP’s religious conservative wing

The bill to fund the Transportation Department and HUD and the bill to fund Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency “shove MAGA culture wars down the throats of the American people,” House Rules Committee ranking member Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, said on the floor Thursday.

The Transportation-HUD bill, votes on which were postponed to the week of Nov. 6, includes a contentious provision to block spending on three specific LGBTQ community centers in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. The language was adopted in a tense committee meeting in July marked by charges of hatred and bigotry by Democrats.

In a statement, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts called the provision “one of the more brazen culture war moves this Congress.”

Spokespeople for House Appropriations Chair Kay Granger, a Texas Republican, and Transportation-HUD Subcommittee Chair Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, did not immediately return messages seeking comment Friday.

The Transportation-HUD bill and Interior bills would also block funding for LGBTQ pride flags at departments and agencies covered by the bills and include a provision that bans disciplinary action for people acting on “sincerely held religious belief” against same-sex marriage.

The bill to fund the Interior Department, Environmental Protection Agency and similar agencies, which the House passed Friday on a near-party-line 213-203 vote, includes provisions blocking funding for the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of the American Latino, various diversity programs and the promotion of critical race theory. Congress authorized the museum, which would recognize the history, culture and accomplishments of Latino communities, in 2020.

Three Republicans, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro of New York, voted against the bill. One Democrat, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, voted in favor.

New fronts in culture war

Partisan provisions in spending bills are not new, said former U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican who sat on the House Appropriations Committee from 2011 to his retirement in 2018.

But they are generally more common in the bills related to health care, labor, education and homeland security spending.

Bills to fund military construction and the departments of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Interior and Energy “tended not to get as many bad ones,” Dent told States Newsroom, referring to partisan policies.

Republican amendments to limit spending seen as wasteful were “not uncommon,” but generally didn’t stray into cultural issues, he said.

The small-scale nature of some of the provisions appears more targeted than in past years, Sonya Acosta, a senior housing policy analyst at the liberal think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, said.

“It’s not a new thing for members of Congress to have anti-LGBTQ policies,” Acosta said. “But to have them be so minute seems different.”

Appropriators, generally seen in Congress as moderates who must compromise, write contentious provisions into bills to mollify more extreme members, Dent said.

“This has been going on for years, and it’s only getting worse,” he added. “Just getting these people trying to force appropriators to write bills we knew could never become law. But it’s a wink and a nod: ‘OK, we’ll pass this piece of garbage out of the House and we’ll get to where we want to go in the end but we have to go through this process.’”

Environmental justice targeted

In another example, an amendment to the Interior-Environment bill offered by Texas Republican Chip Roy would block funding for environmental justice programs.

Biden’s Justice40 Initiative has sought to spend 40% of certain environmental and climate funding in disadvantaged communities that have been harmed by pollution and climate impacts.

“This entire ideology is based on the notion that federal environmental funding should be allocated based on immutable characteristics,” Roy said on the House floor Friday, apparently referring to environmental justice efforts targeted to communities of color.

Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Maine Democrat who is the ranking member on the Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, responded that undesirable sites such as landfills, incinerators and radioactive waste storage have often been placed in low-income communities.

Environmental justice initiatives seek to reverse that historic discrimination that has resulted in communities seeing lower property values, higher health care costs and shorter lifespans, she said.

“Why would my colleagues try to defund any efforts to improve the lives of people in rural and low-income communities?” Pingree said. “I’m sorry, but it’s just another attempt to implement an extreme agenda to attack minority groups at all costs, and to return the U.S. to a time when environmental discrimination was the norm.”

The House adopted Roy’s amendment on a 212-204 vote. Republicans Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon and Fitzpatrick joined all Democrats present in voting against adoption.

The bill also included a provision to block funding “that promotes or advances” critical race theory, an academic field generally used in higher education that has nonetheless become a target of social conservatives worried that it is an example of reverse racism taught to young students.

The bill includes some funding for the Bureau of Indian Education, which supports schools on reservations. Another spending bill covering education, labor and health and human services also includes BIE funding.

Senate leverage

Spending bills are typically resolved by the leaders of each party in the House and Senate, Dent said.

Because of the nature of each chamber — and the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to pass legislation — the House version typically includes more partisan provisions that are stripped out of the final product. The Senate version is generally more bipartisan from the outset, giving that chamber the upper hand in negotiations, Dent said.

“Whatever bill crosses the finish line is not going to have these very contentious policy riders because they can’t get a bipartisan consensus in the Senate that would allow for 60 votes,” he said.

Dent, who was seen as a moderate during his time in office and has endorsed some Democrats since leaving Congress in 2018, criticized House Republicans for allowing a group of conservative hardliners to dictate the appropriations process.

“They go through this exercise all in an attempt to placate, pacify, appease, this hard-right group that didn’t support the budget agreement anyway,” he said. “All this time and effort to appease folks who are not going to end up voting for the bill anyway.”

But including such provisions in the House bill allocating housing funds still has consequences for LGBTQ people, Acosta said.

“LGBTQ folks experience homelessness at higher rates,” she said. “And part of that is because of the attitudes that are now being promoted at the federal level. And so that’s only going to exacerbate the issues that are happening on the ground.”

Seeing that could make LGBTQ people less likely to feel comfortable seeking services, Acosta added.

“Even if it’s just around messaging,” she said. “That messaging is incredibly harmful and counter-productive.”

Qasim Rahimi came to Kansas City as a refugee in 2021 following the Taliban’s siege of Kabul. He is fleeing persecution as a journalist and former government official (Dominick Williams/The Beacon).

When the Taliban overtook Kabul in 2021, Qasim Rahimi went into hiding at a neighbor’s house.

Meanwhile, U.S. troops withdrew and took nearly 90,000 Afghan evacuees who were in danger of persecution. Rahimi knew he had to leave, too.

“I was a journalist and a director in (the) Afghanistan government when the government fell, so I was not feeling secure,” he said. “I had to escape.”

Rahimi’s two older brothers, one a journalist and the other employed with International Security Assistance Forces, found a way for much of the family, including Rahimi, to flee to a military camp in Germany. From there, he found his way to the United States and, eventually, Kansas City.

He is one of several thousand refugees who were granted humanitarian parole status. That grants them temporary admission to the U.S. based on threats they’d face to their lives if they stayed in their home country.

Once in Kansas City, Rahimi relied on Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas for help settling in. The agency helped him find an apartment, apply for asylum status, find work and more.

While many Afghans have gotten far in their resettlement process, two years later, some refugees still face issues with housing and uncertainty about how long they can stay in the country as their temporary humanitarian parole status inches to its end.

What support did Afghan refugees receive?

The arrival of Afghan refugees meant a crush of work for local aid groups.

“It felt like a humanitarian crisis,” said Dr. Sofia Khan, the founder of KC for Refugees. “ It was overwhelming.”

Her group has helped roughly 1,000 Afghans since 2021, including one group of 20 families that landed at Kansas City International Airport with little money and even less understanding of their new environment.

“It was a time to tighten our belts and push ourselves,” Khan said, “not the time to walk away.”

She said her organization needed help from the local Afghan community to understand the new refugees’ cultural traditions and social norms.

They put together about 500 welcome baskets filled with Qurans, prayer rugs, prayer beads, black tea, dried fruit, nuts and electric tea kettles. Volunteers recruited the help of Afghan women to sew cushions for toshaks, floor cushions traditionally used as a couch or bed.

“We added things that bring family together and make them feel like they’re back home,” said Zhamilya Koshmambetova, a volunteer with KC for Refugees.

Koshmambetova also distributed more than 2,000 articles of clothing to children. Just as many articles of clothing were collected for adults, who had stricter requirements for their wardrobe.

“For many,” she said, “Western clothing was off the table.”

To accommodate refugee requests for traditional clothing, people from local South Asian communities and mosques stepped up to donate similar garments.

Health care and education also posed challenges. Jewish Vocational Service, a nonprofit that helps newcomers integrate into the community, set up refugees for health screenings, health care providers and vaccinations children needed to enroll in school.

“School enrollment was the biggest challenge because so many people came in at once, and our capacity to help people was down because of COVID, so there were less people coming in, then all of sudden more people came,” said Hilary Singer, the executive director of JVS.

“There was lots of waiting for people to get vaccines and challenges with school districts to get kids enrolled because they didn’t have vaccines or permanent addresses. We had to get creative.”

At first, Singer said, Kansas City Public Schools teachers came to the hotels and offered instruction to kids. Later, a bus was routed to the hotel to take children to the KCPS Global Academy, which is designed to help students transition to life in Kansas City.

“As hectic and busy as it was, (it) brought about real collaboration with our partners that had the benefit of the community in mind,” she said.

What challenges do Afghan refugees face?

Many Afghans have found some stability two years into their time in the U.S. Rahimi works as an immigration specialist, for example.

Yet housing remains an ongoing challenge for him and other refugees who don’t have an intuitive understanding of the rental market — or their rights as tenants.

Catholic Charities made it easy for Rahimi to find his first apartment. But when he went looking on his own in September 2022, he said the landlord pulled a bait-and-switch.

“They showed me the sample. I loved it and they told me everything was the same,” he said. “But when I moved into the apartment, the situation was bad and I wanted to leave.”

After multiple complaints to his landlord, Rahimi was moved to a different unit with very similar problems, including roaches and malfunctioning amenities.

“During the winter, the heat doesn’t work very well,” he said. “During the summer, the AC doesn’t work. I usually don’t have any hot water pressure.”

He’s asked city inspectors to take a look, but he’s reluctant to take his complaints to court for fear that could foul up his refugee status.

“I don’t have the mental or physical power to open a case like this at the moment,” he said.

Refugees also qualify for rent subsidies through the federal Section 8 program, but those apartments already have long waiting lists and come with restrictions that may keep families out.

“A lot of these families have four to five kids and Section 8 has strict rules on rooming. You can’t have a two-bedroom with five kids sleeping there,” said Khan, the founder of KC for Refugees.  “Looking for larger homes with Section 8 restriction is even harder.”

While refugees wrestle  with housing issues, they remain in limbo about their ability to stay in the country.

The humanitarian parole status that protected refugees from deportation and granted them the freedom to work for two years was set to expire this summer. In October, the federal government announced Afghans could apply for a re-parole process for a temporary period, but advocates say that extends refugees’ worries about their status rather than solves the issue.

“If folks want to be able to stay in this country permanently, that’s a one-by-one determination either through special immigrant visa process or the asylum process, and they’re cumbersome processes to engage in,” said Singer, the JVS executive director.

She said JVS submitted asylum applications for 80 families last summer. Only seven have had a formal decision since then.

“The vast majority of folks don’t have any sense of whether they can stay in the U.S. permanently,” she said. “It’s not like they have an alternative that is realistic.”

Their advocates say the stakes are high.

“A lot of these people were already targets of the current existing government over there,” said Khan. “There’s not really a way for them to be safe if they go back to Afghanistan.”

The importance of community aid

Refugees say their troubles finding work and apartments are small compared to the worries that linger about the family they left in Afghanistan.

“My psychological situation cannot be separated from Afghanistan,” Rahimi said.

He’s part of the Hazara ethnic tribe facing long-standing persecution at the hands of the Taliban.

“Here, you can buy a car, home or anything you want,” Rahimi said. “But in (Afghanistan), your sister doesn’t have enough food, your family doesn’t have security, and your niece or nephew can’t go to school.”

Rahimi has also not seen his wife, who lives in India, in seven years, and with his current migrant status, he is not sure when he will see her next.

Fatima Abbasi, who came to the U.S. from Afghanistan in 2018, also deals with feelings of guilt and remorse. Abbasi began to volunteer with KC for Refugees to provide support to young women coming from her country. But she can’t help but think of the support she wishes she could provide back home.

Her father died in Afghanistan in October before she had a chance to visit him. Her mother recently suffered a heart attack.

“I can help another refugee, but I can’t help my mom,” she said. “I have everything in the U.S. but my family.”

Still, Afghan refugees have begun to build a community here. Rahimi, for instance, has found something of a home in Kansas City.

“Everyone has some sort of issue with a new type of culture,” Rahimi said. “Fortunately, I have found the people of Kansas and Missouri to be very kind.”

The friendships he has made through work and school have aided Rahimi in learning to drive, purchasing a car and finding things to do on the weekends.

“When you’re trying to learn about a new culture, you need time,” he said. “But when you have a good community it doesn’t take as much time.”

This article first appeared on The Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey speaks to reporters outside the Western District Court of Appeals building in Kansas City on Oct. 30, 2023, while Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft waits for his turn the microphones (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent).

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft wrote ballot titles for six proposals to restore abortion rights that were “replete with politically partisan language,” a Missouri appeals court unanimously ruled Tuesday.

In an expedited decision issued a day after hearing arguments, a three-judge panel of the Western District Court of Appeals upheld, with only minor revisions, the revised ballot titles written by Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem.

In a decision by a separate panel, the court upheld the fiscal note summary written by State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick. Rejecting arguments from two lawmakers and an anti-abortion activist, the court said Fitzpatrick’s summary was “fair and sufficient.”

Ashcroft issued a statement that he would appeal the decision to the Missouri Supreme Court, a process likely to take several weeks. The ongoing court battle narrows the time for gathering signatures to put the proposal on the 2024. Backers must secure more than 170,000 signatures from registered voters by early May.

A key error in Ashcroft’s ballot titles, states the opinion signed by Judge Thomas Chapman, was its single-minded focus on how it would impact the legality of abortion. The proposed constitutional amendments, he wrote, cover all aspects of reproductive health care.

“The absence of any reference to a right to reproductive health care beyond abortion in the summary statements is misleading,” Chapman wrote.

There was little to be saved from Ashcroft’s summaries, he wrote.

“The secretary’s summary statements do not fairly describe the purposes and probable effects of the initiatives,” he wrote. “The secretary’s summary statements are replete with politically partisan language.”

Missouri judge rejects secretary of state’s ‘problematic’ summary of abortion initiative petitions

Chapman zeroed in on particular phrases as especially troublesome. In the ballot title for each of the six proposals, Ashcroft wrote that passage would “nullify longstanding Missouri law protecting the right to life, including but not limited to partial-birth abortion.”

The phrase “right to life,” like its counterpart in the abortion debate, “right to choose,” is a partisan phrase intended to trigger a particular response, Chapman wrote.

“The use of the term ‘right to life’ is simply not an impartial term,” he wrote.

The same is true for “partial birth abortion,” he wrote, calling it “a politically charged phrase” that “carries no fixed definition.”

The lengthy battle to get ballot titles written began when Anna Fitz-James, a St. Louis physician, filed 11 proposed constitutional amendments with Ashcroft’s office in March on behalf of a political action committee called Missourians for Constitutional Freedom.

The proposals would amend the constitution to declare that the “government shall not infringe upon a person’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom.” 

That would include “prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care and respectful birthing conditions.” Penalties for both patients seeking reproductive-related care and medical providers would be outlawed.

Each version of the proposed amendment says there must be a “compelling governmental interest” for abortion restrictions to be put in place. But while some allow the legislature to regulate abortion after “fetal viability,” others draw the line at 24 weeks of gestation. 

Some versions make it clear the state can enact parental consent laws for minors seeking abortions. Others leave the topic out entirely. 

Under Missouri law, Ashcroft had up to 56 days to obtain certifications of the form and fiscal note, write a ballot title and certify the petition for circulation.

Attorney General Andrew Bailey tested his authority during that process, refusing to certify the fiscal note summary written by Fitzpatrick until the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in July that his role was limited to determining whether it fit the form required by law.

With legal backing of the ACLU of Missouri, Fitz-James sued Ashcroft over his ballot titles. That led to Beetem’s ruling on Sept. 25 and the subsequent appeal.

In a statement issued Tuesday, the ACLU called the appeals court ruling a complete victory.

“Today, the courts upheld Missourians’ constitutional right to direct democracy over the self-serving attacks of politicians desperately seeking to climb the political ladder,” the statement read. “The decision from Missouri Court of Appeals is a complete rebuke of the combined efforts from the Attorney General and Secretary of State to interfere and deny Missourian’s their right to initiative process.”

Ashcroft said in a statement that Missouri courts “refused to allow the truth to be known. The Western District essentially approved the language that was entirely rewritten by Judge Beetem. Not only is the language misleading but it is categorically false. The circuit court’s opinion admits the real issue is about abortion. The Western District today continued to gloss over the issue in its affirmation. We stand by our language and believe it fairly and accurately reflects the scope and magnitude of each petition.”

Bailey also said in a statement that he disagreed with the decision.

“We remain undeterred in our fight to protect the health and safety of women and children from the radical abortion activists working to turn Missouri into California,” Bailey said.

The appeals court ruling will likely guide litigation over similar language Ashcroft applied to proposals seeking to add rape and incest exceptions to the state’s abortion ban. Those ballot titles, on proposals pitched as a middle ground between the ban currently in place and more expansive rights included in the Fitz-James initiatives, are being challenged in a lawsuit filed last week. 

Abortion became illegal in Missouri in June 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that recognized a constitutional right to abortion. The only exception is for emergency abortions to save the life of the mother or when there is “a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”

In its ruling, the court of appeals upheld only one aspect of Ashcroft’s original ballot title – that the proposals would bar the government from discriminating against individuals or organizations that support reproductive rights or provide reproductive services.

The court restored the language, substituting “reproductive services” for “abortion” in Ashcroft’s sentence because “the Secretary’s singular focus on abortion in addressing the nondiscrimination provisions is, as previously noted, misleading.”

In upholding Beetem’s decision to rewrite all the ballot titles, Chapman said he had no choice. 

“After removal of the inaccurate and partisan language of the secretary’s summary statements, the circuit court was left with largely unworkable summary statements,” Chapman wrote. “The circuit court was authorized to write alternative language to fulfill its responsibility that a fair and sufficient summary statement be certified.”

In the decision on the fiscal note summary, Judge Alok Ahuja, also writing for an unanimous panel, ruled that Fitzpatrick had accurately summarized the fiscal note. State Rep. Hannah Kelly, R-Mountain Grove, state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, R-Arnold, and Kathy Forck, a longtime anti-abortion advocate from New Bloomfield, filed the challenge, arguing that the state could lose federal Medicaid funding and trillions in future tax revenue.

Their briefs cited no authority that showed Medicaid funding was in danger and Fitzpatrick received no information from state agencies that showed it was likely, the court ruled.

On another point, the panel rejected the idea that Fitzpatrick should have used an estimated loss of revenue from Greene County and projected it statewide. The assumptions used by Greene County were dubious, Ahuja wrote, because they are based on a pure revenue-per-person calculation of local tax collections.

Newborns aren’t likely to have the same spending patterns as adults, Ahuja noted.

“Moreover, despite Kelly’s glib contention that extrapolating the Greene County estimate would be a ‘simple’ exercise, she ignores that sales and property tax rates are not uniform state-wide – nor are the value of real and personal property, or the wealth, income and consumption patterns of individuals and businesses,” Ahuja wrote.

In a statement, Fitzpatrick said he was gratified that his work had been upheld again.

“I oppose these measures and wholeheartedly agree with the other opponents that protecting innocent life is vitally important,” Fitzpatrick said, “but that does not and cannot influence my duty to honestly inform the voters of the state as to their potential costs.”

This article has been updated since it was initially published. 

Piper Molins stands in front of Neff Hall on Oct. 11 at the Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia. “This has been hugely impactful for my general ability to go to school,” Molins said of race-based scholarships (Devon Didjou/Missourian).

Piper Molins, a junior Latina student at the University of Missouri, remembers bursting into tears at her summer internship upon learning that the university would no longer offer race-based scholarships.

“There’s no way I would have been here or any college, to be honest, without race-based scholarships, and that’s a simple fact,” she said.

Molins, a Denver native, weighed her options before moving to Missouri for school. Being from a single-parent home, funding for higher education was the determining factor on whether she’d be able to attend university.

“Tuition for me was actually more expensive in-state in Colorado than it was to be an out-of-state student going to the University of Missouri because of that diversity scholarship, and only because of that diversity scholarship,” Molins said. “It’s the reason I moved out of state. It’s the reason I’m here at all.”

After the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action on June 29, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey ordered universities to “immediately cease their practice of using race-based standards to make decisions about things like admission, scholarships, programs and employment,” according to a UM System statement.

“These rulings make clear that disfavoring some applicants because of race is not only deeply unpopular; it is unconstitutional,” Bailey’s official letter stated. “Today’s decision finally affirms the promise the Court made 70 years ago: The Constitution requires that ‘education … be made available to all on equal terms.’”

As a result of those actions, the current freshman class at MU is the last one to benefit from race-based scholarships. These scholarships will not be offered to future classes.

According to students who currently receive race-based scholarships, the logistics around the status of their financial aid were unclear, sending them into fight-or-flight mode.

Molins, at first hesitant to tell her mother, shared that “there was very little room for the emotional reckoning” because she needed to focus on solutions.

“I think that, unfortunately, women of color are used to this treatment,” she said.

Carrington Peavy, a Black junior at MU, said she wasn’t surprised at the news but sprang into action as the potential consequences of the policy change sank in. She immediately started looking for other universities that would take her as a transfer student.

“I was like, ‘I’d need to have a plan,’” Peavy said. “Because it’s literally July, and if I lose a scholarship, I will not be able to come back to the University of Missouri.”

Peavy, a Cleveland native, is a Diversity Award recipient and said the scholarship “wipes out” all out-of-state fees. And much like Molins, the scholarship is a “major reason” she attends MU.

Peavy first heard the news during her summer internship with CNN in Atlanta. When she broke the news to her summer colleagues, her manager shed tears over the potential impact.

“They were really, really worried about me and the stability of my education,” Peavy said.

For Peavy and other race-based scholarship recipients, clarity about what the state ruling entailed was given the same day.

The UM System released a statement that the Supreme Court decision would not affect the scholarships awarded to returning students or freshmen who start in fall 2023; however, new students will not have the opportunity to apply for race-based scholarships starting with the Class of 2028.

“UM universities will honor our financial aid commitments that have already been awarded to our returning and incoming students,” according to the UM System statement.

Maurice Gipson, MU vice chancellor of inclusion, diversity and equity, shared at an MU Faculty Council meeting on Oct. 12 that any federal grants or federal authorizations for funding, such as the McNair Scholars Program, will not be affected by the Supreme Court decision.

McNair Scholars is a federal program that prepares undergraduate students for doctoral studies, targeting “first-generation college students with financial need, or members of a group that is traditionally underrepresented,” according to its website.

Molins said that while clarity was eventually given, the students of color she knew who would be potentially affected had to figure it out themselves. After MU’s decision, Molins said she set an appointment with her financial adviser “immediately.”

“It is not our responsibility to hound this university for a response; they should respect us enough, and they should respect our personhood enough, to give us a response to this. This is a life-changing policy change that they’ve made,” Molins said.

While Molins is grateful to still have her scholarship until she graduates, her emotions are not all positive.

“I got this deep sense of almost like, survivor’s guilt,” Molins said. “Even though maybe my scholarships aren’t getting taken away, that’s not true for everybody. And I felt guilty. I felt really guilty that I was keeping my funding while hundreds and hundreds of students (are) not going to be able to access that.”

The Missourian reached out to MU officials regarding the policy change, and MU News Bureau Associate Director Uriah Orland said that MU offers a “wide array of initiatives that meet the needs of the vast majority of the campus community.”

“We will continue working to ensure that the entire Mizzou community has the support they need to be successful,” Orland added.

Columbia’s Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer D’Andre Thompson graduated from MU in 2014. Thompson, a Michigan native, received the Diversity Award in 2010. The award was a driving force for his attendance at MU.

Thompson said that by banning funding on diversity initiatives, the government alienates people from marginalized backgrounds and creates a sense of distrust.

“If the university is not willing to stand behind diversity, the ever-evolving changing demographics and population and be intentional about that, that does impact its ability to retain quality candidates, quality employees (and) even students,” Thompson said.

Thompson also said that while some Missourians might not understand the perceived need for race-based funding, it is not the case for others. He called for increased awareness of the importance of race-based funding.

“Just because you don’t directly see its impact doesn’t mean it does not exist,” Thompson said. “Like the oxygen we breathe, we can’t see it.”

Diversity, equity and inclusion is about “honoring each other’s humanity,” and equity is what “tends to get lost” in the conversation, Thompson said. “It’s about … highlighting those disparities, highlighting the separations.”

Molins believes MU’s halt in race-based funding will not only decrease the number of students of color on campus but also people of color in different occupations.

“It will not only have an effect that is unforeseeable to us right now on this community, but also on professional communities and, I think, professional spaces,” Molins said.

Gipson said during the Faculty Council meeting that MU officials are concerned about recruitment and retention of students of color.

“We still had to be proactive in making sure that diverse students knew we want them to consider University of Missouri,” Gipson said, “and … once they got here, we would still have an infrastructure and support for them to be successful here.”

Gipson and his IDE team traveled to cities such as Chicago and Dallas over the summer to recruit diverse students. After speaking with Kim Humphrey, MU vice provost for Enrollment Management & Strategic Development, Gipson said that about halfway into the fall semester enrollment has increased by 10% “in terms of applications from diverse students.”

Gipson said that while MU is no longer able to provide diversity funding, there are other funding opportunities.

“Particularly all of our merit-based aid and then some of the need-based aid that’ll come online shortly,” Gipson said.

Need-based funding as an alternate option for diverse students is something both Peavy and Molins take issue with.

“I think that the university assuming that providing low-income scholarships is going to attract diverse students is actually an example of the way that they are inherently stereotyping people of color,” Molins said.

Gipson told the Missourian that this topic is also a concern for the university.

Around 12% to 15% of students who would have been awarded the Diversity Award would not qualify for need-based aid, Gipson said. While MU does not want to leave these students out, Gipson said, “we certainly cannot run afoul of the new law of the land.”

“We just don’t have an appropriate solution,” Gipson said. “There are a lot of variables that we’re just not certain on yet, but we are thinking about it.”

Although the new regulations from the Supreme Court and Attorney General Bailey caused disagreements among Missourians, MU students and administrators seem to at least agree on one thing — they do not want to leave anyone out.

“I think that people of color are so integral to the status of this university,” Peavy said. “The value that we add, ideas that we add. … We’re all committed to bettering our community and our society and our place in society. … We’re an asset. … I think it’s really sad that we have to continuously go through stuff like this.”

This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online. 

Cannabis microbusiness licenses are designed to boost opportunities in the industry for businesses in disadvantaged communities, and it was part of the constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana that voters passed last year (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

James Harnden has been a longtime activist for cannabis legalization, ever since he got slapped with a low-level felony possession charge for having an ounce of weed.

The 56-year old Rockford, Ill., resident says that charge has cost him job opportunities for 30 years.

Earlier this year, he saw an advertisement in the Craigslist “gigs” section posted by a Michigan cannabis real estate group called Canna Zoned MLS. It was looking for “partners who qualify as a social equity applicant” to participate in Illinois’ lottery to award cannabis business licenses that are, in part, meant to benefit people impacted by marijuana criminalization.

“I spent most of my life applying for jobs and not getting them,” Harnden said. “So I’m like, ‘Okay, so maybe one of these licenses will swing my way.’”

The Craigslist ad read: “If you are eligible and provide the required documentation, we will give you $2,000, just for helping us submit the lottery application! If we win the lottery and secure a license, we will give you an additional $20,000!”

Harnden says what he didn’t realize was that he signed a contract agreeing to hold 100% ownership interest on the application, but that he wouldn’t get revenue or profits from the business. After the business passed through all the state and municipal approvals, the contract stated that Harnden would be required to sell his share of the business for $1 to the group or be held in breach of contract. 

The contract also authorized the group to enter Harnden’s information into lotteries for social equity cannabis licenses in other states — and that’s how Harden says he got paid $500 to be part of the lottery for Missouri’s microbusiness license program. 

Harnden was eligible to apply in Missouri because of his marijuana charge, which is among seven eligibility categories that also includes living in census tracts with high poverty and unemployment rates. Canna Zoned’s Jeffrey Yatooma is listed as the “authorized agent” on the contract Harnden provided to The Independent, leaving a space for his signature at the bottom.

Yatooma secured two of the 16 social equity cannabis licenses — in Columbia and Arnold — issued earlier this month, according to information obtained by The Independent through a public records request. Those records show Yatooma is listed as the “designated contact” for 104 out of the 1,048 applications for dispensary licenses in Missouri’s lottery.

Yatooma’s group was not the only one using the strategy of flooding Missouri’s lottery with applications to obtain a dispensary license.  An Arizona-based consulting firm is connected to more than 400 dispensary applicants, including six winners, and a Missouri firm is connected to more than 80 applicants and two winners. Both said their clients did not advertise or promise payment for submitting applications.

In at least three states holding lotteries for social equity cannabis licenses this year — Illinois, Maryland and Missouri — Yatooma’s group has offered to pay eligible people up to $2,000 to apply on their behalf and $20,000 more if they won.

While the Craigslist ads posted in Missouri can no longer be seen online, a screenshot of a similar ad posted by Canna Zoned in Illinois was included in a story by the Chicago Sun Times. Ads are currently up in Maryland, where the state’s social equity cannabis application opens on Nov. 13.

Provided with a copy of Harnden’s agreement, Yatooma said his company,  “never signed any agreements along the lines of the one you mentioned.”  

He said that the agreement was part of “early business discussions.” Yatooma’s group made a similar argument earlier this year when efforts to secure licenses in Illinois faced criticism. 

“The parties never moved forward with the referenced document, and the state subsequently provided guidance advising on how to structure partnerships,” Yatooma said in an email to The Independent. “In our experience with new laws, it is frequently important to begin business discussions and then be prepared to pivot — and finalize a partnership when new state guidance is announced.”

Yatooma also said he’s aware the microbusiness dispensary licenses “must continue to be majority owned by an individual who meets at least one of the eligibility qualifications” outlined in the constitution. 

Voters approved the microbusiness program last November as a provision in the constitutional amendment that legalized recreational marijuana.

Nimrod Chapel, an attorney and president of the Missouri NAACP, reviewed the agreement signed by Harnden and provided to The Independent. He believes it “defrauds the state” because it gives the eligible applicants no voting or financial interest, in violation of the state’s constitution.

“The very people who were victimized by cannabis laws in the first place are yet again on the losing end of what appears to be a distinctly inappropriate power grab,” Chapel said.

Yatooma said he rejects “any allegations that we have defrauded the state.” Any final agreements with partners in Missouri, he said, “will absolutely comply with all state laws and regulations.”  

Lisa Cox, spokeswoman for the Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation, did not say whether or not the division had seen the agreements between Yatooma and the applicants. 

However, she said such an agreement will be reviewed as part of the post-licensure verification process, where the division will “determine whether any microbusiness applications were false or misleading and to ensure all microbusiness licenses are majority owned by eligible applicants.”

That process will be completed by the end of the year, she said.

If the state takes no action to revoke Yatooma’s two licenses, Chapel said the Missouri NAACP would consider litigation to obtain a cease and desist order on the entire microbusiness program.

“If [the division] were to look at the agreements — that show the applications are not true — and they don’t take some action against these licenses,” Chapel said, “then I think that they would be totally complicit in a fraud.”

In response to the NAACP, Cox said the division will revoke the license if it “determines the applicant provided false or misleading information in the application.”

A pattern and practice

Simone Booker, a 52-year-old Chicago resident who works in tax preparation, remembers sitting down with an attorney for Canna Zoned, Amanda Kilroe, this spring at Starbucks to talk about a “great business opportunity.” 

Kilroe’s number is currently listed on the Craigslist ads in Maryland, and she’s who responded when The Independent called the number.

However, Booker never saw a Craigslist ad. She was referred to Kilroe by a friend and never received $2,000 for applying.

“She’s a wonderful person,” Booker said of Kilroe. “I have met a few people [from Canna Zoned]. They are absolutely wonderful people. So that was the impression I got from them.”

Booker remembers asking Kilroe multiple questions about what her commission would be and what percent of the profits she would get. She said Kilroe assured her that she would be seen as a “social equity partner” and would get a share of the profits at every fiscal quarter. 

Then after a year, Booker would agree to sell her shares of the company for an amount that “we would work out later,” she says Kilroe told her. They talked about how Booker could potentially make $200,000 before she sold her shares, and she could also choose to buy back into the business later if she wanted.

Booker says she now realizes she didn’t read the contract’s fine print closely because Kilroe seemed so trustworthy and professional.

Booker said Kilroe never mentioned the contract would force her to sell her shares for $1. And Kilroe’s description of the partnership, Booker said, was “completely different” than what she signed — that she agreed to receive “no disbursements” other than the $2,000 to apply and the $20,000.

More specifically, she’d get $10,000 after the municipality where the dispensary is located approved the location, and another $9,999 after the state approves the license and she transfers her ownership of the business.

Booker was shocked to find these provisions in her contract when asked about them by The Independent. 

“I’m completely blessed that God didn’t approve this business,” Booker said. “I would have never signed the contract… not even for the $20,000 because $20,000 is not worth the millions that they’re going to make off of my name.”

Kilroe did not respond to The Independent’s requests for comment.

Booker fears for the other people who don’t realize what they signed. Having a tax background, she knows how to fill out the paperwork to ensure the group can’t use her name for an federal tax identification number (EIN) in the future. 

The contract authorized the use of her Social Security number for an EIN, meaning she would be completely on the hook for tax liability of the business even though the contract claims otherwise, Chapel said. But other people don’t know how to do that, she said.

“Their name is going to be forever used for business, but they’re never going to profit,” she said.

Chapel said he’s never seen a contract like it. 

“This agreement is wide ranging, not limited in time,” he said. “It’s not clear when — I guess at death — you would be released.”

It’s essentially agreeing to let the company use their “likeness” and name indefinitely, he said.

“How is this not literally buying at least a piece of a person?” he said. 

A public warning

Kilroe told the Sun Times that Canna Zoned “didn’t end up moving forward” with any of the respondents to the ad, after the newspaper reached out to her about a similar agreement the group made with a gun-violence victim.

“We didn’t enter the game in Illinois,” Kilroe told the newspaper.

However, Yatooma’s group was behind at least 20 dispensary applications in Illinois under variations of the name “Chicago Retail LLC,” including Booker’s and Harnden’s, according to state business records. Chicago Retail LLC wasn’t on the state’s list of winners released on July 13, but it’s unclear if Yatooma came away with a license in Illinois. 

Chris Slaby, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which oversees the social equity program, said the state’s cannabis law prohibits him from disclosing if Yatooma obtained a license. 

The department was aware of posts like the Michigan group’s and issued a public warning in February to potential applicants about the dangers of these types of agreements, Slaby said in an email to The Independent.

Illinois conducted its lottery on July 13, and the department is currently assessing the winners’ eligibility. Slaby said it “may deny a license in the event it determines any false information was used to apply.” 

Booker’s contract appeared to be identical to the one Harnden signed in Missouri.

Both stated that Yatooma’s group can use the applicants’ information in any of the other states lotteries for social equity cannabis licenses, and the group recently contacted Booker again about entering the next lottery in Illinois. 

At the end of July, Harnden was notified that the group was entering his name in the Missouri lottery, which was conducted on Aug. 28. 

The Missouri contract is with a Michigan limited liability company called “Report Head LLC,” but Yatooma is the authorized agent listed on the contract. 

Adolphus Pruitt, president of the St. Louis City NAACP chapter, also reviewed the agreement and said it establishes up a “modern-day indentured servitude.” 

Pruitt agrees with Chapel that the Michigan group is defrauding the state, as well as putting the applicants in that position whether they know it or not. The St. Louis City NAACP chapter, he said, would support the state NAACP’s move to get a cease and desist order. 

“It appears that it was never the intent for the ‘social equity partner’ to own, operate, nor benefit from the micro license as envisioned by the voters,” Pruitt said.

Flooding the lottery

Of the 16 winners of dispensary licenses, only five appeared to have submitted just one application — meaning they didn’t make agreements with eligible people to apply on their behalf.

On Oct. 2, the state issued 48 microbusiness licenses in total — six winners in each of Missouri’s eight Congressional districts. 

In each district, two were microbusiness dispensaries, and four were microbusiness wholesale facilities — where the owners can grow up to 250 plants.

According to records obtained by The Independent, the wholesale side — where there was 577 applicants total — did not appear to see the same kind of flooding strategy as for dispensaries, which had total of 1,048 applicants.

As far as finding multiple eligible applicants to apply on one person’s behalf, Yatooma’s operation was not the biggest. And he only applied in half of the state’s eight congressional districts — the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th. 

A Phoenix cannabis consulting firm, Cannabis Business Advisors, is listed on 42% of the applications for dispensary licenses. And they are the designated contact for six of the 16 winning licenses. 

In every congressional district where the firm’s clients won a dispensary license — including the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th 6th and 7th — its president, Maxime Kot, is the contact listed on between 40% and 60% of the applications in that district. 

For example, in the 1st Congressional District — which encompasses the City of St. Louis – Kot was listed as the contact person for 76 dispensary applications, making up 62% of the total submitted. In the 2nd District, it was 63% and in the 4th, 53%. 

When asked how CB Advisors was able to find that many eligible people to apply, Sara Gullickson, founder and CEO of the firm, said: “As far as our intellectual property and how we submit applications — either lottery or merit based — obviously that’s the secret sauce of the company.”

However, after hearing about Yatooma’s strategy of posting Craigslist ads and paying applicants, she said that was “not our business model.” 

“We’ve probably worked in 30 states and five countries,” Gullickson said. “I’ve been at this since I was 26 years old. I’m now 40 years old. I’ve just been around for a while.”

Gullickson has a stake in several cannabis licenses across the country that are minority- or women-owned. But in Missouri, she was acting as a consultant, she said, and wasn’t vying for a license herself.

When asked how many of the applicants are from out of state, she said that she didn’t want to disclose the information. 

John Payne, founding partner at Amendment 2 Consultants, acted as campaign manager for both of the constitutional amendments to legalize medical and recreational marijuana in the state. He’s listed as the contact for 16% of the dispensary license applications statewide, including two winners — both in the 3rd District.

One of his winning clients applied with just one application, records show and Payne confirmed. The other had 68, which Payne said the person pooled with friends and associates to work together to apply and to get a license. 

Like Gullickson, Payne said also he didn’t advertise or offer payment like Yatooma.

“It was almost all internal networks,” Payne said. “We knew a lot of people and those people knew a lot of people. So that’s how we kind of grew our client base.”

Payne said any questionable agreements made as part of the microbusiness license application process should come out in the next couple months, during the state’s post-licensure verification process.

“The department does a pretty thorough job of vetting these sorts of things,” Payne said. “They do ask for your operating agreements and contracts that you’ve signed, so that could be something that they look into.”

A lawsuit says Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody, top left, spearheaded the Aug. 11 raid of the Marion County Record in retaliation against the journalists who worked there. Reporter Deb Gruver’s desk appears at the bottom right. She filed the lawsuit in federal court (Marion County Record screen capture of surveillance video).

TOPEKA, Kansas — Deb Gruver believes she suffered lasting emotional and physical injury when Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody snatched her cell phone out of her hand during the unprecedented raid on the Marion County Record newspaper.

Now, in an answer to Gruver’s federal lawsuit against him, Cody denies most of the allegations against him for his actions before and during the Aug. 11 raid. His defense: he acted reasonably and within constitutional requirements, among other claims.

Cody also argues the county attorney and law enforcement agencies he turned to for legal advice before the raid never told him that the investigation was legally questionable.

“Defendant Cody did not act alone, nor did he orchestrate a complex conspiracy of other law enforcement officers to carry out illegal or malicious plans against Plaintiff Gruver,” reads Cody’s Oct. 4 response to the federal lawsuit.

Gruver filed her lawsuit in late August, marking the first formal legal action over the raid. She is suing Cody in his individual capacity, seeking at least $75,000, the minimum threshold for filing a civil case in federal court, for “emotional distress, mental anguish and physical injury.”

Her lawsuit states that on the day of the raid, Chief Cody took her personal cell phone, though his application for the search warrant did not mention Gruver or the phone as evidence of a crime. The lawsuit alleges Cody violated Gruver’s First Amendment free press rights and Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure during the raid.

The raid

Cody initiated the Aug. 11 search under the pretense that reporter Phyllis Zorn committed identity theft by illicitly accessing local restaurateur Kari Newell’s driver’s license history. Newell lost her license following a 2008 drunken driving conviction, and she had been accused of driving without a license for years.

A confidential source gave the reporter Newell’s driver’s license record, and Zorn verified the information through a Kansas Department of Revenue database. Cody still denies any allegation that Zorn’s actions were lawful under federal or state law. According to Cody’s response to the lawsuit, he had officer Zach Hudlin call the Kansas Department of Revenue to confirm the record was private. Allegedly, Hudlin was advised that the record in question was not public.

During the raid, Cody, backed up by fellow law enforcement officers, took cell phones and computers, including Gruver’s phone, from the newsroom. Recent reporting from the Record describes officers examining records about Cody during the raid, ignoring the drivers’ license document for which they had purportedly raided the office.

The body camera footage obtained by the paper showed officers rifling through Gruver’s desk during the raid and alerting Cody to the reporter’s files about him. Gruver had previously compiled allegations made against Cody by his former colleagues with the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department, though the Record hadn’t published a story about them.

According to Record reporting, Cody left Kansas City under the threat of demotion, following accusations of creating a hostile work environment.

During the raid, officers also searched Marion County Record publisher Eric Meyer’s home, along with the residence of a city councilwoman. Meyer’s 98-year-old mother, Joan, the newspaper’s co-owner, died from stress-related causes a day after the raid.

Cody and Gruver have both resigned from their positions over the last few days. Cody’s resignation was announced Monday during a city council meeting. Hudlin has been initiated as the interim police chief. Gruver, who has been a reporter for more than 30 years, had her belongings packed up and removed from the paper Saturday, citing worsened mental health since the raid.

Cody’s response

A Wednesday response to Gruver’s lawsuit asserts Cody had worked with the Marion County Sheriff’s Department, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the Kansas Department of Revenue to develop his applications for the search warrants.

The response alleges that none of the law enforcement agencies nor the prosecutor, County Attorney Joel Ensey, had warned Cody that he didn’t have enough cause to carry out the seizure, or advise him against the raid.

In the days leading up to the raid, Ensey allegedly met with Cody, received and responded to emails asking for legal advice on whether to pursue a criminal investigation and answered multiple inquiries about whether the law of Kansas could support probable cause to believe a crime had been committed. According to Cody’s response, Ensey never advised against the investigation, or mentioned state and federal laws that would prohibit the raid.

Ensey allegedly approved the investigation without reading Cody’s collected documents on the case.

“Despite participating in emails and meetings, Ensey has since advised Chief Cody that he did not actually read the documents that Cody sent to him including the draft search warrant affidavits and search warrants,” the response reads.

Cody said he had been on friendly and professional terms with Gruver in the months before the raid, and had exchanged multiple emails with her about his work history and other matters. His defense claims he had no malice toward her despite her “claimed intent to expose him for purported misconduct.”

Cody also denies that he acted in an “unnecessarily violent fashion” to Gruver during the raid. Gruver had claimed her previously dislocated finger was injured when Cody took her cell phone from her.

What Cody does admit

Cody’s response admits he took her phone, but he says Gruver ignored his warnings not to contact anyone during the search warrant process. When she began to dial Eric Meyer, he took the phone, according to the report.

Gruver had used her “alleged injured finger to hold a cigarette” after the seizure, and refused to complete an injury report on her hand, the report states.

“Her own conduct was the sole cause of damages, if any,” his response reads.

Cody said since the raid, he has received countless death threats, threats of violence against his family and “disparaging comments” on local, national and international levels.

Cody admitted he had been disciplined by KCMOPD for several policy violations, including repeatedly calling the cell phone of a suspect in a murder to try to persuade him to surrender, using curse words against a subordinate and for “telling an inappropriate joke.”

This story was originally published in the Kansas Reflector, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

The Kansas City Council voted to form the Alternatives to Incarceration Commission to explore alternatives that can spare more people from the criminal justice system and steer them toward social services (Darrin Klimek/Getty Images).

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story inaccurately reflected the kind of assault cases that appear before the municipal court. The story was updated on Sept. 27 to reflect that violent charges can include cases where a person intentionally inflicted harm on someone else.

Kansas City Municipal Judge Courtney Wachal sent a letter to The Beacon on Sept. 27 about the framing of the story and requested a correction. The letter can be read here.

One of the most effective ways to make sure someone shows up at their trial is to send them a text reminder with their court date.

But instead of texting criminal defendants, Kansas City spends money every year to hold people in jail while they await trial.

Like nearly all other American cities, Kansas City holds people in jail for violating city codes — whether they’re convicted for violating a domestic violence probation or if they’re simply awaiting trial for a low-level charge.

Following a state Supreme Court rule that took effect in 2017, defendants can only be sent to jail before trial if a judge decides they pose a threat to public safety or if there is reason to believe they may not appear in court. Kansas City says it complies with this rule.

“People lose jobs, and they lose their homes and apartments and their vehicles by spending time in jail,” said Amaia Cook, who serves on the commission looking to lower the number of people locked up on minor criminal charges. “Our community members have needs, and we know that locking people up is not a way to meet those needs.”

A Kansas City commission argues for more creative solutions to reduce crime — like those court date-reminder texts — that could save taxpayers money without jailing defendants and putting people’s housing and jobs at risk by locking them up.

For someone living under a bridge or in the midst of a severe psychotic episode, people arguing for change say that jail does nothing to resolve the underlying issues. At worst, it can make the problem more severe and launch a relentless cycle of jail sentence after jail sentence. That, they say, ends up increasing crime, not reducing it.

In June, the Kansas City Council voted to form the Alternatives to Incarceration Commission to explore alternatives that can spare more people from the criminal justice system and steer them toward social services. The commission formed with support from Decarcerate KC, a group that advocates to end the city’s reliance on incarceration and policing.

Who is locked up on Kansas City jail charges?

National prison policy experts say that municipal jails are the easiest places to reform because the charges tend to stem from lower-stakes and nonviolent crime.

Kansas City has not had its own jail since 2009. Instead, the city rented out beds in the Jackson County Jail until its contract expired in 2019. Since then, people facing municipal charges or serving short jail sentences have gone to the Vernon and Johnson county jails in Missouri. The city has access to 105 beds between the two jails.

The city’s jail population is disproportionately Black — more than two-thirds of people held before and after conviction are Black, despite Black residents only making up about 27% of the city’s population.

A majority of people booked by Kansas City’s municipal court are nonviolent offenders — only 1 in 3 inmates is booked on a violent charge, often related to domestic violence.

Courtney Wachal, a Kansas City municipal judge who presides over the domestic violence docket, said those cases usually involve someone facing a new domestic violence charge while on probation. Wachal serves on the Alternatives to Incarceration Commission.

CoreCivic's Leavenworth Detention Center was a hotbed for drugs and violence before it closed in 2021 (Allison Kite/Missouri Independent).

Leavenworth County officials voted unanimously Wednesday to halt discussions over whether to convert a former private federal jail into a detention center for immigration enforcement. 

For years, CoreCivic, the nation’s largest private prison operator, ran a federal pretrial detention center in Leavenworth for individuals charged with — but not convicted of — federal crimes from Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and western Missouri. It closed at the end of 2021 under an executive order banning renewal of federal contracts with private prisons. 

County officials have been approached several times over the last two years about converting the facility to hold detainees of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The county would potentially act as an intermediary between the company and federal agency.

But members voted Wednesday to “immediately stop negotiations” with CoreCivic and ICE about serving as a party to an agreement between the company and federal agency. 

It’s not clear that the county’s participation would be necessary under federal rules.

The vote comes after two years of speculation about the future of the CoreCivic facility, called the Leavenworth Detention Center. ICE told KCUR in 2021 it was not pursuing a contract for the Leavenworth facility. 

CoreCivic said earlier this month that the federal agency was in the midst of procuring space for detainees in the Midwest but declined to comment further on an active contracting process.

On Wednesday, the company’s spokesman, Ryan Gustin, said in an email that CoreCivic would “continue to have an open dialogue with Leavenworth County commissioners and the City of Leavenworth to address any concerns that they might have regarding this opportunity.”

The vote came after the city expressed opposition to county officials.

Opposition to the idea of CoreCivic becoming an ICE facility ran the spectrum from anti-immigration sentiments about releasing “illegal aliens” into the community to immigration attorneys and civil rights advocates’ concerns about the facility’s history of violence and safety issues.

When CoreCivic’s Leavenworth facility held pretrial detainees under a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service, the private jail struggled with staffing crises, rampant drug use and persistent violence. It’s being sued by a former inmate whose lawsuit includes allegations of at least 10 stabbings in 2021 and two deaths by suicide.

In 2019, CoreCivic settled with 500 detainees for $1.45 million for illegally recording phone calls with their defense attorneys and providing them to prosecutors.

The facility closed at the end of 2021 when CoreCivic’s contract with the U.S. Marshals Service expired. President Joe Biden, in his first week in office, signed an executive order barring the Department of Justice from renewing contracts with private criminal detention facilities. 

But ICE falls under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas said in a statement that it was glad the commission realized allowing CoreCivic to house ICE detainees “would be an unsafe, inhumane decision.”

“Kansans and the Leavenworth community expect better than allowing a company to continue operations in this state,” the organization said, “after CoreCivic has maintained a long and proven track record of flagrant human and civil rights violations of the people in its custody.”

A view of the front portico of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. (Getty Images)

The federal government on Thursday requested the U.S. Supreme Court block an order restricting it from communicating with social media companies about posts spreading misinformation.

President Joe Biden’s administration filed a petition arguing that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling earlier this month is an example of judicial overreach that would “impose grave and irreparable harms on the government and the public.”

The Supreme Court should block the injunction from going into effect while the justices decide whether to hear the case, the federal government argues, signaling a plan to appeal the 5th Circuit’s decision.

Hours after the request, Justice Samuel Alito granted a stay until Sept. 22.

Earlier this month, an appeals court in Louisiana concluded the Biden administration “ran afoul of the First Amendment” by trying to suppress social media posts that it considered misinformation.

The Biden administration argues the appeals court erred by failing to distinguish between “persuasion” and “coercion.” Social media companies were asked to remove posts considered to be harmful misinformation, the filing states, but the federal government never forced them to do so.

“(The appeals court) held that officials from the White House, the Surgeon General’s office and the FBI coerced social-media platforms to remove content despite the absence of even a single instance in which an official paired a request to remove content with a threat of adverse action,” U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in the court filing.

The lawsuit was filed last year by former Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry. It alleges the federal government colluded with social media companies like Twitter and Facebook to suppress the freedom of speech.

The Cole County Courthouse in downtown Jefferson City (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

To backers of initiatives intended to enshrine abortion rights in Missouri’s constitution, the proposed ballot titles written by Secretary of State Jay Aschroft are poison intended to lead to certain defeat at the polls.

But an attorney for Ashcroft, arguing Monday to keep the ballot title intact, said the ballot language that begins by saying the measures would “allow for dangerous, unregulated, and unrestricted abortions” accurately portrays its impact.

For more than two hours Monday, Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem listened to those arguments – and a challenge to the initiatives’ predicted financial impact on state and local government. At the end, Beetem gave attorneys one week to file final briefs in a case that is almost certain to be appealed regardless of how he rules.

Abortion became illegal in Missouri in June 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that recognized a constitutional right to abortion. The only exception is for emergency abortions to save the life of the mother or when there is “a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”

Voters in several states, most notably Kansas and Michigan, have backed abortion rights ballot measures. In Missouri, hoping to capitalize on that momentum, a political action committee called Missourians for Constitutional Freedom in March filed 11 proposed initiatives that would amend the state constitution to declare that the “government shall not infringe upon a person’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom.” 

Under state law, Ashcroft prepares ballot language that summarizes the proposal in a way that is “neither intentionally argumentative nor likely to create prejudice either for or against the proposed measure.”

The ACLU of Missouri filed the lawsuit challenging the ballot title on behalf of Anna Fitz-James, the physician who is the named sponsor of the initiatives. 

Ashcroft’s proposed ballot language is insufficient because it only addresses abortion while the amendment also covers other aspects of reproductive health care, Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Missouri, said in court on Monday.

“The secretary acted as if he were playing the political spin edition of mad libs,” Rothert said. Ashcroft “abandoned any pretext of doing his job impartially.”

But Assistant Attorney General Jason Lewis, representing Ashcroft, said the proposals’ provisions are plain. Language that bars the state from prosecuting unlicensed individuals who assist in abortions make the proposals dangerous, he said.

It is “used properly to describe the unregulated landscape these initiatives would create,” Lewis said.

Supporters of the initiatives haven’t decided which they intend to circulate. To make the 2024 ballot, backers must secure more than 170,000 signatures from registered voters by early May.

Each version of the proposed amendment says there must be a “compelling governmental interest” for abortion restrictions to be put in place. But while some allow the legislature to regulate abortion after “fetal viability,” others draw the line at 24 weeks of gestation. 

Some versions make it clear the state can enact parental consent laws for minors seeking abortions. Others leave the topic out entirely.

The case drew a lot of outside interest, with groups as divergent as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and the Missouri League of Women Voters filing “friend of the court” briefs to influence Beetem’s decision.

Writing for the American Center for Law and Justice and the Susan B. Anthony group, attorney Brad Blake said the petition itself is misleading so the challenge to the language is hypocritical.

“The present case presents the odd and ironic situation of the proponent of grossly biased and euphemistic initiative petitions complaining about the alleged argumentativeness of ballot summaries,” Blake wrote.

Former Missouri Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike Wolff wrote the brief for the League of Women Voters asking Beetem to throw out the summary.

“When reading the language of the secretary’s ballot summary statement and comparing it to the citizen-submitted petition, it is difficult to imagine a summary statement more unfair, distorted, misleading, and argumentative,” Wolff wrote.

The hearing Monday is the second round of litigation over the initiatives. The first round tested how much authority the attorney general’s office has over the content of the fiscal summary that also appears on the ballot.

In July, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled against Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who had refused to accept the fiscal summary prepared by State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick. The court ruled that nothing in state law “gives the attorney general authority to question the auditor’s assessment of the fiscal impact of a proposed petition.”

Fitzpatrick wrote that the impact on state agencies was unknown, that local governments estimated a possible cost of at least $51,000 in reduced revenues and opponents “estimate a potentially significant loss to state revenue.”

In court on Monday, Beetem heard arguments in a challenge to that fiscal summary filed by state Rep. Hannah Kelly, R-Mountain Grove, state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, R-Arnold, and Kathy Forck, a longtime anti-abortion advocate from New Bloomfield.

Mary Hodes, representing Kelly, Coleman and Forck, told Beetem that Fitzpatrick’s summary ignored material prepared by opponents that showed huge potential costs, including a possible loss of federal Medicaid funding and future tax revenue.

The specific impact on local governments was based on a response from Greene County that calculated lost tax revenue from a likely 135 abortions among residents of the county in the first year it was again legal to terminate a pregnancy in Missouri.

Hodes said that calculation should have been expanded to cover every county in the state. Five separate submissions arguing for larger amounts were ignored, she said.

The $51,000 figure is misleading because it is so precise, Hodes said. And the summary of opponents estimates is misleading because it says “potentially significant” when they showed the cost would be enormous

“There is nothing ‘potentially significant’ about the losses to the state,” Hodes said.

Robert Tillman, Fitzpatrick’s deputy general counsel, argued Monday that the auditor’s office is not asked, nor does it have time, to do a complete, independent review of the possible costs. It surveyed state agencies and local governments, took submissions from the public and summarized the result, he said.

And Tori Schafer of the ACLU of Missouri said while Hodes is arguing it should include lost revenue from taxpayers who are never born, she could as easily argue that it will save taxpayers money on services like public schools.

The lawsuit alleges the federal government colluded with social media companies like Twitter and Facebook to suppress the freedom of speech.(Chris McGrath/Getty Images).

A federal appeals court in Louisiana agreed on Friday evening with Missouri’s attorney general that the Biden administration “ran afoul of the First Amendment” by threatening social media platforms over posts spreading misinformation. 

But the three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans concluded a lower court’s wide-ranging order barring the federal government from communicating with social media companies was “vague and broader than necessary.”

The appeals court’s Friday order vacated much of the lower court’s injunction, with the exception of a provision it narrowed concerning alleged coercion.

“As an initial matter, it is axiomatic that an injunction is overbroad if it enjoins a defendant from engaging in legal conduct,” Friday’s ruling said. “Nine of the preliminary injunction’s 10 prohibitions risk doing just that. Moreover, many of the provisions are duplicative of each other and thus unnecessary.”

The lawsuit was filed last year by former Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry. It alleges the federal government colluded with social media companies like Twitter and Facebook to suppress the freedom of speech.

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty ruled July 4 that officials under both Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican President Donald Trump coerced social media companies to censor content over concerns it would fuel vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic or upend elections.

Doughty, a Trump appointee, said the “widespread censorship campaign” violated the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment’s free speech guarantees. His order barred government agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, from contacting social media companies “for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

The Biden administration quickly appealed, and the 5th Circuit temporarily put the judge’s ruling on hold.

Friday’s order will not go into effect for 10 days, giving federal officials time to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Despite the appeals court limiting restrictions on the Biden administration, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey declared victory. 

“Missouri will continue to lead the way in the fight to defend our most fundamental freedoms,” Bailey said in an emailed statement. 

While the court limited the restrictions, Friday’s order pilloried the Biden administration’s efforts to combat misinformation by pressuring social media companies to remove posts. 

“ …officials made express threats and, at the very least, leaned into the inherent authority of the president’s office,” Friday’s ruling stated.” The officials made inflammatory accusations, such as saying that the platforms were ‘poison[ing]’ the public, and ‘killing people.’ The platforms were told they needed to take greater responsibility and action. Then, they followed their statements with threats of ‘fundamental reforms’ like regulatory changes and increased enforcement actions that would ensure the platforms were ‘held accountable.’”

Jenin Younes, a lawyer with the New Civil Liberties Alliance, an organization representing individual plaintiffs in the case, said Friday’s ruling is a win for free speech.

“The government cannot coerce or encourage social media companies to censor views it dislikes,” Younes said.

The lawsuit has garnered widespread attention, and attracted co-plaintiffs with long histories of spreading misinformation and debunked conspiracy theories.

That includes Jim Hoft, founder of the right-wing conspiracy website Gateway Pundit, who was added to the lawsuit in August and has built a career on promulgating conspiracies on a wide range of topics, from the 2018 Parkland school shooting to former President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

More recently, Hoft has been among the biggest purveyors of election fraud lies. He currently faces defamation lawsuit in St. Louis circuit court filed by two Georgia election workers who faced death threats following Gateway Pundit’s false stories about a vote-rigging scheme. 

The lawsuit also attracted support from presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has a long history of promoting medical misinformation such as the idea that vaccines cause autism and Wi-Fi causes cancer.

A forensic analyst removes a pair of underwear from an evidence bag for testing in a sexual assault case in the biology lab at the Houston Forensic Science Center in Houston. Texas is among at least 40 states and the District of Columbia that have implemented or committed to establishing a rape kit tracking system, according to the End the Backlog website run by the nonprofit Joyful Heart Foundation (Pat Sullivan/The Associated Press)

It can take hours for a sexual assault victim to undergo the multiple swabs, hair samples, blood and urine collections, and other invasive procedures of a sexual assault examination. And then it can take months, sometimes years, for investigators to process that evidence kit.

But now, responding to demands from survivors and their advocates, more states have committed to tackling yearslong investigative backlogs — and dozens are adopting tracking systems that allow patients to follow the forensic paths of their own sexual assault kits.

The tracking systems aim to address historical challenges, such as inadequate forensic evidence handling, delays in case processing and underreporting of assaults. The systems can streamline communication among law enforcement agencies, forensic laboratories and survivors, for example. Perhaps most importantly, the accountability and transparency that come with tracking the assault kits also can speed up a case’s resolution.

“The overarching purpose is to restore dignity and sort of try to tip the balance of power from folks who have been sexually assaulted,” said Colorado state Rep. Meg Froelich, a Democrat who authored her state’s rape kit tracking law, in an interview with Stateline.

“What we’re trying to do is get folks to come forward,” she said, “and to feel that the process is there for them to achieve what they need for healing and closure.”

At least 40 states and the District of Columbia have implemented or committed to establishing a sexual assault kit tracking system in the past nine years, including several coming on board this year, according to the End the Backlog website run by the nonprofit advocacy group Joyful Heart Foundation. The foundation supports survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse.

Alaska and Florida launched their online sexual assault kit tracking portals this summer. Colorado and Louisiana enacted legislation in May and June, respectively, to establish their own tracking systems.

Advocates say providing a tool to monitor the progress of their kits gives survivors a sense of control and participation in the investigative process, which can be crucial in their healing journey. Moreover, the transparency offered by tracking systems ensures that law enforcement agencies are held accountable for timely kit processing.

“This is just one more tool to evaluate the whole entire system, whether it’s the [sexual assault nurse examiners], the crime lab, the police departments, so that we are doing the best service to these survivors,” said Monica Taylor, the special projects coordinator for the Louisiana attorney general’s office, in an interview with Stateline.

“This tracking system is going to help them go from being a victim to being a survivor, and taking some of the control and power back into their lives,” she said.

Tracking systems also allow advocates to fully support survivors who may have concerns about delays, said Nicole Kass Colvin, the manager of coordinated community responses for the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence. Prior to the launch of Ohio’s tracking system in 2020, monitoring a kit’s progress was challenging, often requiring survivors to contact law enforcement for updates, Colvin recalled.

“If there was a mistake made somewhere within the process, we [now] can see where that error is and rectify it, rather than that kit being lost for years with no idea of knowing what happened or where it might be,” she said.

Sexual assault kit tracking systems are typically web portals designed to trace the kits’ movement throughout their chain of custody.

With the collection of a rape evidence kit at a medical facility, a unique tracking or serial number is assigned and provided to the survivor. Law enforcement typically picks up the kits, then sends them to a crime lab for testing.

After testing, the kit may be stored at the crime lab or another secure location for several months or years, depending on the state’s storage requirements.

The evidence can be used to link the assault to a suspect in existing DNA databases, or to develop a DNA profile that can be used in the future. Processing times for rape kits vary by state; for instance, it can take up to 120 days in Florida, 60 days in Alaska and just 30 days in Ohio.

Addressing backlog, empowering survivors

The exact scope of the rape kit testing backlog remains unclear. But as of Sept. 7, there are at least 59,894 untested kits in 23 states, according to data collected by the Joyful Heart Foundation.

Among the contributing factors to the backlog are victim-blaming attitudes, budget cuts, reduced crime lab staff, and bias against women and victims of sex crimes, according to a white paper published in 2017 by the U.S. Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women.

In recent years, the issue has eroded public trust in law enforcement, the agency noted. In some instances, untested rape kits were linked to cases dating back to the 1980s.

Sexual assault survivors, from Houston in 2020 to Memphis in 2023, have filed class-action lawsuits against city officials over processing delays.

A statewide sexual assault kit tracker has quickened the pace of forensic testing in some states, and in some cases allowed states to identify and address delays. Several states have reduced their backlogs of unsubmitted rape kits, those that were never even sent to a lab for testing.

Alaska, for example, cleared its backlog of untested kits that were held by law enforcement in 2021 and completed result analyses in 2022, according to the Alaska Department of Public Safety’s communication director, Austin McDaniel.

In 2022, 75 untested sexual assault kits were found at the state’s crime lab — down from 558 in 2021, according to statistics published by the state’s public safety department.

Similarly, New Hampshire reduced its backlog from 582 kits in 2019 to just one kit in 2022, according to an analysis by USAFacts, a nonpartisan data center.

The kits have significant investigative value. In Ohio, for example, state investigators plowing through a backlog of 13,931 kits found 5,349 hits in a DNA database. The state has now cleared its backlog entirely.

North Carolina and Michigan also have reduced their backlog significantly. From 2018 to 2022, North Carolina saw a 99% reduction in unsubmitted kits, while Michigan achieved a 95% reduction during the same period. USAFacts also found that in some states, such as Louisiana and Maryland, the number of unsubmitted kits held by law enforcement increased between 2018 and 2022. Both states’ tracking systems are currently in development.

Under Louisiana’s new law, the state’s sexual assault kit tracking system will be created by the Louisiana State Police.The agency must have a plan by January, and all police and health care providers who store rape kits must fully participate by July 1, 2024.

Rape kit tracking systems play a pivotal role in empowering survivors and enhancing transparency in the criminal justice system, said Morgan Lamandre, the president and CEO of Sexual Trauma Awareness & Response, a Louisiana-based nonprofit advocacy and support group.

“Having this system in place for Louisiana is another step in the right direction for survivors to be taken seriously, for survivors to be treated with real fairness, dignity and respect,” Lamandre said in an interview with Stateline.

Technology and funding

The path to establishing state tracking systems varies widely. Some states have passed laws, while others have set up their trackers through agency action or funding priorities, according to Mateo Cello, a policy implementation associate with the Joyful Heart Foundation. New Hampshire, for example, secured federal money in 2019 to develop a tracking system, but doesn’t have a law on the books.

In some states, tracking systems exist only in specific cities or counties. Before the launch of Michigan’s statewide system, Wayne County partnered with UPS to create a sexual assault kit tracking system in Detroit, using the same technology the company uses to track packages.

Technological approaches also differ, with some states buying software from private companies and others, such as Idaho, building their systems in-house. Multiple vendors and systems, such as SAMS-Track and Track-Kit by Invita Healthcare Technologies, now sell tracking software for evidence kits.

Some states have relied on their own coffers to fund rape kit tracking projects, while others have used grants awarded by the Justice Department’s Office on Violence Against Women or the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, which is funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, a federal agency that awards grants for state, local and tribal criminal justice projects.

“One of the main barriers is the initial cost,” Cello said. “A lot of states get scared by how much implementing a tracking system can cost, so these federal grants definitely help ease some of the states’ worries in terms of creating a tracking system.”

The Sexual Assault Kit Initiative has awarded more than $140 million since 2015 to 23 state agencies, three state law enforcement agencies and nine state attorney general offices in 30 states. Much of the money goes to tracking, though some states have used it to tackle backlogs or hire staff.

“There’s definitely been a lot of progress. That doesn’t mean that it’s done. There’s still a lot more work to do,” Cello said.

“We’d like to see all 50 states get a tracking system.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.

These new restrictions arose after a decision last year to ban all physical mail from entering Department of Corrections facilities (Darrin Klimek/Getty Images).

Missouri inmates will no longer be able to receive books from friends or family under a new policy adopted by the state Department of Corrections.

These new restrictions arose after a decision last year to ban all physical mail from entering DOC facilities. The DOC cites contraband and illicit substances arriving through these channels as the reason for the new policy.

Under the revised rules, if an inmate wants to purchase a book, the payment amount must be sent by friends or family for a fee to the inmate’s account. The inmate can then purchase the book through an approved vendor.

The change in policy has prompted significant backlash, especially from prisoner advocacy groups. They believe it is an attempt by the Department of Corrections to further cut off inmates from the outside world, limiting their contact with friends and loved ones.

Lori Curry, executive director of Missouri Prison Reform, said if she ordered a book for an inmate, it would be through a distributor like Amazon to ship directly to the prison.

“They’re citing drugs as the reason for this new policy, which makes no sense unless they’re accusing Amazon of, you know, doing drugs and books,” Curry said. “It’s very concerning to us.”

According to a spokesperson from the DOC, people were fabricating packages that had been tampered with to look like vendor mail. Some packages even arrived with a printed receipt, said Karen Pojmann, the communications director for the DOC, in an emailed statement.

She said prison officials have discovered books and magazines with pages soaked in K2, methamphetamine and fentanyl. She said books have been shipped with suboxone strips hidden in the spines.

Soaked pages have even been found in the cells of unresponsive inmates, creating safety issues for prison staff who have suffered toxic reactions after handling the materials, Pojmann said.

The department is adamant that this is not a book ban. There are “no new restrictions on the number or types of books, newspapers or magazines that people in prison can purchase, borrow, access or read,” Pojmann said.

“Books, periodicals and other publications are readily available through our canteens, in our facility libraries, in chapel libraries and on offender tablets,” Pojmann said.

Curry and others, however, argue that measures to control drug contraband have not resulted in a reduction of prisoner overdoses and deaths.

“Since they did that (implemented the mail ban), overdoses have increased, deaths from overdoses have increased,” Curry said.

Critics also claim the DOC effort to ban mail and make new rules around books is a futile effort to combat the way drugs are actually entering prisons.

“Our stance has always been that the majority of drugs and other contraband coming into prisons is not from mail,” Curry said.

Dylan Pyles, who helps run a prison books program called Liberation Lit, said the new restrictions reflect a lack of transparency from the DOC around overdose deaths in prison.

“Every incarcerated person we talk to basically is concerned that we’re pinning this contraband issue on mail. They took away physical mail last year,” Pyles said. “We’re pinning it on books. They take away books.”

The DOC is quick to point out that prisoners’ families can still send money to prisoners’ accounts, which can be used to purchase books.

But critics say prisoners have limited ways to acquire income, and purchasing a book with the small amount of money they receive would be an out-of-reach luxury. The possibility that an inmate can afford a book “is pretty ridiculous,” Pyles said

“Most who are incarcerated are saving up to purchase items from the commissary like hygiene items,” Pyles said. “If someone is going to get books, it’s going to be because a family member or a prison books program or somebody is sending them one as, like, a gift.”

The Department of Corrections believes friends, family and advocates should “take one additional step when funding the purchase of publications for incarcerated people,” Pojmann said, adding that it could save lives.

Amy Breihan is the co-director of the MacArthur Justice Center’s Missouri Office. She said “publications are a lifeline for a lot of folks.”

“We want to treat them humanely. We don’t want them to be worse off coming out by being socially isolated, which is really devastating to one’s mental health, by being denied educational opportunities. This is a pretty shocking new policy,” Breihan said.

The DOC says anyone interested in the quality and variety of books in prison libraries can contact its Library Services department about making a donation. General library services are located in 21 adult facilities, according to the department.

This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online. 

CoreCivic's Leavenworth Detention Center, which previously held pre-trial detainees charged with federal crimes could become a detention facility for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE (Allison Kite/Missouri Independent).

A private pre-trial detention center in Leavenworth beset with violence when it closed in 2021 could house individuals detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. 

For years, Nashville-based CoreCivic operated the Leavenworth Detention Center, which held individuals charged — but not convicted — with federal crimes from Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and western Missouri. Now, it could reopen to house undocumented immigrants facing removal.

“We haven’t even made a decision because we can’t until we are in an open meeting and we debate and we figure out what we do want to do or not,” said Leavenworth County Commission Chair Vicky Kaaz. 

She emphasized in an interview that the commission had yet to even hear the details of a possible arrangement. 

When CoreCivic’s Leavenworth facility held pre-trial detainees under a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service, the private jail struggled with staffing crises, rampant drug use and persistent violence. It’s being sued by a former inmate whose lawsuit includes allegations of at least 10 stabbings in 2021 and two suicides.

In 2019, CoreCivic settled with 500 detainees for $1.45 million for illegally recording phone calls with their defense attorneys and providing them to prosecutors.

The facility closed at the end of 2021 when CoreCivic’s contract with the U.S. Marshals Service expired. President Joe Biden, in his first week in office, signed an executive order barring the Department of Justice from renewing contracts with private criminal detention facilities. 

But ICE falls under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 

The future of the CoreCivic facility has been the subject of speculation for almost two years, but ICE had previously said it was not pursuing a contract for the Leavenworth facility, KCUR reported in 2021.  

CoreCivic spokesman Ryan Gustin said in an email that ICE is in the process of procuring detention services in the area. 

“Out of respect for the integrity of the process, we do not elaborate on any proposals that may have been submitted in response to active procurements,” Gustin said. 

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Since CoreCivic closed in 2021, the company has reached out to the county several times about efforts to reopen the facility, County Administrator Mark Loughry said during a Leavenworth County Commission meeting Wednesday. 

But Loughry said such efforts have never gotten far with the federal government, though that “may have changed” in the last month.

Loughry updated commissioners on the possible arrangement Wednesday after rumors began circulating on social media over the weekend. 

“It’s not an agenda item, and it may never be an agenda item,” Loughry said. “But because of the false narratives that are out there, I just wanted to kind of put out what we know.”

Kaaz said she had gotten angry notes from residents over the possibility since Kansas Rep. Pat Proctor, R-Leavenworth, posted on Facebook this Saturday urging followers to reach out to commissioners, “if you don’t want immigration bringing their self-induced border crisis to our doorstep.”

Loughry said reopening the facility would create 350 jobs, and the county could receive an administrative fee between $600,000 and $800,000 for acting as an intermediary. The value of the facility would also rebound if it opened again, Loughry said, meaning CoreCivic’s property tax bill to the county would rise.

The facility, Loughry said, could house between 500 and 900 detainees — all adults. They would be individuals who had been detained in the Midwest, not people who had just come across the border. 

Commissioner Mike Stieben proposed a motion for the commission to refuse to entertain a possible arrangement. 

“I don’t want to see us go down this road of wasting weeks of staff time having to hear from people when I think this is a totally bad idea,” he said. 

The motion failed 2-3. Commissioners voting against Stieben said they didn’t want to turn down any arrangement before hearing the details. 

The ACLU of Kansas decried the possibility of CoreCivic operating an ICE facility in a news release Wednesday. Sharon Brett, the chapter’s legal director, said the company was “plainly unable to run a facility that meets even the bare minimum of standards afforded by our Constitution.”

“CoreCivic demonstrated a consistent and deliberate indifference to mitigating the dangerous and unconstitutional conditions in the Leavenworth facility, as it has elsewhere in the country,” Brett said.

She said Leavenworth County “should not invite CoreCivic back to once again abuse individuals’ human and civil rights.”

Michael Sharma-Crawford, an immigration attorney in Kansas City, said he was concerned attorneys wouldn’t be able to get in touch with their clients easily at a CoreCivic facility. 

Right now, Sharma-Crawford works with clients in custody at the Chase County Jail in Cottonwood Falls, Kansas, where he said families and clients have better access to legal counsel. The proposed arrangement would “greatly impede a noncitizens’ ability to seek help when they need it most,” he said. 

“If access to counsel and due process are to mean anything,” he said, “perhaps ICE should reconsider their efforts to thwart both by their current efforts to use (CoreCivic) as a holding facility.”

The Cross Bronx Expressway is among the roads carved through communities of color that contribute to disproportionate levels of pollution. State efforts to remedy such inequities could be complicated by a Supreme Court ruling on college admissions that threatens race-conscious policies (Spencer Platt/Getty Images).

In recent years, some states have invested in air quality monitoring, applied extra scrutiny to permitting decisions and steered cleanup funding to minority communities that have borne the brunt of pollution for decades.

Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down race-conscious college admissions policies, state lawmakers are facing a new conundrum: Can they remedy environmental racism without mentioning race?

“The [Supreme Court] majority really reinforced the idea that a generalized government policy of rectifying past discrimination would not pass constitutional muster,” said Emily Hammond, an environmental law expert and professor at the George Washington University Law School.

Lawmakers are scrambling to figure out what the ruling will mean for their environmental justice efforts. In some states, legislators expect lawsuits to threaten their policies. The question is whether they can defend those measures in court, or if they need to revise the laws in a race-neutral way to ensure they’re not struck down.

Studies have shown that communities of color face disproportionate levels of air and water pollution, less access to green space and significant health disparities as a result of those factors. Such communities often have been carved up with highways, refineries, fossil fuel plants and waste dumps.

“We want to acknowledge the harms we have done as a state with our environmental laws, with permitting, with waste and pollution, and reduce the harms to communities that have been impacted more, which are historically communities of color,” said Minnesota state Rep. Fue Lee.

The Democrat helped champion a law passed this year that forces regulators to consider cumulative pollution effects before issuing air quality permits in certain areas, including tracts with 40% or more nonwhite residents. But he acknowledged that lawmakers should prepare to revise those criteria if legal challenges upend the law.

“If we don’t want to use race, there’s proxies like health conditions we can use,” he said. “My district has one of the highest hospitalization rates for asthma and heart conditions. Those are some next steps we can take — we just have to be creative.”

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that colleges could no longer use race as a factor in admissions. In a 6-3 decision, the majority found that policies that give favor to minority applicants violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

Legal experts fear that could open the door to lawsuits challenging other race-conscious policies, including many state-level efforts to address environmental justice. Those legal battles could stall investments to help polluted communities.

“It is not that defending race-conscious measures is impossible; it is that doing so is expensive and time-consuming, as well as unlikely to persuade judges convinced that use of race is always pernicious,” wrote Toni Massaro, a constitutional law scholar with the University of Arizona, in an email to Stateline.

In many states, lawmakers said they’re still evaluating how to proceed.

“I share deep concerns of how this ruling will impact our environmental justice laws,” said Washington state Rep. Debra Lekanoff, a Democrat who was a key backer of the state’s cap-and-trade package, which auctions pollution allowances for carbon emissions and puts the revenue into clean energy and climate adaptation projects.

The package also increases air quality monitoring and directs revenue to “overburdened” communities. The state lists racial or ethnic minority populations among its criteria to identify those areas.

But even if the program faces a legal threat, Lekanoff said, other factors included in the analysis, such as pollution exposure and health impacts, may still serve to direct resources to communities affected by environmental racism.

“The science is going to tell us that the people who are losing their lives from environmental degradation are in communities of color,” she said. “Whether or not [race] is in the law, if you just look with wide eyes at who has faced the most detrimental impacts, the truth will come to the surface.”

Lekanoff said she and other legislators will consult with Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, to determine whether they should revise the law or prepare for a lawsuit.

The Biden administration established a “race-neutral” screening methodology known as the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool to guide its efforts to direct 40% of federal spending across many agencies to disadvantaged communities. The tool uses nearly two dozen environmental and economic factors, but omits race. Environmental justice advocates say the White House did so to insulate the program from legal challenges.

A Grist analysis found that the categories used by the Biden administration — including income, climate vulnerability, health, housing and legacy pollution — largely directed funding to communities of color.

“A breakdown of all U.S. census tracts shows that, as the number of non-white residents in a tract increases, a tract becomes more likely to be considered disadvantaged by the White House tool,” the analysis said.

Despite the legal uncertainty, some environmental justice advocates urged lawmakers not to turn a blind eye to race. Robert Bullard, a civil rights leader and professor at Texas Southern University, has been dubbed the father of the environmental justice movement. He pointed to federal statutes such as the Fair Housing Act and the Voting Rights Act that do account for race.

“If we were so timid, shy and somehow threatened by the Supreme Court coming in and throwing out everything, we would still be picking cotton in 2023,” he said. “We have to push back against those policies that are destroying our communities. If there are lawsuits that will come to our efforts to destroy racism, let it be, they should not cower us into fighting for our basic rights.”

Bullard said states that are concerned about legal challenges could draft provisions that mimic the White House tool, but he urged them to cross-reference other screening methods to determine if communities of color are being left out. Other tools, such as the program developed by California regulators, account for the cumulative impacts of the health and environmental factors facing each community.

Some lawmakers echoed Bullard’s call for boldness.

“The important thing is to not concede that our policymaking should obviously change,” said Michigan state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, a Democrat and House speaker pro tempore. “If there is a challenge, we will deal with that as it arises. We are in the business of making good policy, not preemptively capitulating to an extremist unelected body.”

Pohutsky has drafted a bill that would direct utility regulators to minimize harm and prioritize benefits to minority and low-income areas. The measure is part of a larger package focused on renewable energy. Lawmakers also will consider a Senate bill that would invest a portion of the fines paid by polluters into “environmental protection communities,” as identified by a federal screening tool that does include race.

Pohutsky expressed confidence that those efforts, by accounting for many factors beyond race, could withstand legal challenges.

Hammond, the legal scholar, said race-based policies that govern regulatory actions, such as permitting decisions, may be on firmer legal ground than those that administer funding. The distribution of benefits based on race, Hammond said, would likely face closer scrutiny. Meanwhile, the court’s decision earlier this year to uphold the Indian Child Welfare Act may protect policies aimed at tribal communities — securing their status as sovereign political entities, not racial groups.

One option for lawmakers, Hammond said, is to draft so-called severability clauses. Such measures could enable them to continue using race in their analysis, but allow the laws to revert to something like the federal tool — rather than being struck down entirely — if race-based metrics are deemed invalid by a court.

“There’s a lot in [state environmental justice laws] that should be just fine, and there are perhaps pieces that present heightened risk,” Hammond said.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.

Martin Luther King Jr. (bottom right) listens to gospel singer Mahalia Jackson during the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. (Bob Parent/Getty Images)

Every now and then, a voice can matter. Mahalia Jackson had one of them.

Known around the world as the “Queen of Gospel,” Jackson used her powerful voice to work in the Civil Rights Movement. Starting in the 1950s, she traveled with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. throughout the South and heard him preach in Black churches about a vision that only he could see.

But on Aug. 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, something didn’t quite sound right to Jackson as she listened to King deliver his prepared speech. King was reading from his prepared remarks when she made a simple suggestion.

“Tell them about the dream, Martin,” she urged King, “tell them about the dream.”

Inspired, King cast aside his prepared remarks and ad-libbed from his heart. For the estimated 250,000 who joined the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom that day, they heard King deliver one of his seminal sermons.

“I have a dream,” King preached, “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

Though most memorable, King’s voice wasn’t the only one that day 60 years ago. The other voice, the one King listened to and heeded, belonged to Mahalia Jackson.

“A voice like hers comes along once in a millennium,” King once said.

An international phenomenon

Born on Oct. 26, 1911, in New Orleans, Jackson had a contralto voice that first won fame as a gospel singer in the choir at Greater Salem Baptist Church on Chicago’s South Side during the 1940s.

Among her earliest hit recordings were “I Can Put My Trust in Jesus,” “In the Upper Room,” “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” “Move On Up A Little Higher” and “Even Me Lord.”

Before long, Jackson was appearing in major concert venues in the U.S. and Europe. In 1956, she was the first gospel singer to perform at Carnegie Hall. In 1961, Jackson sang at the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy. The popular “Ed Sullivan Show” made Jackson a household name by frequently asking her to perform.

But international fame did not make Jackson forget her religious upbringing and commitment to fight for equal rights.

In “As the Spirit Moves Mahalia,” prominent Black writer Ralph Ellison wrote about the meaning of Jackson’s voice.

“The true function of her singing is not simply to entertain,” he explained, “but to prepare the congregation for the minister’s message, to make it receptive to the spirit, and with effects of voice and rhythm to evoke a shared community of experience.”

Ellison further wrote that Jackson was “not primarily a concert singer but a high priestess in the religious ceremony of her church.”

Mahalia and Martin

Jackson and King first met at the National Baptist Convention in Alabama in 1956. King asked her if she could support his work there by singing and inspiring civil rights activists during the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott.

From there, she became the first woman to serve on the board of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a prominent civil rights group led by King, and became one of King’s most trusted advisers. In a 1962 press release, King wrote that Jackson “has appeared on numerous programs that helped the struggle in the South, but now she has indicated that she wants to be involved on a regular basis.”

She shared his vision for breaking down the barriers of segregation and fighting for equitable treatment for African Americans. In her own right, Jackson became a visible fixture within the Civil Rights Movement.

Jackson died in 1972 at the age of 60.

Jackson’s voice in a movement

If music was the soul of the movement, strategic thinking was at its core. As psychologist Asa Hilliard later explained, among those strategies were moral suasion, litigation, grassroots organizing, civil disobedience, economic boycotts, the solicitation of corporate sponsors and the use of television.

The March on Washington was considered the culminating event of the historic Civil Rights Movement. The march was rooted in the ideal of economic justice and intentionally held on Aug. 28 to commemorate the lynching of Emmett Till in Mississippi on the same date in 1955.

Till’s death and the subsequent acquittal of three white men charged with the brutal murder was one of the turning points of the movement.

Among the building blocks of the Civil Rights Movement was music. It spoke to the soul, and Mahalia’s gift comforted the masses. King often called her during trying times and asked her to sing to him over the telephone.

King called her “a blessing to me … and a blessing to Negroes who have learned through her not to be ashamed of their heritage.”

It was no surprise then that Jackson felt comfortable enough to make a suggestion to the civil rights leader during a sermon.

Before he appeared on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Jackson had sung her rendition of “I have been buked and I have been scorned” and after he finished, she sang “We Shall Overcome.”

But her most important line that day might have been, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.”

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Keaira Mark, a former call center worker for Maximus, and current Maximus employees Katherine Charles Sasha Tyson, and Deondra Bridges on Friday in Washington, D.C. The women were in Washington to take part in the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington. (Casey Quinlan/States Newsroom)

Members of LGBTQ advocacy organization PROMO and others following legislation imposing restrictions on health care and sports participation by transgender minors watch a January legislative hearing from an overflow room. A judge on Friday denied a request to block enforcement of a ban on medical treatments for transgender minors that takes effect Monday.(Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent)

A St. Louis judge ruled Friday afternoon that a new state law blocking Missouri’s transgender youth from beginning new gender-affirming-care treatments can take effect Monday. 

Circuit Court Judge Steven Ohmer denied a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Missouri and Lambda Legal. The lawsuit claims a ban on medical treatments to treat a condition called gender dysphoria would have “extremely serious negative health consequences.”

Ohmer, in his two-page order, wrote that the petitioners didn’t prove that there was a substantial threat of injury if the court didn’t intervene.

“The balance between the harm to petitioners and injury to others does not clearly weigh in favor of granting a preliminary injunction,” his order says.

Ohmer was assigned to the case when the original judge from Cole County could not schedule the necessary hearing before the law took effect. The next step in the case will be a status hearing in September.

The state brought outspoken “detransitioners,” or formerly transgender people, Zoe Hawes and Chloe Cole as some of its witnesses. Cole, a teenager from California, travels throughout the country to advocate against gender-affirming care.

Cole visited the state capitol in the spring, invited by Sen. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, to advocate for the legislation. She often shares an emotional story of regret after a surgical operation to affirm a gender identity she no longer holds.

The new law imposes a four-year moratorium on starting hormonal therapies, puberty blocking medications and surgical procedures for minors. It does not ban counseling for minors experiencing gender dysphoria and those who have already begun medical treatments can continue. If no future legislative action is taken, the ban on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones will expire on Aug. 28, 2027.

Medical providers in Missouri rarely perform gender-affirming surgeries on those under 18.

Another witness for the state, Jamie Reed, stirred an investigation into her former employer, the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

The investigation, led by Attorney General Andrew Bailey, went public in February after Reed published her story in a national media outlet.

But patients of the Transgender Center and Reed’s former coworker question her allegations. Documents from the center contradict part of Reed’s affidavit, which alleged the Transgender Center allowed children to transition with minimal oversight.

After the multi-day hearing, the ACLU of Missouri appeared confident in its argument, calling the state’s experts “not up to snuff” on Twitter.

“The law is rooted in discrimination as it would deny evidence-based, necessary and often life-saving medical care to transgender people while a non-transgender person [can] obtain the same treatment,” the ACLU of Missouri posted prior to the order.

‘There’s no point in staying’: Transgender Missourians describe toll of legislative session

Friday afternoon, the organization’s spokesperson Tom Bastian sent a statement: “While we are disappointed in and disagree with the court’s ruling, we will not stop fighting to protect the rights of transgender people in Missouri. The case is not over and will go to a full trial on the merits.”

Ohmer didn’t think stopping the law would be in the public’s interest, according to the order.

A majority of Missourians interviewed in a St. Louis University/YouGov poll responded that they were opposed to gender-affirming care banned in the new law, like surgeries and hormone replacement therapy. Respondents were split evenly on if they agreed with gender-affirming therapy, which is still allowed under the law.

The judge also questioned the science behind gender-affirming care — treatment approved by the American Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, the Endocrine Society, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychiatric Association.

“The science and medical evidence is conflicting and unclear,” Ohmer wrote. “Accordingly, the evidence raises more questions than answers.”

There are scientific studies of various qualities showing evidence for and against gender-affirming care. Some have been pulled from scientific journals after ethical debates and quality concerns.

Yamelsie Rodríguez, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, accused Missouri politicians of using “ideology and junk science” to justify the new law.

“On Monday, trans and gender-expansive young Missourians will have their rights stripped away — unless a higher court intervenes,” she said. “They are terrified and furious that Missouri politicians are using ideology and junk science to deny them life-saving health care and erase their existence — and we are right alongside them.”

Aro Royston, board secretary for Missouri’s LGBTQ+ advocacy organization PROMO, said in a statement that gender-affirming care is life-saving and supported by major medical organizations.

“Not one single person who is in favor of this legislation understands how this law truly impacts the transgender community,” he said. “None of them understand the breath of relief we get to feel when we finally understand who we are and how beautiful it is to be transgender. They cannot fathom the best part of gender-affirming healthcare, which is being able to look into the mirror and see in the reflection the person you always knew yourself to be.

“Today, you have robbed us of this immense joy and our ability to thrive within this state as our authentic selves.”

Missouri isn’t the only state undergoing litigation on a gender-affirming care ban.

While arguments were underway, Bailey’s office asked the court to take note of a decision upholding Alabama’s ban on transgender treatments handed down Monday by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court overturned a preliminary injunction issued by a district court blocking enforcement of the Alabama law banning puberty blocking medications and hormone treatments for children.

And 16 states, including Alabama, wrote an amicus brief asking the judge to allow the law to become effective.

“The Missouri Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act is a valid exercise of Missouri’s police power,” the states wrote. “Missouri, like many other States, became concerned that healthcare providers were risking the long-term health and well-being of gender dysphoric children with unproven hormonal and surgical treatments.”

Bailey took note Friday that Missouri, unlike Alabama, defeated a request to pause the law at the circuit-court level.

“Missouri is the first state in the nation to successfully defend at the trial-court level a law barring child mutilation,” he said in a statement. “I’ve said from day one as Attorney General that I will fight to ensure that Missouri is the safest state in the nation for children. This is a huge step in that direction.”

Moon said he was pleased with the ruling.

“I’m grateful for all who defended (the law), and I’m hopeful that those who are seeking help due to dissatisfaction with their identity will find the counseling they need,” he wrote to The Independent in a text message.

The parties will return to court in St. Louis September 22.

Rudi Keller of the Independent staff contributed to this report.

Neon Liebson, a transgender student from St. Louis, says his name into the microphone during a January hearing of the Senate Education and Workforce Development Committee. He and other students who missed school to testify did not get to give their comments, but the committee acknowledged them by allowing them to say their names. (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent)

As Missouri awaited a court decision on whether minors will be barred from receiving puberty blockers or gender transition surgery, a poll released this week shows strong public support for the law.

After Circuit Judge Steven Ohmer ruled Friday afternoon against an injunction on the state’s new law against transgender medical care for minors, the bill signed in May by Gov. Mike Parson will take effect Monday. Ohmer this week concluded a two-day hearing in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Missouri, Lambda Legal, and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP on behalf of three plaintiffs.

Without further legal challenge, the bill will, for four years, ban surgical interventions and hormone therapies. Minors already receiving hormone therapies will be allowed to continue. Counseling that does not involve medical intervention is not included in the ban.

Without further action, the ban will expire on Aug. 28, 2027.

The St. Louis University/YouGov poll released Tuesday found strong opposition to medical interventions for people under 18, with 63% approving bans on hormone therapies like puberty blockers and 24% opposed. Seventy-three percent favored outlawing gender-transition surgeries for minors, and 14% opposed.

In an interview, poll director Steven Rogers said the findings reveal that Missourians are nuanced in their attitudes. The survey found equal numbers of respondents – 44% – on both sides of the question of whether minors should be able to receive gender-affirming counseling.

“Missourians indisputably favor restricting gender transition medical care for minors,” Rogers said. “But they do not completely oppose gender-affirming care for minors.”

Robert Fischer, spokesman for PROMO, one of Missouri’s oldest LGBTQ advocacy groups, said he wasn’t surprised by the results. 

“Even though these numbers look frightening, or look very discouraging to someone looking at them, what it tells us at PROMO is there is a lot more education for what it means to be transgender and what that looks like in Missouri,” Fischer said.

Most people don’t know anyone who has dealt with gender identity issues, leading many to hold stereotyped views, he said.

“On marriage equality, the education that took place was that these are your neighbors, these are your parents, these are your teachers, who just want the ability to marry the person they love,” Fischer said.

LGBTQ issues and book bans

The SLU/YouGov poll, along with seeking opinions on gender-affirming treatments, asked respondents to give their opinion on same-sex marriage, when discussions of LGBTQ issues are acceptable in schools and whether books with stories about LGBTQ youth should be available in school libraries.

The poll also surveyed attitudes on sports participation. A ban on transgender students competing in sports in alignment with their gender will also take effect Monday. Two-thirds of those surveyed expressed similar values. Unlike the ban on treatments, the sports law has not been challenged in court.

The top-line results show a majority of Missourians, 56%, now support legal recognition of same-sex marriage. Only Republicans, as a defined group in the poll, continue to oppose it, with 63% of them saying it should not be allowed.

In August 2004, a constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman passed with 71% of the vote.

When the question is whether Missouri should enact a statute like Florida’s “Don’t say gay” law that bans discussions of LGBTQ issues in schools, the survey found that 56% of respondents approve of those discussions at the high school level, while 69% said they are not appropriate in elementary schools.

Respondents opposed book bans, with 54% opposing schools removing books with stories about lesbian and gay youth, and 49% opposing removal of books with stories about transgender youth.

Younger, more affluent voters surveyed, and those in metro areas, leaned more toward allowing treatments, discussions and sports participation for transgender youth.

In the statehouse

Sen. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove and sponsor of the transgender health care law being challenged in court, said the results aren’t entirely surprising.

“I am pleased, really, that there are those who seem to lean toward protecting children,” Moon said.

During this year’s legislative session, transgender young people and their parents packed legislative hearings and filled overflow rooms to show their opposition to bans on medical care. The four-year moratorium on new medical interventions instead of a permanent ban was the deal that ended a filibuster by Senate Democrats.

By the end of the 2023 legislative session, the American Civil Liberties Union was tracking 48 bills in Missouri the organization deemed anti-LGBTQ. Only one state, Texas, had more bills on the ACLU’s list. By the end of the session, many families with transgender children were thinking of leaving the state.

‘There’s no point in staying’: Transgender Missourians describe toll of legislative session

“I think a good portion of the rhetoric that has come out of the Missouri state government has been focused on pushing this as wedge issues,” Fischer said.

Pressure on Republicans to overcome the filibusters came from conservative religious groups that play a big role in GOP primary elections. That political pressure was instrumental in making gender identity an issue in the legislature, Fischer said.

Moon, who lost a GOP primary for Congress last year, said he’s not filing his bills to seek votes. Along with the ban on treatments, Moon unsuccessfully tried to ban all discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in public school settings.

“I don’t do things based on which way the wind is blowing, and I don’t vote thinking how this is going to affect my next election,” Moon said. “This issue was not brought to me as something to do to gain support.”

A federal judge has put Georgia’s ban on hormone treatments for transgender minors on hold. (photo illustration by Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder)

Georgia families contemplating hormone therapy for their minor transgender children will have more time to make a decision after a federal judge temporarily blocked Georgia’s ban on the treatments Sunday.

Georgia’s Senate Bill 140 went into effect July 1, preventing doctors from prescribing estrogen or testosterone to transgender people under 18, with exceptions for minors who had already started treatment before that date. Another exemption allows doctors to use sex hormones to treat minors for other reasons.

A group of Georgia families brought the case, saying that the law would prevent them from getting the treatment their children’s doctors recommend. The families say their children have been dealing with gender dysphoria for years and they want to begin hormone treatments on a timeline recommended by their doctors.

A similar case is being heard this week in a Missouri state court, with a ruling on an injunction expected before the law takes effect on Monday.

One mother, identified pseudonymously as Emma Koe, said her family is considering moving out of the state if her 12-year-old daughter is denied treatment.

“After the passage of this law, I felt defeated,” she said. “Many people seem to feel like being transgender is a choice, but my husband and I would never have chosen this for our child—we simply want our daughter to be alive and thriving.”

The law’s Republican backers said the measure was necessary to prevent children from undergoing irreversible treatment, but U.S. District Judge Sarah Geraghty sided with a group of Georgia families who said the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by discriminating on the basis of sex.

Geraghty quoted a Florida ruling striking down a similar ban on the same basis:

“Consider an adolescent, perhaps age 16, that a physician wishes to treat with testosterone. Under the challenged statute, is the treatment legal or illegal? To know the answer, one must know the adolescent’s sex. If the adolescent is a natal male, the treatment is legal. If the adolescent is a natal female, the treatment is illegal. This is a line drawn on the basis of sex, plain and simple.”

The state argued a different point of view, citing a Tennessee case in which a panel of judges allowed a ban on gender-affirming care to go forward. The judges in that case ruled that the Tennessee law was acceptable because it banned hormone treatments equally for both boys and girls.

Geraghty was not convinced by that argument.

“Respectfully, however, this Court is unpersuaded by this aspect of (the Tennessee case). To talk about SB 140 this way is merely to redescribe it in ostensibly neutral terms; the substance of the law is unaltered.”

Geraghty also cast doubt on the state’s arguments that the law serves a legitimate interest in protecting children from a procedure they described as unproven, which they said could lead to regrets later in life.

The broadly accepted standard of care for transgender minors can include doctor-guided hormone therapy in conjunction with social transitioning, which can include changing the child’s name, pronouns and style of dress.

The plaintiff’s witnesses argued that all medical procedures come with some risk, but it is part of a doctor’s job to weigh the risks with the benefits and offer treatments in their patients’ best interest.

Twenty medical organizations filed briefs with the court supporting the current standards, including the American Pediatric Association, The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and the Association of American Medical Colleges.

The state presented witnesses who argued against the mainstream opinion, but Geraghty was again skeptical.

“There is a notable inconsistency between, on the one hand, Defendants’ experts’ insistence on a very high threshold of evidence in the context of claims about hormone therapy’s safety and benefits, and on the other hand their tolerance of a much lower threshold of evidence for claims about its risks, the likelihood of desistance and/or regret, and their notions about the ideological bias of a medical establishment that largely disagrees with them,” she wrote. “That is cause for some concern about the weight to be assigned to their views, although the Court does not doubt that those they express are genuinely held.”

LGBTQ advocates say laws like SB 140 are part of a national campaign targeting transgender youth. According to the Human Rights Campaign, 21 states including Georgia have passed laws banning gender-affirming care for minors. With Geraghty’s ruling, those laws are under court injunction in six of those states.

Rudi Keller of The Missouri Independent contributed to this report.

This article was initially published by Georgia Recorder, part of the States Newsroom network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

Gov. Mike Parson signs bills on June 7, 2023, banning gender-affirming treatments for minors and limiting participation in school sports based on gender (Photo courtesy of Missouri Governor's office).

Students are returning to the classroom around Missouri this week, and new laws go into effect Monday.

But state officials are still not clear on how they will enforce restrictions on transgender athletes – one of the most controversial new laws approved by Missouri legislators this year.

Neither the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education nor the Missouri State High School Activities Association could say how the restrictions would be administered. Each agency initially directed questions to the other, a situation local school officials say is stoking confusion.

Hanging in the balance is the fate of 10 student athletes who were eligible last year to compete according to their gender identity but who would be prohibited this year.

A separate law that also takes effect Monday, banning gender-affirming treatments for minors, is being challenged in a court case being heard this week in Springfield. St. Louis Circuit Judge Steven Ohmer is expected to decide whether to issue an injunction soon after he finishes hearing testimony.

Prior to this school year, a MSHSAA policy allowed transgender athletes to compete as their gender identity if they had undergone hormone treatments for at least one year.

“Once the law goes into effect, the MSHSAA bylaw on transgender participation becomes invalid,” Jason West, the association’s communications director told The Independent. “As for enforcement of the state statute, the local school and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education will oversee and administer any penalties. DESE will be determining what type of identification will be required in that regard.”

The new law requires DESE and the Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development to set the rules for the implementation of the ban. But when asked about administering this new law, DESE initially looked to MSHSAA.

Mallory McGowin, a spokeswoman for the department, said MSHSAA was the “most appropriate” source to ask about enforcement of the new law because the organization“oversees all athletics and activities participation statewide.”

She later told The Independent that the two organizations were in communication.

“As MSHSAA policies dictate, it is the responsibility of MSHSAA member schools to verify student eligibility, whether that’s verifying student residency, academic performance, or gender,” McGowin wrote. “Local school district policy and procedure will dictate how that verification takes place.”

DESE can publish administrative rules for the new law in the Missouri Register in the future. The public could comment on the regulations prior to their enforcement.

Administrators are aware of the new law, but with birth certificates not required as part of students’ enrollment process, schools may not have records of students’ sex as assigned at birth.

Schools may also have students on hormone treatments now competing on teams aligned with their sex as assigned at birth. For transgender men, this means they would compete in women’s sports while increasing their testosterone levels.

According to McGowin, these student athletes with hormone treatments are still allowed to compete.

Enforcement at the college level also relies on schools’ interpretation of the law.

Ryan Koslen, spokesman for the University of Missouri Intercollegiate Athletics Department, said in late July that the department was working with its “office of general counsel to determine the best path forward operationally.”

He did not answer a request for an update in August.

While state law bans transgender athletes from competing according to their gender identity, the NCAA takes a sport by sport approach and looks at the hormone levels of athletes.

The organization has publicly threatened to pull championship competitions from locations where law restricts transgender athletes.

“When determining where championships are held, NCAA policy directs that only locations where hosts can commit to providing an environment that is safe, healthy and free of discrimination should be selected,” the NCAA published in an April 2021 statement.

Missouri State University, when asked about their plan of enforcement, didn’t provide specifics.

“We are aware of the law and have articulated the information to our coaching staffs,” Athletics Director Kyle Moats wrote in an email. “We will also continue to follow the guidance of the NCAA as its policies evolve.”

Twenty-three states have established restrictions on transgender athletes since 2020 — some of which are currently unenforceable pending litigation. The Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank that maps LGBTQ policies, estimates that 34% of transgender youth ages 13-17 live in states with laws restricting their participation in sports.

In Arkansas, enforcement of its state law on transgender athletes extends to the attorney general’s office. After passing the initial ban on transgender athletes, Arkansas lawmakers created the Gender Integrity Reinforcement Legislation for Sports Act to allow the attorney general to sue schools that knowingly violate the law.

Oklahoma, which has had its ban for a year, requires athletes’ parents to sign an affidavit stating their child’s sex as assigned at birth.

At the federal level, a change to Title IX could reverse Missouri’s restrictions.

In April, the U.S. Department of Education announced proposed changes to Title IX that would prevent “one-size-fits-all” policies regarding transgender athletes. It would allow schools to set their own rules but require them to develop eligibility criteria.

“For older students … the department expects that sex-related criteria that limit participation of some transgender students may be permitted, in some cases, when they enable the school to achieve an important educational objective, such as fairness in competition, and meet the proposed regulation’s other requirements,” the department’s announcement says.

Gov. Mike Parson joined 24 other Republican governors in a letter to the Secretary of Education opposing the proposed regulation.

“The proposed rule could prevent states from enforcing our duly-enacted statutes protecting fairness in women’s and girls’ sports. If not withdrawn, we are gravely concerned about the impact that the Department’s wholesale reinvention of Title IX’s terms would have on states’ ability to enforce their laws and policies as written,” the governors wrote.

Editor and publisher Eric Meyer gestures during a press conference Wednesday at the Marion County Ledger. Max McCoy / Kansas Reflector

TOPEKA — Affidavits signed by a police chief and magistrate to warrant the raid on the Marion County Record were supposed to provide evidence that a reporter committed a crime.

Instead, they serve as evidence that the local officials abused their power.

Police Chief Gideon Cody received approval from Magistrate Judge Laura Viar to conduct the Aug. 11 raids on the newspaper office, the publisher’s home, and the home of a city councilwoman after small-town drama erupted over a restaurant owner’s quest for a liquor license. Officers hauled away computers, hard drives and reporters’ personal cellphones during the newsroom raid — inviting worldwide condemnation for the brazen attack on press freedom.

Cody claimed a day after the raids that he would be “vindicated” when the rest of the story became public. But the probable cause affidavits he wrote before the raids provide little information that wasn’t already reported.

The raids were based on the premise that Marion County Record reporter Phyllis Zorn broke the law when she received a driver’s license record from a confidential source and verified the information through a Kansas Department of Revenue database. But state and federal law clearly support a reporter’s ability to access such information, and separate laws shield journalists from police searches and seizures.

Jared McClain, an attorney for the Institute for Justice, a libertarian law firm, said the affidavits confirm that “the police’s strong-arm tactics were completely unjustified.” It should have been obvious to the magistrate that the searches were illegal, he said.

“Too often, the warrant process is just a way for police to launder their lack of probable cause through a complicit local judge,” McClain said. “Until we start holding judges accountable for enabling the abusive and lawless behavior of the police, incidents like this are just going to keep happening.”

Who’s who in Marion

The complicated circumstances surrounding the raids involve a cast of characters who include:

• Cody, who left the Kansas City, Missouri, police force in April while facing possible discipline and demotion for allegations of making insulting and sexist comments to a female officer, the Kanas City Star reported.
• Viar, whose pair of DUIs in 2012 included drunkenly crashing into a school building. There is no public record of that case in the state’s court system, the Wichita Eagle reported.
• Kari Newell, the supposed victim of identity theft. She owns Chef’s Plate at Parlour 1886 and was seeking a liquor license for the restaurant. She also owns the cafe Kari’s Kitchen.
• Zorn, the newspaper reporter who received a tip that Newell had been convicted of a DUI in 2008. Zorn verified the information through the KDOR database.
• Eric Meyer, publisher of the Marion County Record.
• Joan Meyer, the 98-year-old mother of Eric who co-owned the Marion County Record and lived with her son. She died a day after the raid on her home left her so stressed she couldn’t eat or sleep.
• Joel Ensey, the county attorney who declared Aug. 16 that the search warrants were based on “insufficient evidence.” The property was returned that day.
• Jeremy Ensey, brother to the county attorney. He and his wife, Tammy, own the Historic Elgin Hotel, where Chef’s Plate is located.
• Ruth Herbel, the only city council member to vote against the approval of Newell’s request for a liquor license.
• Pam Maag, a Marion resident who notified Herbel about Newell’s driver’s license record.
• U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner, who held an Aug. 1 meet-and-greet at Kari’s Kitchen. Cody, at Newell’s request, removed Eric Meyer and Zorn from the event.

Supporting evidence

Before police can carry out a search warrant, they need to convince a judge that they have evidence a crime has been committed.

That evidence is presented in the form of a probable cause affidavit.

Cody’s evidence for the raid on the newsroom starts with a reference to the Aug. 1 meet-and-greet with LaTurner and the newspaper’s story about being ejected.

Maag — identified in a separate affidavit as the wife of a Kansas Highway Patrol officer — sent a social media message to Herbel regarding Newell’s driver’s license history. Herbel in turn notified the city administrator and told him she wanted to deny Newell her liquor license.

Eric Meyer, meanwhile, emailed Cody to let him know the newspaper had received a copy of Newell’s driver’s license record and raised the question of whether the record had been obtained through police misconduct.

Cody contacted the Kansas Department of Revenue, which said Newell’s records had been downloaded twice — by Zorn and someone claiming to be Newell.

On Aug. 7, ahead of the meeting where the city council would vote on Newell’s liquor license, Cody told Newell that the newspaper and Herbel were aware of her DUI. Newell denied accessing the KDOR website, which meant “someone obviously stole her identity,” Cody wrote in the affidavit.

“Downloading the document involved either impersonating the victim or lying about the reasons why the record was being sought,” Cody wrote, a conclusion he based not on law but on “options available on the Kansas DOR records website.”

During the Aug. 7 city council meeting, Newell accused Herbel and the newspaper of wrongdoing.

According to Newell, Eric Meyer responded with this threat: “If you pursue anything I will print the story and will continue to use anything I can to come at you. I will own your restaurant.”

Meyer, in an interview with the Washington Post, denied making the threat.

The Marion County Record published an article in the Aug. 9 edition that responded to allegations made by Newell during the city council meeting.

Based on that narrative, Cody concluded police needed to seize all electronic devices, utility records and other materials from the newspaper office, as well as the homes of the publisher and councilwoman. Viar approved.

Hours after the police raids, Viar told Zorn the affidavits hadn’t been filed with the court.

The affidavits were signed Aug. 11, a Friday, but appeared in the court record three days later. That’s because Kansas rules prohibit a court from acknowledging a probable cause affidavit until it receives notice that the warrant has been executed, said Lisa Taylor, a spokeswoman for Kansas courts. The three-day delay in this case suggests the notification came after the close of business on Aug. 11.

Journalism is not a crime

Bernie Rhodes, a partner at Lathrop GPM in Kansas City, Missouri, who is representing the Marion County Record, provided a legal memo outlining state and federal law.

While it is unlawful to disclose personal information from a motor vehicle record, including an individual’s driver’s license photograph, state law makes it clear that personal information “does not include information on vehicular accidents, driving violations, and drivers’ status.” It also allows personal information to be disclosed for research activities and statistical reports, so long as it isn’t published or used to contact individuals.

Courts have determined that reporters have a “legitimate research purpose” when investigating stories and should be allowed access to vital records, according to the annotated memo.

Rhodes said the affidavits establish that Cody knew the only thing Zorn did was verify the authenticity of Newell’s driver’s license record by going to a public website.

“Zorn had every right, under both Kansas law and U.S. law, to access Newell’s driver’s record to verify the information she had been provided by a source,” Rhodes said.

“As I have said numerous times in the last week, it is not a crime in America to be a reporter,” Rhodes added. “These affidavits prove that the only so-called ‘crime’ Chief Cody was investigating was being a reporter.”

Max Kautsch, president of the Kansas Coalition for Open Government, said the affidavits make it clear that Zorn didn’t violate state law regarding the access of driver’s license information, much less the supposed crime of identity theft.

“The disclosed information was directly related to a matter in the public interest, namely, whether a person with an invalid driver’s license should be permitted to obtain a liquor license,” Kautsch said. “A prohibition against a reporter verifying information about such a matter from a source would be an unconstitutional and unintended application of the statute.”

This article was initially published by the Kansas Reflector, a part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. 

Jerry Ryan delivers Wednesday’s edition of the Marion County Record to distribution worker Bev Baldwin. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

After Kansas Reflector reported on the ignominious and unconstitutional raid of the Marion County Record on Aug. 11, news outlets and commentators from across Kansas and the nation followed suit throughout the weekend. The voices of those who value a free press and free expression were overwhelming in their force and intensity.

Eight days later, with the Record’s equipment returned and reporters digging into circumstances surrounding the raid, it can be tempting to think that justice has been done. Time to pack up, nothing more to see here. Freedom has won, and we can all sail into the sunset.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

We still need answers and consequences in the case itself. More broadly, the egregious overreach in Marion and the good faith of journalists at the Record made this a perfect national story. Few would think that authorities got this one right. The problem — as journalists across the States Newsroom network told us — is that attacks on a free and fair press are not rare at all. Indeed, such attacks have become distressingly commonplace.

When powerful people go after journalists and news outlets, they go after everyone. They go after publications’ readers. They go after voters who use information reported to make decisions. They go after other politicians who may have opposing messages or interests.

Ultimately, they go against the constitutional order of this country, which guarantees First Amendment rights to everyone.

Or as national president of the Society of Professional Journalists Claire Regan said: “By all accounts, the raid was an egregious attack on freedom of the press, the First Amendment and all the liberties we hold dear as journalists in this great country.”

Make no mistake: Popular speech seldom requires government protection. Officials in Russia don’t worry about cute cat calendars or a lifestyle magazine promoting Vladimir Putin as the sexiest man alive. Speech that many would consider offensive or outrageous or simply impolite would be easy to shut down without the protections inscribed in our founding documents.

Aggressive journalism and pointed commentary doesn’t always feel good. It’s not supposed to. Those who would shut it down might claim they’re trying to restore civic peace or look out for the common welfare. Ultimately, however, they are harming the Constitution and country they claim to love.

Let’s look at outrages big and small from across the United States. Editors from other States Newsroom outlets sent their own accounts, columns they ran and links to other stories. Follow along, in easy alphabetical order. 

Arizona

Arizona Mirror editor Jim Small highlights two stories, the first from him, the second from the Associated Press:

From 2016: “House Republican leaders defended their decision this week to revoke the credentials of the dedicated Capitol reporters by saying the new policy requiring background checks of the Fourth Estate, which allow them to access the press tables they’ve sat at on the House floor since at least the 1970s, is merely about ensuring the safety of the chamber’s 60 elected officials.”

From May 2023: “A judge dismissed Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers’ restraining order against a reporter Wednesday, saying that the investigative journalist’s conduct did not rise to the level of harassment.

“ ’I don’t think there is a series of events directed at Sen. Rogers that would cause a reasonable person to be seriously alarmed, annoyed or harassed even if she in fact was,’ Judge Howard Grodman said after a hearing in Flagstaff Justice Court. ‘The strongest point is investigative reporting is a legitimate purpose. lt just is.’ ”

Arkansas

Arkansas Advocate editor Sonny Albarado wrote a column on the subject last week:

In Arkansas, the state Department of Education’s sudden decision to remove an Advanced Placement course from its approved list for graduation credit sent a not-so-subtle and insidious message to educators and students alike regarding freedom of thought and speech.

The AP African American Studies course had been under ADE scrutiny since Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders ordered the agency to scour curricula and other educational material for evidence of “indoctrination” and “critical race theory.” Her signature legislation the LEARNS Act contains a section describing what is meant and what isn’t meant by the vague terms. Read it and see if you don’t think it’s still vague.

Georgia

Georgia Record editor John McCosh highlights the jailing of a reporter seven years ago:

From July 2016: “Mark Thomason was arrested, handcuffed, put in the back of a police cruiser, booked, had his mugshot taken, was strip searched, made to pee in a cup in front of male witnesses, made to shower with other inmates and spent 24 hours in a jail cell.

“His crime?

“According to the rural north Georgia journalist, he simply made open records requests that made people in powerful positions angry.”

From November 2016: “All charges were dropped against Mark Thomason and his attorney, Russell Stookey, who was jailed on that fateful day. Thomason’s open record requests were granted.”

Iowa

Iowa Capital Dispatch editor Kathie Obradovich writes:

In Iowa, a reporter from the Des Moines Register was pepper-sprayed and arrested by Des Moines police during a May 2020 protest of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police. Although Andrea Sahouri identified herself as a reporter who was covering the protest, she was put on trial for failure to disperse and interference with official acts. A jury acquitted her in 2021.

Other attacks on press freedom have come in the form of violations of the open records act and new restrictions in media access to state and local government. The Republican-controlled Iowa Senate permanently removed media from press seating on the chamber floor in 2022 after more than a century. A group of journalists and open-records advocates, including Iowa Capital Dispatch, sued Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and members of her staff for violations of the open-records law, including failing to respond to requests for public records for as long as 18 months. The suit was settled earlier this year after the Iowa Supreme Court affirmed that the governor’s office was subject to the law and that its response time was unreasonable.

Missouri

Missouri Independent editor Jason Hancock writes:

In Missouri, few elected officials have had a more combative relationship with the press than Gov. Mike Parson. He regularly lashes out with baseless attacks on the media, and during his tenure in office he cut the number of statehouse parking spaces designated for reporters and revoked Capitol building passes for the press.

But all that pales in comparison to his push to prosecute a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter who uncovered a security flaw in a state website.

Top officials in Parson’s administration initially wanted to thank the reporter. But instead, Parson convened a news conference to call the reporter a hacker, accuse the Post-Dispatch of trying to embarrass a Republican governor and to push for the reporter to face a criminal investigation.

Even after prosecutors and local law enforcement concluded no crime was committed, Parson refused to accept reality and continued to insist the reporter engaged in wrongdoing.

New Mexico

Source New Mexico editor Shaun Griswold writes:

The attack on press freedom in New Mexico is a personal affair that brought me unwanted attention and affirmed that journalists in the state will stand up to elected officials, or in this case wannabe elected officials.

I took a drive five hours south from my home on Aug 14, 2022, to Carlsbad, New Mexico. The assignment was to cover New Mexico GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Ronchetti and his guest Ron DeSantis. This was before the Florida governor announced his candidacy for president, but we all knew what he was going to do. However, I was there for the weatherman turned statewide candidate Ronchetti. At this point he had yet to speak in many public forums, and my goal was to inform readers on his thoughts next to a national GOP elected.

It turned into something completely different.

Before I arrived, I had been denied a credential by Ronchetti’s press secretary Enrique Knell, who cited Source New Mexico as a “left-wing” publication.

I opted to sign up for a ticket through the campaign and walk in to see the event, something I learned to do from other restrictive practices under former President Donald Trump.

When I arrived, two paid security guards had my face on their cellphones. With backup from armed sheriff’s deputies, they denied me entry to the event.

I was so upset, I was starting to bum cigarettes and chain smoke. By the third American Spirit I got from someone in a 3 Percenters T-shirt, I noticed a piece of blank white cardboard. I grabbed it, took out my Sharpie and wrote a note soliciting interviews from anyone that was inside.

I still hit the assignment and learned early on what the rest of the country is still learning: Trump reigns supreme with these voters, even the people DeSantis brought in.

After I left, social media fueled a bigger conversation on press access. The campaigns had thought it was proper to push around a new, smaller news publication. They thought wrong. The attention to press access was brought up by every media outlet in New Mexico and several out of state.

I’ve repeatedly thanked Ronchetti, and by proxy DeSantis, because they showed me the strength of journalists when we work together.

Oregon

Oregon Capital Chronicle editor Lynne Terry writes:

One of the most high-profile incidents in Oregon happened in September 2020, during a police raid on a large homeless camp in a public park in Medford in southern Oregon.

April Ehrlich, a reporter for Jefferson Public Radio, arrived before police to interview some of the dozens camped there. When police arrived, they closed the park and set up a media staging area a ways away.

Ehrlich refused to leave and continued reporting.

Four police officers surrounded her and handcuffed her arms behind her back as she shouted, “I’m a reporter! I am a reporter! I’m just doing my job.”

She was hauled to jail, charged with trespassing, resisting arrest and interfering with an officer. She sat behind bars for hours before being released.

Journalists rallied to her defense, with about 50 news outlets joining a friend-of-the-court brief, including The New York Times, Washington Post and the Associated Press.

Last September, days before the case was due to go to trial, a judge dismissed it, calling her arrest a violation of her constitutional rights. Days later, she filed suit in U.S. District Court in Medford against the city of Medford and its city manager, Jackson County and several police officers.

The case is ongoing.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Capital Star editor Kim Lyons writes:

Perhaps the most egregious attempts to stifle the press in Pennsylvania recently have come from candidates for public office. Doug Mastriano, the GOP candidate for Pennsylvania governor in 2022, did not engage at all with most reporters (unless they were from “friendly” right-wing outlets), had aides physically prevent reporters from entering his campaign events (at one event by a gentleman in a tri-cornered hat, no less) and had reporters photos’ printed out at a check-in desk at another event, to bar them from entry.

Mastriano lost to Democrat Josh Shapiro by 14 points in the general election.

South Dakota

South Dakota Searchlight editor Seth Tupper writes:

When I was working at the Daily Republic in Mitchell, a local surgeon told our editor he was lucky the paper hadn’t been “firebombed” after we questioned the surgeon regarding his repeated use of racial slurs. The situation resulted in temporary police protection for the paper, while the surgeon eventually stepped down from the hospital board (whatever other consequences he faced, if any, were hidden behind the wall of “personnel matters”).

When I was working at the Rapid City Journal, members of a local water development board (a publicly elected body that levies a small tax) tried to use $100,000 of the board’s public funds to sue the newspaper because they were angry about our coverage. Other board members shot down the proposal. Board members pushing the plan said some things to and about me and the paper that were borderline threats, including, “When you’ve got a bully on the beach, sometimes you’ve got to go pop them on the nose before you get things squared away, and that’s kind of how I look at the Rapid City Journal situation,” and, “Your judgment day is ahead.”

West Virginia

West Virginia Watch editor Leann Ray writes:

West Virginia journalists are no strangers to assaults on the free press — and the worst part is that most of it is coming from inside their own organizations. West Virginia Watch was formed because of this.

In December 2022, three reporters from the Charleston Gazette-Mail, including our Caity Coyne, were fired for tweets criticizing HD Media President Doug Skaff — who was also the West Virginia House of Delegates minority leader at the time — for interviewing former coal mine operator Don Blankenship on his online political podcast and not pushing back on Blankenship’s denial of climate change or that he had any responsibility in the 2011 Upper Big Branch Mine disaster.

But that’s not all. That same month, it was discovered that Skaff had an IT employee delete a 2015 Gazette-Mail story about Skaff being banned from casino gambling in West Virginia after he was caught cheating during a Blackjack game at the Greenbrier resort. When editors found out, the story was put back on the website with an editor’s note.

Also in December, Amelia Ferrell Knisely was abruptly let go from her position at West Virginia Public Broadcasting for reporting on the Department of Health and Human Resources. Knisely reported stories about allegations concerning people with disabilities being abused in state-run facilities. Her termination followed the DHHR demanding that one of her stories be retracted. She now works for West Virginia Watch.

And we can’t forget the time that Gov. Jim Justice said he wished Gazette-Mail Statehouse Reporter Phil Kabler was hijacked on a train, and threatened to sue Kabler and the paper.

These are just instances we know because we lived them. The Charleston Gazette-Mail is West Virginia’s largest newspaper, and people still think of it as the “liberal media,” so it might have received more negative attention than other news outlets.

Wisconsin

Wisconsin Examiner editor Ruth Conniff highlights this column from Bill Lueders:

Now there is a case in Wisconsin that is drawing national attention as an example of the use of brute force by government officials against a local news outlet. In an article that appeared in Wednesday’s paper, New York Times reporter Jeremy W. Peters looks into the lawsuit brought by Cory Tomczyk, now a Republican state senator from Mosinee, against the Wausau Review & Pilot, a digital newspaper started and edited by Shereen Siewert. …

In an email exchange on Wednesday, Siewert said she believed the purpose of Tomczyk’s lawsuit is “to bankrupt me and crush our organization.” She recalled her sense of relief when the lawsuit was dismissed. “But then the realization hit that even if we win, we lose, because there is no way for us to counter sue or recoup our losses in any way … because we live in Wisconsin.”

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate.

Joan Meyer, co-owner of the Marion Record, was honored in a Saturday funeral service. (Rachel Mipro/Kansas Reflector)

MARION, Kansas — Joan Meyer, surrounded by flowers and escorted to her gravesite by the same police force that may have had a hand in her death, was honored by the community in a Saturday service.

“Joan was the epitome of knowing ‘small town’ does not have to mean ‘small mind,’ ” said the Rev. Ron DeVore. “She knew everybody in the community of the county.”

Meyer, the 98-year-old co-owner of the local newspaper, died a day after law enforcement raided her home, where she lived with her son, Marion County Record publisher Eric Meyer.

Her son believes the stress of the unprecedented Aug. 11 raid on her home and the newsroom was a contributing factor in her death. Marion police seized computers, cellphones and materials from the newspaper office and Meyer’s home as part of an investigation into alleged identity theft of a restaurant operator, Kari Newell.

“She just sat most of the evening, you know, ‘Where are all the good people? Where are all the good people and how come they haven’t done something about this. Why are they allowed to do this?’ ” Eric Meyer said in an interview with PBS. “So the last 24 hours of a 98-year-old woman’s life was devoted to pain and anguish, and a feeling that all her life didn’t matter.”

She couldn’t eat or sleep after the raid. A day later, she died in the home she had lived in since 1953, the day before Eric Meyer was born.

Eric Meyer said the first police officers arriving at their house during the raid were nice, but when seven of them made their way through the house, his mother became concerned. They took pictures of her son’s personal bank records and other documents.

“She was so distraught,” Eric Meyer said in the PBS interview. “You know, when you’re 98 years old, your world shrinks a bit. She lived in that house for almost 70 years. It was her castle. It was her safe place.”

Rowena Plett, a 28-year veteran of the paper, came Saturday to show her respect to Joan, who she said had been an ever-vigilant speller and editor.

Plett said the paper’s situation was still uncertain.

“We’re kind of up in the air, nothing finalized,” Plett said. “It’s brought a lot of attention to our little town and our newspaper.”

But Saturday was a celebration of Joan Meyer’s life, not just her harrowing last few hours. A lifelong Marion resident, she spent her life in community engagement.

She began her 50 years of working at the newspaper in the 1960s, joining her husband, Bill, after Eric was old enough to attend school. Bill, who she married in 1949, had joined the then-called Marion Record-Review in 1948.

She spent almost four decades as the community news editor. When Bill retired in 2005, Joan kept working, although she took a step back after Bill died in 2006. Even after she retired, she listened to a police scanner in her house.

After her retirement, she published a weekly column called “Memories” and still was active in newspaper functions.

“That’s what Joan said newspapers should do, is not tell you what to think but give you the grist for the mill and urge you to think, to consume,” DeVore said to the 60 or so people gathered at the Valley United Methodist Church.

The congregation sang hymns such as “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” during the almost-hourlong service.

Eric Meyer said in a Kansas Reflector interview earlier in the week that his mother would have appreciated the outpouring of international support for the newspaper in the days after the raid.

“I think she’d think, ‘Well, I knew I was going to go pretty soon. I’d rather go as part of a cause than something else,’ ” Meyer said.

As people filtered outside of the church to head to the gravesite, the Record’s newspaper van pulled up, ready to lead the funeral escort.

Just a little down the street, a Marion County police car parked opposite Kari’s Kitchen — which is just steps away from the church — waited to start the procession. The police officer inside stared straight ahead, not looking at the little group of reporters filming the church.

Then everyone got into their cars, the police car set off, and the procession pulled away.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

Christopher Dunn was convicted for a 1990 deadly shooting of a teen in St. Louis. Others involved in the case later admitted they lied about Dunn’s involvement. No DNA ever tied Dunn to the murder. A judge also admitted that the lack of evidence is enough to prove Dunn is innocent (photo submitted).

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore said this week that his office has given “high priority’ to reviewing the 1990 murder conviction of Christopher Dunn — a case that finds the Midwest Innocence Project arguing for Dunn’s release from state prison after two prosecution witnesses recanted their testimony and legal experts have cited a lack of DNA and other evidence.

But in an interview with The Independent, Gore did not provide a timeline for when a decision on the case would be made.

Dunn was 18 and living in St. Louis when he was arrested and charged with the murder of another teenager.  He is in his 33^rd year of a life sentence.

Gore said in June he appointed Booker Shaw as special assistant circuit attorney to assist him in the assessment of Dunn’s case and advise him whether the filing of a motion to vacate the conviction is appropriate. Shaw, a partner in the St. Louis law firm of Thompson Coburn, is the former Chief Judge of the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, and served as a judge in the 22^nd Judicial Circuit Court from 1983 to 2002

Shaw is working on a pro bono basis on the Dunn case review, Gore said. The review, now underway, Gore said, includes he and Shaw reading court transcripts, case exhibits, and rulings, including a 2020 ruling by Judge William Hickle, circuit judge for the 25^th Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri.

In the 2020 ruling, Hickle said that while he believed a current jury would not find Dunn guilty, he could not set him free because of Missouri law that restricts innocence claims to death penalty inmates. In 2021, a new Missouri law took effect that allows prosecutors to file petitions when they believe an innocent person is imprisoned.

In Missouri, the truth doesn’t always set you free

“I don’t want to commit to a completion date (of the review), but my intention is to continue giving this case high priority,” Gore said, adding that he also plans to meet with Midwest Innocence Project attorneys representing Dunn.

Ultimately, as circuit attorney, Gore said he would be the one to make a final decision regarding whether to file a court motion.

Gore was appointed circuit attorney in May by Gov. Mike Parson, following the resignation of Kim Gardner. Soon after taking the job, Gore withdrew a motion Gardner had filed calling on Dunn’s conviction to be vacated. Speaking at a July press conference and discussing his decision to withdraw Gardner’s motion, Gore said, “I, on the day I was sworn in, had never undertaken such a review. I could not make those representations to the court. It was necessary and required that we withdraw the motion to vacate and that I conduct my own review.”

Both the Missouri Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court have rejected motions to hear Dunn’s case, leaving Gore’s decision as potentially his last chance of being released from prison.

The 2021 revised statute regarding motions to vacate convictions says “the circuit court in which the person was convicted shall have jurisdiction and authority to consider, hear and decide the motion.” However, the new law also includes the provision that “the prosecuting attorney or circuit attorney shall have the authority and right to file and maintain an appeal of the denial or disposal of such a motion.”

Part of the national Innocence Network, the Midwest Innocence Project says it is an independent organization with a mission “to educate about, advocate for, and obtain and support the exoneration and release of wrongfully convicted people in Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska.” The MIP says it has a waiting list of people seeking its legal assistance and estimates 4,000 people in its five-state region “are incarcerated for crimes they didn’t commit.”

Of the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s review of the Christopher Dunn case, Rachel Wester, Midwest Innocence Project managing attorney, declined to discuss specifics, but said: “We remain hopeful.”

Before leaving office, Gardner used the new Missouri law earlier this year to convince a court to set aside the murder conviction of Lamar Johnson, who had maintained his innocence during his nearly three decades in prison.

In Kansas City, the law was utilized by Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker to exonerate Kevin Strickland after 42 years in prison.

Marion County Record publisher Eric Meyer holds a copy of the Wednesday paper, featuring the headline “SEIZED … but not silence,” during a news conference at the newspaper office (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector).

MARION, Kansas — Marion County Record staff worked through the night to publish the paper’s weekly edition as scheduled Wednesday, days after police raided the newsroom and confiscated computers, cellphones and other items.

A single word screamed across the top of the paper in 200-point bold type — “SEIZED” — followed by a defiant statement: “… but not silenced.”

Authorities returned property taken by police during Friday’s raid but said they would continue to investigate whether a newspaper reporter had committed a crime by verifying information from a confidential source.

Eric Meyer, the owner and publisher of the newspaper, said it was important the newspaper prevail in this First Amendment fight.

“This just couldn’t stand,” Meyer said. “If it did, it would be the end of people ever being able to send anything anonymously to a newspaper. It would be the end of news organizations ever pursuing any sort of controversial story.”

Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody and his officers executed a search warrant last week at the newspaper office, Meyer’s home and a councilwoman’s home. The action attracted international attention — and contributed to the death of Meyer’s 98-year-old mother, who spent her final hours in anguish over the raid. Funeral services are planned for Saturday.

Meyer said his mother would be pleased by the outpouring of support the newspaper has received in recent days. That includes 2,000 new subscriptions for a newspaper that previously had a circulation of about 4,000.

As distribution staff waited for bundles of newspapers to arrive Wednesday morning from the press in Hutchinson, they handled an unrelenting stream of phone calls from people interested in purchasing a subscription. The calls came from New Hampshire, Florida, New Mexico, New York, Michigan, Texas, Vermont, Germany, Massachusetts, Illinois and Montana.

One of the distribution workers, Bev Baldwin, was wearing a “Keep America Great” shirt in support of Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. She didn’t view the attack on her local paper as a partisan issue.

“It’s just something you don’t do,” Baldwin said. “Everybody was shocked.”

Meyer said he brought in extra help Tuesday night to get the paper ready to print. After police took away the computers, hard drives and server, staff cobbled together a machine from discarded computers. They needed to find a disc reader to access back-up files stored on DVDs.

After running a gauntlet of local and national media inquiries, Meyer tasked Emily Bradbury, executive director of the Kansas Press Association, and a staff photographer with “guarding the gates to keep everyone away from us, so we could get the paper done.”

Phyllis Zorn, a staff reporter, said she had heard of the term “all-nighter,” but she didn’t know it to be real before.

They finished the pages shortly after 5 a.m., and Meyer made it home at 7:30 a.m.

“If we hadn’t been able to figure out how to get computers together, Phyllis and I and everybody else would be handwriting notes out on Post-It notes and putting them on doors around the town, because we were going to publish one way or another,” Meyer said.

Last week’s raid appeared to be a response to information the newspaper received from a confidential source about a local restaurant operator’s driver’s license history, and Zorn’s efforts to verify the information by looking it up in a state database.

Magistrate judge Laura Viar signed a search warrant under the pretense that Cody, the police chief, had reason to believe a newspaper reporter committed identity theft and unlawful use of a computer. It wasn’t clear what evidence would support such a search warrant, or if Cody and Viar understood the significance of raiding a newsroom.

Katherine Jacobsen, program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, was monitoring the situation at the newspaper office Wednesday. She said she wasn’t aware of any other example of police raiding a newsroom in United States history.

“That’s why I’m here,” Jacobsen said.

Marion County attorney Joel Ensey said he had reviewed affidavits that support the search warrants and would ask the district court to release them.

“I have come to the conclusion that insufficient evidence exists to establish a legally sufficient nexus between this alleged crime and the places searched and the items seized,” Ensey said. “As a result, I have submitted a proposed order asking the court to release the evidence seized. I have asked local law enforcement to return the material seized to the owners of the property.”

Ensey said the Kansas Bureau of Investigation was reviewing the case and would submit findings to his office for a charging decision. He would then determine if there is sufficient evidence “to support a charge for any offense.”

At the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, an undersheriff unloaded computer towers, a laptop, reporters’ personal cellphones, a router and other items from the storage locker where they were stored after the raid. The officer handed them over to a forensic expert who was working for the newspaper to examine the devices. The newspaper hoped to find out whether law enforcement had accessed or reviewed any of their records.

Meyer said KBI director Tony Mattivi deserves praise for behind-the-scenes efforts to return items taken from the newsroom.

“I believe this is something that’s all been worked out between our lawyer and him,” Meyer said.

At the newspaper office, a steady stream of concerned residents purchased newspapers and offered their support for the newspaper. Some brought flowers or donuts for staff.

Dennis Calvert drove from Wichita to purchase a six-month subscription. A U.S. Navy veteran who served on a nuclear submarine in the 1970s, she aid many people have died to protect the kind of rights that Marion police violated when they raided the newspaper office.

“What the PD did here, in my opinion, from what I know, they are ****ing out of line,” Calvert said. “They are totally off the ****ing board. They’ve lost their morals, man.”

“It just shoves a burr up my butt,” he added. “This is the kind of stuff, it shouldn’t be tolerated. In my opinion, right now, the police chief should be sitting over here in the jail.”

This story was originally published by Kansas Reflector, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

Police raided the Marion County Record office Aug. 11, 2023, with a search warrant that free press attorneys and advocates say violated federal law (Sam Bailey/Kansas Reflector).

TOPEKA, Kansas — The Society of Professional Journalists’ board unanimously offered $20,000 to the family-owned Marion County Record for legal costs in wake of the seizure of newspaper and personal property by local law enforcement investigating allegations of identity theft and illegal use of a computer.

The raid undermining operation of the weekly newspaper alarmed First Amendment champions, including the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 33 other news media and press organizations that sent a protest letter to Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody.

“By all accounts, the raid was an egregious attack on freedom of the press, the First Amendment and all the liberties we hold dear as journalists in this great country,” said Claire Regan, national president of the Society of Professional Journalists. “From the moment they learned about the raid, SPJ members have been speaking up and stepping forward to demand justice, hold the responsible accountable and support the Record staff in their recovery.”

The decision of local law enforcement to execute search warrants Friday on the Marion County Record’s office, the publisher’s home and the residence of Marion City Council member Ruth Herbel exposed a web of intrigue tied to a local restaurant owner’s 2008 drunken driving conviction and her pending application for a liquor license.

Restaurateur Kari Newell had previously alleged during a Marion City Council meeting that Herbel “negligently and maliciously” engaged in theft of information about Newell’s driving record. Newell also accused the Marion County Record of violating her privacy by examining government records revealing her driving record.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation, which is under authority of Attorney General Kris Kobach, assigned an agent to the case prior to the raid at the request of Marion law enforcement officials. On Sunday, KBI Director Tony Mattivi said he supported freedom of the press but defended use of search warrants when examining credible allegations of wrongdoing. Mattivi said “no one is above the law,” including representatives of the media.

There are pending requests from news organizations for release by Marion County District Court of the probable cause affidavit relied upon by Magistrate Judge Laura Viar to grant the search warrant.

Marion County Record publisher Eric Meyer, who said damaging information about Newell’s conviction was legally obtained from sources, said a federal lawsuit could be filed in response to the “illegal” raid. Meyer said the search of his home may have contributed to the Saturday death of his 98-year-old mother, Joan, who was co-owner of the newspaper and present during the residential search leading to seizure of computers, cellphones and other property.

The University of Kansas’ journalism school issued a statement noting Joan Meyer’s death and saying it stood by graduates of the university, including Eric Meyer, and “all journalists who work tirelessly, and often at great personal cost, to ensure that the public is well informed.” The journalism school and the William Allen White Foundation’s board said “any threat to journalism is a threat to democracy itself.”

The letter sent to the Marion police chief by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said the search warrant directed at the Marion County Record was “significantly overbroad, improperly intrusive and possibly in violation of federal law.”

The letter urged law enforcement to return confiscated computers, servers, telephones and records to the newspaper, purge newspaper records retained by the police department and conduct a transparent inquiry into the department’s conduct.

“The newsroom is sacrosanct,” said the SPJ’s Regan. “Interrupting its operation is a threat to democracy. SPJ offers its full support to the staff of the Marion County Record following this outrageous attack on freedom of the press.”

The Marion Police Department said in a statement Saturday the agency was justified in investigating suspected criminal activity and was responding to the restaurant owner’s demand that “justice is served.”

Max Kautsch, a Lawrence attorney with the Kansas Coalition for Open Government, said the organization condemned the searches and seizure of property from offices of the Marion County Record and the home of its publisher. He said law enforcement authorities ignored First Amendment rights.

The Kansas organization urged law enforcement in Marion to release the affidavit so the public could assess whether actions of authorities was justified, Kautsch said.

“Law enforcement has refused to explain the facts that led to the issuance of the warrant,” Kautsch said. “Given the publicity surrounding this matter, and that details of the incident have been heavily publicized as a result of the reporting by the Record and others, there is no longer any reason to withhold the affidavit supporting the request to issue the search warrant.”

This story was originally published by the Kansas Reflector, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

In this image taken from police body camera footage provided by Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department on June 24, 2023, a sheriff's deputy arrests one of two people in a grocery store parking lot in Lancaster, Calif. The Los Angeles County sheriff has opened an investigation into two deputies' actions after a bystander's cellphone footage showed one of them tackling a woman while she filmed her husband being handcuffed in what the scandal-ridden department described as disturbing. (Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department via AP)

Faced with growing calls for the public release of police disciplinary records, lawmakers in almost every state have grappled with how to balance revealing law enforcement misdeeds and protecting officers’ privacy and safety.

Fueled by public outrage over the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and other high-profile incidents of police violence, state policymakers have offered a variety of police oversight and transparency bills.

Between May 2020 and April 2023, lawmakers in nearly every state and the District of Columbia introduced almost 500 bills addressing police investigations and discipline, including providing access to disciplinary records, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Sixty-five of the bills have been enacted.

Delaware in June became the most recent to pass transparency legislation, expected to be signed into law this month. California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland and New York also are among the states that have opened police disciplinary records to the public in recent years.

But police records in most states remain largely confidential or have some release restrictions. And even in states with open records laws, advocates seeking records have faced barriers, leading to lawsuits.

In Missouri, lawmakers in 2021 passed a “law enforcement bill of rights” that gives officers special legal protections and closes files to police misconduct.

Advocates for transparency argue that the release of disciplinary records empowers residents, journalists and civil rights activists to identify patterns of misconduct and hold officers accountable.

“Police misconduct records should be available to the public in most situations, if not all situations, because these are folks who have a lot of power and authority,” said Lauren Bonds, executive director of the National Police Accountability Project, which advocates for more transparency. “They have the power to lawfully take a person’s life. The stakes are just so high when there’s a police officer who’s got a lengthy record of misconduct.”

But some police unions and law enforcement organizations have raised concerns about officer safety and privacy, with names and other identifying information made public. They emphasize that the focus should be on serious misconduct rather than minor infractions like being tardy, worry about false accusations and want officers to have due process.

“What’s included should be substantiated. It should be included only after the officer was provided due process, and it should be significant misconduct,” said Bill Johnson, the executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, in an interview with Stateline. He said that includes an officer having the opportunity to respond to allegations and having a “neutral fact finder” investigate.

“If it’s going to be something that’s useful, where you are safeguarding the public against persons who should not be in law enforcement, you have to be careful about, ‘What are we really talking about here? What gets included and how do we know that we can rely on this?’”

In Missouri, civil rights experts argue the bill of rights created by the state’s new law poses a major roadblock to police accountability — and gives officers far more due process rights than civilians.

Ongoing debate

Even states that have recently enacted laws face ongoing debate.

In Maryland, where records have been available through public records requests since October 2021, public interest groups and news organizations have filed lawsuits citing exorbitant fees, missed deadlines and outright denials of records requests by law enforcement agencies.

And in New Jersey, the state Supreme Court issued a ruling in June that requires individuals who sue for public records to pay the entire cost of their own attorneys, regardless of the case’s outcome. Public interest and transparency advocates fear the decision will create additional hurdles for people seeking access to police records, including disciplinary reports and dashboard camera videos.

Delaware is the latest state to pass legislation that will require substantiated reports of misconduct, such as use of force that results in serious physical injury and sexual assault or harassment, to be reported to the state’s Criminal Justice Council and posted publicly on the council’s website. Democratic Gov. John Carney is expected to sign the legislation into law on Aug. 7, according to state Rep. Melissa Minor-Brown, a Democrat who sponsored the bill.

“After we witnessed the situation that happened with George Floyd and we saw the public outcry, we knew that something had to be done,” Minor-Brown said in an interview with Stateline. “We owe it to the community. I owe it to my son, to my daughter, to my husband, to my colleagues, to those who do not have a seat at the table, to those whose voices aren’t heard, to those who have experienced injustice.”

It took lawmakers about three years to push through the legislation. While transparency advocates supported previous versions of the bill, they opposed the current version, arguing that it falls short of achieving full transparency and external oversight. The ACLU of Delaware noted, for example, that police departments will decide whether to investigate complaints and that only specific categories of misconduct are covered.

“It does not necessarily meet the standards that we think is enough to increase trust between communities and the police,” said Javonne Rich, the group’s policy and advocacy director, in an interview with Stateline. “All the information that will be made public will be what the police department wants to be made public.”

But Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, a Democrat, endorsed the new bill, as did representatives from several police agencies. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in June, a witness read a supportive statement from Jamie Leonard, who leads the Delaware Fraternal Order of Police union, WHYY reported.

“We wanted to lift the veil of secrecy that so many believe surrounds our profession,’’ Leonard’s statement said, according to WHYY, the Philadelphia public radio station. “We want to provide access to information that includes names on cases where we believe our officers fell short of the standard expected by our agencies, by other officers, and by our community.”

Minor-Brown, the Delaware state representative, said that although the bill may not entirely meet advocates’ expectations, it represents a “huge step in the right direction.”

“I hear what the advocates are saying and there’s definitely going to be some space for tweaking,” Minor-Brown said. “We could have not moved forward based off of some of the advocates feeling like it wasn’t enough, and then we could have gotten nowhere. I was not willing to not move anywhere because we weren’t at 100%.”

California concerns

In 2018, California made records on officer use-of-force incidents, sexual assault cases and acts of dishonesty available through public records requests. Another law enacted in 2021 established a decertification process for law enforcement officers involved in serious misconduct.

But this year, a provision enacted in the state’s budget shifts back to local police departments the responsibility of releasing their records, instead of having the state’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training do so.

The measure, backed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom as a cost-saving measure in the face of a large budget deficit, drew strong criticism from criminal justice and press freedom groups, The Associated Press reported.

The state commission backed the bill. The measure “continues to ensure public access to police misconduct records in a way that improves efficiencies, reduces duplicative efforts, and saves substantial taxpayer money,” wrote Meagan Poulos, the commission’s legislative liaison and public information officer, in an emailed statement.

But transparency advocates argue that the public should have a central clearinghouse for the records and that some local police departments may resist releasing such information.

“There has been significant resistance to disclosure. Others have been more proactive,” said David Loy, the legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, a nonpartisan group that aims to protect free speech rights, in an interview with Stateline. “It impacts the entire community. … Information is power, and without transparency, there’s no accountability at any level.”

Some police unions and law enforcement organizations have raised concerns about officer safety and privacy in California and nationwide. They fear that releasing unrestricted personnel records, which may include names and other identifying information, could expose individual officers to undue scrutiny and even endanger their safety and professional reputation.

“We understand that’s not the intent of why these things are getting released, but it is an unintended consequence of releasing names. … They could be doxxed, they could be harassed, there could be protests in front of their house. And because of the nature of the work we do, it’s very concerning,” said Lolita Harper, the executive director of the Sheriff’s Employees’ Benefit Association and a former detective for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, in an interview with Stateline.

Many law enforcement groups recognize the importance of accountability and transparency in fostering community trust and say that making disciplinary records accessible plays a significant role in achieving that goal.

“The utmost thing is to have that trust with the public, so with the specifics that at least the California legislation requires … we can understand that compromise with where the legislation was coming from and if that helps the public to have more trust than we understand it,” Harper said.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.

This article has been updated since it was initially published.

Amanda Zurawski, who developed sepsis and nearly died after being refused an abortion when her water broke at 18 weeks, center, listens to her attorney Molly Duane, right, outside the Travis County Courthouse last month in Austin, Texas. Zurawski and a dozen other women argue in a lawsuit that Texas doctors and hospitals denied them necessary care because the providers were afraid to run afoul of the state’s abortion ban. (Eric Gay/The Associated Press)

AUSTIN, Texas — A lawsuit in Texas asserting that the state’s abortion ban imperils women by dissuading doctors from ending dangerous pregnancies could provide a template for similar challenges across the country.

Texas is one of 14 states, including Missouri, that banned abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. The Texas ban includes an exception that allows physicians to end a pregnancy if it could result in the death of the woman or a “substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”

Missouri has a similar exception.

But the plaintiffs in the case, more than a dozen Texas women, argue that doctors and hospitals denied them necessary care because the providers were afraid to run afoul of the law. Those who violate the ban could face up to 99 years in prison, a $100,000 fine and loss of their medical license.

Even before the Texas case was filed in March, the same issues were surfacing in other abortion-ban states, generating national attention and intense interest among elected officials in Washington, D.C. Attorneys for the Texas plaintiffs predict that similar suits will be filed in other states.

Nicolas Kabat, an attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, the New York-based advocacy group that filed the Texas suit, said “the problem is widespread across states that ban abortion.”

“We’re being contacted by dozens of women telling us similar stories,” Kabat told Stateline, saying “we’re really only scratching the surface here.”

Citing press accounts, the plaintiffs’ petition points to about two dozen women in 11 states outside Texas who have had experiences like those of the Texas women: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee.

“It’s an incredibly important lawsuit and it has implications not only in Texas but in other states that have denied people the right to safe abortion health care,” said former Texas Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis, a senior adviser to Planned Parenthood Texas Votes who gained national attention a decade ago for her filibuster against a polarizing anti-abortion rights bill.

Attorneys for the Center for Reproductive Rights are asking Travis County District Judge Jessica Mangrum to grant a temporary injunction and craft a new exception to Texas’ abortion ban that gives physicians and hospitals more latitude to provide pregnancy care and perform abortions.

But lawyers for the Texas attorney general’s office, representing the state, depict the suit as a “bald attempt” to usurp state authority over abortion policy.

Mangrum, elected as a Democrat, presided over two days of arguments and testimony in mid-July. She told lawyers at the end of the hearing that it will likely be several weeks before she returns a ruling.

At last month’s hearing, the plaintiffs recounted their anguishing personal ordeals after they were refused abortions. Amanda Zurawski of Austin, the lead plaintiff, nearly died after she was refused an abortion after her water broke at 18 weeks of pregnancy.

Zurawski and her husband, Josh, had already picked the name for their unborn daughter — Willow — and were planning a baby shower when they received the devastating news that they would lose their first child before birth. Amanda, 36, was diagnosed with a weakening of cervical tissue and told that Willow would not survive. But doctors initially refused to perform an abortion, she said, because they could detect fetal cardiac activity.

Several days later, she developed sepsis, a life-threatening reaction to an infection, and spent three days in intensive care, struggling to survive.

Zurawski told Stateline in a phone interview that “hundreds” of people have reached out to her via social media to share similar stories and offer support. After the hearing last month, Zurawski said, she heard from “tons and tons and tons of people … just an outpouring of support, people wanting to get involved, wanting to help.”

Other plaintiffs told similarly harrowing stories at the hearing. Taylor Edwards, also from Austin, said she learned when she was 17 weeks pregnant that her daughter had a fatal condition called encephalocele, a protrusion of the brain through an opening in the skull, and would die at or before birth. She had to leave Texas to get an abortion.

Lauren Hall, who lives near Dallas, discovered that her unborn child had anencephaly, a serious birth defect that prevents the fetus from developing parts of the brain and skull. Hall’s obstetrician refused to perform an abortion and was afraid to refer her to an abortion provider in another state. Hall eventually got an abortion at a clinic near Seattle.

Studies conducted by abortion rights university research groups suggest that abortion bans are dissuading doctors in many states from providing care they would otherwise provide.

A total of 50 anonymous surveys from health care providers in states with abortion restrictions detailed “cases of care that deviated from the usual standard due to new laws restricting abortion,” according to a study jointly conducted by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project at the University of Texas at Austin and Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco.

“In several cases, patients experienced preventable complications … because clinicians reported their ‘hands were tied,’ making it impossible for them to provide treatment sooner,” according to the study.

But anti-abortion rights advocates, including some physicians, dispute the contention that Texas’ medical exception is too vague to give doctors the confidence to perform necessary procedures. The language of the exception, they say, clearly gives doctors the leeway to use their medical judgment and to intervene in an emergency.

They say they have sympathy for the plaintiffs but support the state’s contention that it would be inappropriate for Mangrum or any other judge to rewrite the abortion ban exception, since that would usurp a legislative function.

“They’re trying to have the judiciary write the law, which is not appropriate,” said Dr. Ingrid Skop, a San Antonio OB-GYN who testified for the state at last month’s hearing. “The current state law clearly allows a doctor to use his reasonable medical judgment to determine when to intervene in a medical emergency to protect a woman’s life.”

“There’s not a problem with the way the law is worded,” she said. “The problem is that the doctors have become confused, and they become frightened. In many cases, they have not been given guidance by medical societies or by their hospitals, and they often have been slow in offering interventions.”

Joe Pojman, founder and executive director of the Texas Alliance for Life, one of the state’s leading anti-abortion rights groups, also defended the medical exception. “The law is already clear,” he said. “Judges are supposed to interpret the law, not rewrite the law.”

The suit names the state of Texas, the Texas Medical Board and Board Executive Director Stephen Brint Carlton as defendants. Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, is also a defendant, though he is currently suspended pending a state Senate trial on impeachment charges alleging bribery and other wrongdoing.

Lawyers for the attorney general’s office, who could not be reached for comment, are asking the court to dismiss the suit. In a rebuttal petition, they accuse the plaintiffs of staging “splashy news conferences and media tours” to get a favorable court ruling “after failing to convince the Legislature to adopt their preferred version of the medical exception.”

A proposed court order by the plaintiffs asks the court to give physicians discretion to use “good faith judgment” in providing abortion care to someone with unsafe pregnancy complications or instances in which a fetus is unlikely to survive the pregnancy or live after birth.

But attorneys for the state say the plaintiffs’ proposed exception “would, by design, swallow the rule,” permitting abortions “for pregnant females with medical conditions ranging from a headache to feelings of depression.”

Amanda Zurawski said she’s always supported abortion rights but that her personal experience molded her into an impassioned advocate of the right to an abortion. She and her husband, she said, “never wanted to be the poster family for this cause,” but now they’re in the fight wholeheartedly.

“I’d rather be at home with my newborn right now. That’s the life that I was envisioning. I would rather be on maternity leave with my daughter, not having to fight this fight,” she said.

“But, you know, I think it’s really been empowering for me. And it’s actually been quite healing to have a cause and a purpose to put behind our loss and our grief.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.

(Getty Images)

The ACLU of Missouri is suing the Platte County School District for banning transgender students from using restrooms and locker rooms corresponding to their gender identity.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in Platte County Circuit Court, says the district’s policy discriminates on the basis of sex, transgender status and disability — violating the Missouri Human Rights Act and the state’s constitution.

“Forcing transgender students to use the bathroom or locker room that matches their sex designated at birth is not only discrimination but dangerous and causes serious harm to Missouri’s youth,” Gillian Wilcox, deputy director of litigation at the ACLU of Missouri, said in a statement.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a 16-year-old transgender girl, referred to as R.F. in the petition, who attended Platte County High School in Platte City from September 2021 to December 2022.

R.F. realized she was female at the age of 6 or 7, the lawsuit states, and, by her freshman year of high school in 2021, was taking puberty blockers and was living as a female.

School staff told her she couldn’t use the girls’ restrooms at the high school but had to use the restrooms that matched her sex as assigned at birth or the one gender-neutral, single-stall restroom on campus.

“R.F. was told by a PCSD employee that using the restroom of the gender with which she identified (female) was against the law, although no specific law was referenced or provided to R.F.,” the lawsuit alleges.

The only gender-neutral restroom was not near R.F.’s classes, the petition says, and lines formed to use it. R.F. was late to class and talked to teachers about her tardiness.

She used the girls’ restrooms located throughout the school and received a verbal warning in late November 2021. On Dec. 9, 2021, she had one day of in-school suspension as punishment for continuing to use the girls’ restrooms, and she received a two-day out-of-school suspension Jan. 5, 2022.

About a week after her suspension, she used the boys’ restroom and saw a boy point at her and threaten to sexually assault her, the lawsuit states. The encounter made her afraid to use the boys restrooms and attend the high school.

R.F. missed three weeks of school afterward. She attempted to return, but her peers harassed her and continued to make her feel unsafe, according to the lawsuit. Administrators then approved virtual learning for her to complete the school year.

R.F. returned to school in-person the fall of 2022 but delayed signing up for gym class because she was banned from the locker room that matched her gender identity.

The treatment she received from school district staff and students caused “emotional harm, depression and anxiety,” according to the petition.

Platte County School District Superintendent Jay Harris told The Independent that the district was “just made aware” of the lawsuit.

The ACLU’s argument says that R.F. belongs to protected classes as a transgender girl diagnosed with gender dysphoria and the school district denied her “full and equal enjoyment” of public facilities by treating her differently.

“Gender identity is a core, defining trait so fundamental to one’s identity and conscience that a person cannot legitimately be required to abandon it as a condition of equal treatment,” Wilcox wrote in the petition.

On behalf of R.F., her parent filed a charge of discrimination in April 2022 with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights. The commission issued a notice of the right to sue, over a year later, on May 10.

The lawsuit says transgender Missourians “have a long history of discrimination” continuing to the present day. It references the most recent legislative session, where bills passed limiting the rights of transgender Missourians.

The ACLU of Missouri is challenging one of the new laws, a ban on minors beginning gender-affirming care, in Cole County. R.F., who has already started gender-affirming care, can continue her current treatment.

The other law will restrict transgender athletes from competing in sports according to their gender identity. The legislation does not explicitly limit which locker room athletes can use.

The new legislation will take effect August 28.

Sean Woolley, 15, right, and his mother Ashley Moore, hold hands as they attend a protest of transgender youth, their families and supporters on Feb. 15 at the Mississippi Capitol in Jackson, Mississippi. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

In some states, new laws banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth are dissuading health care providers from offering mental health services and other medical care that isn’t explicitly banned by those laws.

In the first few weeks after Mississippi’s law went into effect in February, nurse practitioner Stacie Pace said she was fielding calls and emails from parents of trans youth who said their children’s pediatricians would no longer see them for routine care. Pace offers gender-affirming care at a clinic in Hattiesburg.

“[Parents] weren’t able to bring their kids to the pediatrician they were seeing before because the ban scared the pediatrician,” said Pace. She said the vague language in Mississippi’s law scared primary, mental health and other providers from seeing trans youth and even adults. One parent told her their child needed a refill on asthma medication and their doctor refused to see them.

In Texas, a new law banning gender-affirming care for minors is pushing some providers, including the pediatrician who led a program that offered mental health services and hormone treatments to transgender children, to leave the state. Dr. Ximena Lopez, a pediatric endocrinologist, has said publicly she is leaving Texas out of concern for the safety of herself and her family.

And in Arizona and Missouri, advocates worry that new state laws barring medical practitioners from referring transgender youth to other providers for “gender transition procedures” might curb access to counseling and therapy.

The new laws do not focus on mental health services. In fact, some state lawmakers who have sponsored bans on surgery or hormone therapy have stressed their support for mental health care.

Indiana state Rep. Michelle Davis, a Republican who sponsored Indiana’s new law prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors, told Stateline earlier this year: “We should continue to support children who may be struggling by ensuring they have access to compassionate mental health care.”

But state bans on services such as hormone therapies and surgery can create a climate of fear and confusion for trans youth, families and care providers that can have a chilling effect on all types of care, said Elana Redfield, federal policy director at UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, a public policy think tank focused on sexual orientation and gender identity issues.

“If you’re a young person who is trans or a parent of that young person, you might feel concerned about asking for any kind of care for fear it might come back to hurt you or your family,” Redfield said.

Heather Stone, a licensed counselor in Huntsville, Alabama, who sees trans patients, saw that chilling effect after Alabama passed its law last year, even though a court order is currently preventing it from taking effect.

“Mental health treatment for trans youth is not illegal in Alabama,” said Stone, “but the law is so vague that it makes parents and children more hesitant to even seek mental health treatment because they’re confused whether” that treatment has been banned.

Across the country, legislators in at least 21 Republican-led states have passed laws banning or restricting gender-affirming care for minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank that tracks LGBTQ+ state policies. Similar laws have been considered in at least seven other states this year.

The raft of new legislation is part of a recent nationwide effort by GOP-led state legislatures to place new restrictions on transgender people. Multiple states have enacted laws that bar transgender girls from competing on girls sports teams, prohibit discussions of gender identity in classrooms and outlaw drag shows when minors are present.

The laws restricting gender-affirming health care vary by state, but mainly prohibit hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgery for transgender minors. Implementation has been patchy, as many of the laws face court challenges and some aren’t scheduled to go into effect until later this year.

Legislators sponsoring the bills have cited a lack of information on the long-term effects of hormone therapy on adolescents. Republican state Rep. Jim Olsen of Oklahoma, who voted for his state’s law banning gender-affirming care, said that he hoped to spare teens from undergoing “irreversible procedures” they might later regret.

“Even one child who undergoes a life-altering procedure and later laments their decision is one too many,” Olsen said.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services describes gender-affirming care as a spectrum of medical and non-medical services that can include social affirmation, hormone therapy, mental health services and surgery.

Gender-affirming surgery is rarely performed on patients under 18. Puberty-blocking drugs and hormone treatments are prescribed by physicians to some children and adolescents struggling with gender dysphoria, a condition in which a person’s gender identity doesn’t align with their sex assigned at birth.

Major U.S. medical organizations — including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association — oppose bans on gender-affirming care and support care for minors when administered appropriately.

However, some European countries, including Norway and the United Kingdom, recently changed or have considered changing medical guidelines on gender-affirming care for minors. Data analyzed by public health officials in England, Finland and Sweden found long-term studies failed to show improvements in mental health and suggested puberty blockers could hinder bone development.

A ‘chilling effect’

Johnathan Gooch of Equality Texas, a statewide organization that advocates for LGBTQ+ rights, said rhetoric and legislation from Texas lawmakers on transgender issues already have eroded health care options for both trans youth and adults.

“Because we’ve seen such a sustained attack on trans youth, there are a lot of trans-focused health providers that have closed up shop over time,” he said, citing the closure of gender-affirming services for adolescents at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. “The options have been consistently narrowing since February 2022.”

That’s when Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate reports of children undergoing gender-affirming care as potential child abuse. Gooch said some mental health providers at the time were concerned that they’d be required as mandatory reporters to turn in parents who brought their children in for mental health visits related to gender-affirming care.

“We did see a chilling effect among mental health providers, who would prefer to end their client relationship rather than being forced to report them to authorities, even though that was a misunderstanding of the law.”

Stone, the licensed counselor in Alabama, said she knows providers who are afraid to treat trans youth and adults since the state law passed last year.

“We have to ask [ourselves], am I providing gender-affirming care, and is that illegal?” she said. “My reading of it, and I’m not an attorney, is that supportive mental health is not illegal. But you never know. But I’m not going to stop providing it at this point because I think that would be ethically wrong and there’s a huge need in the community.”

Oliver Hall is the trans health director at the Kentucky Health Justice Network, which connects trans clients with gender-affirming health resources and provides guidance on insurance coverage. A federal judge recently lifted an injunction on Kentucky’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth, allowing it to take effect.

“There is a lot of misunderstanding about what the law does with regard to mental health care,” Hall said in a statement to Stateline. While the current law does not ban mental health services, a different bill, which did not pass, would have explicitly banned gender-affirming mental health care for minors.

“This has also obviously added to the chilling effect for mental health care providers treating trans youth,” Hall said.

Issues with affordability

Some states, including Arizona, Arkansas, Mississippi and Missouri, prohibit the use of public funds, such as Medicaid, to cover gender-affirming care for minors and in some instances, for all trans people regardless of age.

The state laws don’t explicitly prohibit coverage of mental health services, but they create legal uncertainty for providers, said Redfield, of the Williams Institute.

For example: A mental health visit that’s linked to a prohibited treatment might also not be covered by public insurance, she said.

Gender-affirming care, even when prescribed and overseen by medical professionals, can be expensive. And trans people are more likely to be uninsured and report cost-related barriers to care than cisgender adults, according to a KFF analysis from 2020.

Medicaid policies that exclude transgender-specific care were associated with less use of therapy and counseling, according to a 2020 analysis, while trans-inclusive Medicaid policies were associated with more use of therapy/counseling.

In Texas, Gooch said Equality Texas has partnered with Campaign for Southern Equality to offer small grants to families who ask for financial assistance in accessing gender-affirming care.

“Texas is a big state, and most of the places out of state [that offer gender-affirming care] are going to take you a five- to seven-hour drive or a flight,” said Gooch. “There’s a financial burden, a time cost, and making all of that simpler for the families is something important to us.”

The Campaign for Southern Equality, which advocates for LGBTQ+ rights across the South, recently launched the Southern Trans Youth Emergency Project, a regional effort to provide emergency grants and guidance to families of trans youth impacted by the gender-affirming care laws.

“As bans are passing and laws are changing, we’re working to do town halls and partnering with folks on the ground to make sure we’re getting out good, accurate information on what the law does and doesn’t say,” said Ivy Hill, director of gender justice for the group. The organization’s directory lists more than 500 trans-affirming health and legal service providers located across the South, about half of which see adolescents.

Pace also keeps a list of trans-affirming providers — from counselors to neurologists — available for people who call her clinic in Mississippi.

“These are people who deserve to have their basic health care needs met, just like anyone else,” Pace said.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and Twitter.

Branson's mayor and aldermen on Tuesday night approved an ordinance restricting drag shows to the downtown district. (Screenshot via Branson YouTube channel)

Municipalities in Missouri are attempting to restrict drag performances as obscenity or a planning-and-development concern, with Branson among the first after advancing an ordinance Tuesday night limiting drag to a small area of town.

Rolla recently tried to limit drag, but an ordinance defining it as obscene, failed during a city council meeting last week.

These local actions are reminiscent of policies proposed by GOP state lawmakers during the legislative session. Bills from Rep. Ben Baker, R-Neosho, and Rep. Mazzie Boyd, R-Hamilton, sought to label drag performances as adult cabaret shows and never made it out of the House.

Boyd’s legislation would’ve made drag venues akin to strip clubs in Missouri, where facilities are bound to strict hours and location requirements.

Two state representatives, Branson’s Brian Seitz and Brad Hudson of Cape Fair, spoke during Branson’s Board of Aldermen meeting Tuesday evening. During the legislative session, Seitz and Hudson joined Boyd in filing bills that limited the rights of LGBTQ+ Missourians.

Hudson was the House sponsor for a bill, recently signed by Gov. Mike Parson, that bans gender-affirming care for transgender minors. Tuesday, the ACLU of Missouri and Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit in hopes to stop the implementation of the law.

Hudson compared the drag restrictions in Branson to the gender-affirming-care ban, asking the aldermen to consider if allowing children in drag shows will “negatively impact the child for the rest of its [sic] life.”

“Anytime you have a situation where children could be in harm’s way, it is absolutely the government’s responsibility to step in and protect those innocent kids,” he said.

Branson’s aldermen removed a clause that would’ve allowed those under 18 to attend drag performances alongside a parent or guardian.

The resulting ordinance, passed in a 3-2 vote Tuesday night, mirrors the city’s rules for other “adult performances.” The board will take a vote in August to finalize the ordinance.

It restricts new or expanded drag performances to Branson’s downtown district with a special-use permit. The venue also can’t be located near a public park, school, church, other drag club or a facility serving liquor.

“The series of proposed changes within the ordinance are intended to preserve the city’s values by restricting adult-oriented activities to a location of the city that currently allows such activities and where citizens and tourists can expect to encounter and attend such activities if desired,” the city’s fact sheet says.

The area zoned as “downtown” is different from the “entertainment” region. Downtown has the least amount of commercial land, with under 150 parcels, according to the city’s map.

“The downtown district was created to ensure that the peace and safety of residential and neighborhood-adjacent districts are not negatively impacted by live entertainment uses, which typically include bright signs, loud noises, and heavy pedestrian and car traffic that may continue late into the night. Therefore, drag shows would be zoned to the downtown district,” an ordinance brief says.

Centered around Commercial Street, it looks like a town square one could find in many Missouri towns. It is largely small storefronts where pedestrians can wander through to pick up a homemade pie, buy old-fashioned candy or stop by the bank.

It is far from a sin city in a world of cowboy boots and family values.

Steve Hartley, who owns Dick’s 5 & 10 downtown, told the mayor and aldermen he sees families walking through the area all day.

“I would certainly hate to see anything, whether real or perceived, tarnish the wholesome image we in downtown Branson are working so hard to promote,” he said.

City spokeswoman Lisa Rau told The Independent that adult-centric events have been held in the area with a special-event permit previously. She said the city is trying to please community members while balancing “the need to be respectful to our families.”

But the downtown area doesn’t fit the provisions prescribed in the ordinance, which requires setbacks of 10 feet alongside the back and sides and a 20-foot setback in front of the property and its parking. A setback is the distance between the property line and the structure.

According to the city’s SiteSketch tool, none of the parcels in the downtown area have setbacks on all sides of the property.

Kevin Vaughan, a promoter for a Branson drag show, said during the board meeting that downtown wouldn’t work for the performances.

“There is no venue that can hold a drag show in the downtown district,” he said. “This feels like some sort of attack on the LGBTQ community.”

Some supporters of drag  said the shows have operated in Branson for at least 20 years, but more public attention has stirred the community after HBO’s show “We’re Here” featured Branson in its third episode.

During the public-comment period during the board meeting, most residents opposed the ordinance. Some thought drag should be banned throughout the city and spoke of the ordinance as permission for the performances.

“There are some people that think that what we’re discussing tonight is opening up an opportunity,” Mayor Larry Milton said. “The reality is today, drag shows are allowed anywhere in the city limits of Branson.”

Richie Zates, asking for an outright ban of drag in Branson, said, “We have to maintain purity in this town.”

Others quoted from The Bible, although Milton warned at the top of the meeting that he wouldn’t use scripture as a justification for disobeying the U.S. Constitution.

Joe Lauber, a Lee’s-Summit-based attorney hired by the city, said it is tricky to craft the ordinance while maintaining freedom of speech and expression and not committing gender discrimination.

“​​It is constitutionally challenging to create legislation as that which has been requested,” he said, beginning his presentation of the ordinance.

“For the most part, regulation of the activities that form the subject of this proposed ordinance is better left to individuals, the free market or private or nonprofit organizations including religious institutions,” he said.

Justice Horn, chair of Kansas City’s LGBTQ+ Commission, asked in a statement on Twitter for the ACLU of Missouri to “step in and protect the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals who live in rural communities.”

This story has been updated to correct the ordinance’s status.

The Emmett Till historical marker outside the Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner, Mississippi, where Emmett Till’s murderers were tried by an all-white jury and acquitted (Photo courtesy National Parks Conservation Association).

WASHINGTON — On what would have been the 82nd birthday of Emmett Till, a Black boy kidnapped and murdered by two white men in Mississippi, President Joe Biden on Tuesday designated a new national monument at sites connected to the lynching that became a catalyst for the civil rights movement.

“Telling the truth and the full history of our nation is important,” Biden said. “For only with truth comes healing, justice, repair, and another step forward toward forming a more perfect union. We’ve got a hell of a long way to go.”

The proclamation establishes 5.7 acres for the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobely National Monument across three separate sites. Before signing it, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took aim at states dominated by Republican state legislatures that have passed laws banning the teaching of certain lessons related to race and diversity, as well as conservative campaigns to ban books about Black history in public schools and libraries.

Harris called out Florida, where earlier this month the State Board of Education rewrote African American history standards to conclude that Black people benefited from slavery because they learned skills.

“Today there are those in our nation who would prefer to erase or even rewrite the ugly parts of our past, those who attempt to teach that enslaved people benefited from slavery, those who insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, who tried to divide our nation with unnecessary debates,” she said. “Let us not be seduced into believing that somehow we will be better if we forget. We will be better if we remember.”

Harris visited Jacksonville, Florida, last week, where she slammed the new guidelines and told a crowd that Florida’s book bans, LGBTQ+ rights restrictions and Black history revisions are part of a coordinated national right-wing agenda.

Since 2021, thousands of books have been banned and removed from library shelves and classrooms after campaigns by conservative activists, particularly by Moms for Liberty. The White House named a book banning coordinator in response.

“At a time when there are those who seek to ban books, bury history, we’re making (it) clear, crystal, crystal, clear how darkness and denialism can hide much, (but) they erase nothing,” Biden said.  “We can’t just choose to learn what we want to know, we have to learn what we should know … the good, the bad, the truth of who we are as a nation.”

Three sites

Biden, who was 12 at the time Till was murdered in 1955 at the age of 14, said the three sites not only tell the story of Till, but his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who was an educator and activist. She died in 2003.

One of the sites is at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ in the historic Black neighborhood of Bronzeville on Chicago’s South Side, where Till-Mobley demanded an open casket funeral to show how her son was brutalized.

The images of his unrecognizable face ran in newspapers and magazines, and his lynching became a driving force for the civil rights movement. Biden also commended the Black press for its work in reporting and deeply covering Till’s murder.

The other two sites are in Mississippi, one in Graball Landing, outside of Glendora on the banks of the Tallahatchie River, where it’s believed that Till’s body was found. The other site is the Tallahatchie County Second District Courthouse in Sumner, where the trials for the men accused of his murder were held.

Till was lynched after a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, accused him of whistling at her and she told her husband, Roy Bryant, about it.

The two white men accused of his murder and torture, Roy Bryant and his brother J.W. Milam, were acquitted by an all-white jury.

In 2008, the community of Graball Landing established a sign, known as the Emmett Till memorial, to mark where it’s believed his body was found, but the sign has been replaced several times due to people vandalizing the sign and even shooting at it. The sign is now bulletproof, made of steel and weighs 500 pounds.

The National Park Service will manage the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobely National Monument.

The state where two sites will be dedicated to Till in 2022 passed a law banning the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 education, reported Mississippi Today. CRT is a theoretical method in higher academic settings that is used to explore how the legal system can be used in perpetuating and remedying inequality.

Telling the story

The national monument is an opportunity to tell the story of Emmett Till, said Eboni Preston Goddard, the Southeast Region Associate Director for the National Parks Conservation Association, which advocates for the protection of national monuments.

“It’s not about necessarily who killed Emmett Till, but what killed Emmett Till,” she said in an interview with States Newsroom.

Preston Goddard said it’s important to understand the inequity, injustice and racism that led to Till’s murder.

“Maybe today will be a new day for us to have these deeper conversations, for people to see just how hard and rough and difficult things like this have been as it’s impacted communities for generations,” she said, adding that her grandmother is 90 and “this is in her lifetime.”

Preston Goddard said it’s also important that Till’s mother is honored for her determination to have an open casket. The decision to show her son’s body was in defiance of Mississippi officials, who wanted Till quickly buried in Mississippi.

The president said Tuesday’s announcement is part of the Biden administration’s commitment to racial justice.

Last year, Biden signed into law a bill to make lynching a federal crime, and named the bill in Till’s honor.

There have been more than 200 attempts to make lynching a federal hate crime, with the first effort starting in 1900 by U.S. Rep. George Henry White, a North Carolina Republican. More than 6,500 Black Americans were lynched between 1865 and 1950, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, which has tracked racial violence since the Civil War.

The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobely National Monument is Biden’s fourth national monument designation. The other three are the Castner Range National Monument in Texas, Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada and Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument in Colorado.

A national monument can either be established by Congress or the president through the Antiquities Act of 1906.

The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobely National Monument will also be near another national monument, the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument in Jackson, Mississippi, which honors the life and work of husband and wife civil rights activists.

Medgar Evers established an NAACP office in Jackson, Mississippi, and worked to integrate the University of Mississippi in 1962 before he was assassinated outside his home.

State Rep. Ashley Bland Manlove of Kansas City and St. Louis City NAACP President Adolphus Pruitt appeared on KCUR 89.3’s Up To Date on Monday to talk about the lack of racial equity among marijuana-business license holders in Missouri (Left photo by Tim Bommel/Missouri House of Representatives, and right photo by Wiley Price/The St. Louis American).

When it comes to racial equity, state Rep. Ashley Bland Manlove of Kansas City and St. Louis City NAACP President Adolphus Pruitt typically land on the same side.

But on Amendment 3— the constitutional amendment that legalized recreational marijuana in November — they couldn’t be further apart. 

On Monday morning, they both appeared on KCUR 89.3’s Up To Date to talk about the lack of racial equity among marijuana-business license holders in Missouri. Both agree that Black communities have long felt the brunt of marijuana criminalization, so Black business owners should be able to benefit from Missouri’s soon-to-be billion-dollar industry.

But where they clashed was whether or not the state’s new “microbusiness licenses” program, a provision in Amendment 3, can bridge that gap. 

These are small-business licenses “designed to allow marginalized or under-represented individuals to participate in the legal marijuana market,” according to the state website.

Even with the microbusiness program, Bland-Manlove believes the new law cements in place an already distrusted, inequitable business licensing system established when medical marijuana was approved in 2018. Yet Pruitt’s fervent support for the program and other the equity measures in Amendment 3 – including expungements of past marijuana offenses — shows there’s still a strong divide among social justice leaders on how the recreational marijuana law will impact Black Missourians.

Listen to KCUR segment:

Steve Kraske, who hosts the daily public affairs show on Kansas City’s NPR station, asked Bland Manlove if she believes “the lack of representation” will be addressed through the microbusiness program. 

She responded that the issue wasn’t addressed in the medical marijuana program, “so I don’t see it being addressed here. It’s the same people who wrote it, so I don’t see it being fixed at all.” 

Pruitt countered that the equity efforts weren’t limited to the microbusiness piece.

 “It’s about expungement,” Pruitt told Kraske. “It’s about leveling the playing field…I just don’t want us to reduce Amendment 3 and the benefits of Amendment 3 to one particular section.”

The discussion comes as the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services begins accepting applications for the microbusiness program on Thursday. The application period runs through Aug. 10. 

There are seven categories where people can qualify for a microbusiness license, ranging from a lower income level or living in an area considered impoverished to having past arrests or incarcerations related to marijuana offenses. 

“The microlicensing program is as simple as this,” Pruitt said during the KCUR discussion. “If you were impacted by the unjust laws as relates to the war against drugs, whether you were arrested (for a marijuana offense), whether your mother or father was arrested…you’re eligible.”

He also noted people who live in Census tracts where 30% or more of the population is below poverty and where the unemployment rate is 50% higher than it is for the state level are also eligible to apply for a microbusiness license.

A person can also apply if they have a service-connected disability card from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Bland Manlove said her biggest concern is the restrictions on microbusiness wholesale facilities. Under the constitution, they can only cultivate up to 250 flowering marijuana plants.

“If you translate that into pounds and dollars, that’s only clearing about $250,000 a year,” she said. “That’s not enough for a business to run on.”

She also said micro-dispensaries can only sell products from microbusiness growers.  

“Therefore, they have to wait until the other micro [cultivators] grow up their plants and then they can put it into the dispensary,” she told KCUR listeners. 

Ownership is another point of concern, she said, because the only person who has to meet the eligibility requirements is the “majority owner,” or the person who has more than 50% of the financial interests or voting interests. 

“That leaves a lot of room for other people to come in on the backside,” she said, “people who are already in the industry, people who are not of color.”

Another category she said leaves the door open for someone other than underrepresented individuals to benefit from the microbusiness licenses is the historic incarceration rate. People can apply if they live in a ZIP code that has an incarceration rate of marijuana offenses that’s 50% higher than the rate for the entire state.

DHSS listed these ZIP codes in the new cannabis regulations that go into effect on July 30. 

However, when DHSS tried to compile this list, they ran into trouble finding a state agency that tracked the ZIP codes of where people incarcerated actually lived, Abigail Vivas, who oversees the microbusiness program through DHSS, said at a June outreach event. 

The closest the state came, Vivas said, was identifying the ZIP codes for the courts where people’s cases were handled.

In the St. Louis area, there were three geographic ZIP codes DHSS identified: downtown St. Louis, which is among the least residential areas in the city, and downtown Clayton, among the most affluent suburbs in the region where the average household income is $200,000. And the last one is for St. Charles, where the population is 90% Caucasian, according to the census. 

“The majority Black populations in Missouri were missed on that map of qualifying places,” Bland Manlove said, regarding this category.

Pruitt said he believes the map showing Census tracts with high poverty and unemployment should make up for the lack of available information for incarceration rates. 

However, Pruitt previously told The Independent that if someone who lives in these ZIP codes applies solely on this eligibility requirement and wins a license, then the NAACP would legally challenge it because the addresses of courthouses don’t reflect actual residence, which is required under the constitution.   

In August, six license winners will be picked by the Missouri Lottery in every one of the state’s eight Congressional districts in Missouri — for a total of 48 licenses (16 for dispensaries and 32 for wholesale facilities.) DHSS will issue an additional 48 in 2024, and another 48 in 2025. 

Vivas estimates there could be up to 5,000 applicants statewide this year. But she’s heard other estimates that it could be 1,000 per congressional district. 

“That's just an abysmal number,” said Bland Manlove, regarding the 48 licenses. “It should be a lot more than that. I'm running in my head how many Black dispensaries we have now, and I can only think of one which is actually over on the St. Louis side.”

According to DHSS, there are currently 59 cultivation facilities, 207 dispensaries and 75 manufacturing facilities that hold “comprehensive” cannabis licenses. The state does not track demographic information of license holders, but Vivas said in June she would push for the department to conduct a voluntary survey for this information.

By law, the state cannot issue any new comprehensive licenses until June 2024. Pruitt noted that if the state decides to allow for more regular licenses in the future, then 50% of them must go to microbusiness license holders. 

“What we hope is going to happen is craft growers who want to come and get these licenses, they're going to brand their own product,” Pruitt said. “They're going to do all sorts of special and unique things. And then they're going to… hopefully grow into a comprehensive license. That's what this is all about.”

Abigail Vivas, the state's new chief equity officer for the cannabis program, (left) answered a question from attorney Marialle Bell about the eligibility requirements for the microbusiness program at an educational outreach event at St. Louis University on June 22, 2023. (Photo by Rebecca Rivas/The Missouri Independent)

For the first time, a state official has publicly vowed to push for a demographics survey of cannabis business owners — addressing a key criticism of the medical marijuana program that the Black community was left out of the burgeoning billion-dollar industry.

At a June 22 outreach event in St. Louis, Abigail Vivas, chief equity officer with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, said she would advocate for a survey where license holders could volunteer their demographic information.

“Considering the spirit of the constitution…I think that data is important,” said Vivas, who was hired in the newly created chief equity officer position in February.

Vivas led four events throughout the state last month to educate people about the microbusiness cannabis program, which proponents of Missouri’s marijuana legalization amendment said during last year’s campaign was aimed at giving access to communities who have been most impacted by marijuana criminalization. 

This fall, Missouri will award 48 microbusiness licenses, and the window to file applications is July 27 to Aug. 10. The application is now available on DHSS’ website.

The program was created as part of a policy response to what industry leaders know the survey will show — that there are very few Black-owned cannabis businesses in Missouri, and potentially few women-owned businesses as well.

“There is some under representation, no doubt,” said John Payne, a cannabis consultant who helped write the constitutional amendment voters passed in November to legalize recreational marijuana. “And the microbusinesses are aimed at creating some more equity for people that are underrepresented.”  

In order for these businesses to be able to compete and succeed, the number of new regular licenses in Missouri by law will stay frozen until June 8, 2024.

The only new licenses DHSS can issue until then are microbusiness licenses. 

Both state and industry leaders need to spend the next year supporting these new businesses, Payne said. 

St. Louis-based BeLeaf Medical is among several companies sponsoring accelerator programs for microbusiness applicants. 

“What do they get out of it?” said Todd Scattini, founder of Harvest 360, a consulting group brought in by BeLeaf to lead their education initiative. “People understand like, ‘Okay, they get it.’ They’re trying to help this community that has been destroyed by the War on Drugs by giving them information and access to networks and technology.”

Payne’s consulting firm, Amendment 2 Consultants, has also partnered with the Kansas-City-based cannabis company Show-Me Organics to provide assistance to microbusiness applicants. 

Larger businesses could benefit from certain branding opportunities, Payne said, and collaborations that are allowed under the law. But like Scattini, he said it’s also about recognizing Black Missourians are 2.6 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than White Missourians. 

“So that should carry over into a disproportionate good impact of the microbusiness licenses,” Payne said. “But what we don’t know and don’t control is who ends up actually applying. And we won’t know that until they’re awarded.”

Vivas said she will write an annual report that will include how many people applied and won microbusiness licenses in each of the seven eligibility criteria. By law, the report must be completed by Jan. 1. People can qualify for a microbusiness license, ranging from a lower income level or living in an area considered impoverished to having past arrests or incarcerations related to marijuana offenses. 

Her report will hopefully show who the microbusiness program is opening access for, she said, and ways the department can partner with the business community. 

However, DHSS is also mandated by the constitution to prepare a publicly available report for the entire cannabis industry that provides “aggregate data for each type of license.”

Payne said this is where the voluntary survey would come in. 

DHSS has sent out surveys within the cannabis industry in the past for other topics, including on banking status. And that has informed policies and partnerships, including legislation on banking that the governor signed last week. 

“If people are willing to put that information out in an anonymized way…,” Payne said, “being able to say, ‘Hey, the industry is this percentage male, this percentage of different racial and ethnic backgrounds,’ I think that is useful information from a policy standpoint.”

(Illustration by Tyler Gross)

For kids like Sandy Mitchell, Ted Theis and Janet Johnson, childhood in the North St. Louis County suburbs in the 1960s and ‘70s meant days playing along the banks or splashing in the knee-deep waters of Coldwater Creek.

They caught turtles and tadpoles, jumped into deep stretches of the creek from rope swings and ate mulberries that grew on the banks.

Their families — along with tens of thousands of others — flocked to the burgeoning suburbs and new ranch style homes built in Florissant, Hazelwood and other communities shortly after World War II. When the creek flooded, as it often did, so did their basements. They went to nearby Jana Elementary School and hiked and biked throughout Fort Belle Fontaine Park.

Growing up, they never knew they were surrounded by massive piles of nuclear waste left over from the war.

Generations of children who grew up alongside Coldwater Creek have, in recent decades, faced rare cancers, autoimmune disorders and other mysterious illnesses they have come to believe were the result of exposure to its waters and sediment.

“People in our neighborhood are dropping like flies,” Mitchell said.

The earliest known public reference to Coldwater Creek’s pollution came in 1981, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency listed it as one of the most polluted waterways in the U.S.

By 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was advising residents to avoid Coldwater Creek entirely. Cleanup of the creek is expected to take until 2038. A federal study found elevated rates of breast, colon, prostate, kidney and bladder cancers as well as leukemia in the area. Childhood brain and nervous system cancer rates are also higher.

“Young families moved into the area,” Johnson said, “and they were never aware of the situation.”

Theis, who grew up just 75 yards from the creek and played in it daily, died in August at the age of 60 from a rare cancer. Mitchell is a breast cancer survivor whose father died from prostate cancer. Johnson’s sister has an inoperable form of glioblastoma and other family members, including her father, daughter and nephew, have had various cancers.

Families who lived near Coldwater Creek were never warned of the radioactive waste. Details about the classified nuclear program in St. Louis were largely kept secret from the public. But a trove of newly-discovered documents reviewed by an ongoing collaboration of news organizations show private companies and the federal government knew radiological contamination was making its way into the creek for years before those findings were made public.

Radioactive waste was known to pose a threat to Coldwater Creek as early as 1949, records show. K-65, a residue from the processing of uranium ore, was stored in deteriorating steel drums or left out in the open near the creek at multiple spots, according to government and company reports.

A health expert who, as part of this project, was recently presented with data from a 1976 test of runoff to the creek concluded it showed dangerous levels of radiation 45 years ago.

Federal agencies knew of the potential human health risks of the creek contamination, the documents show, but repeatedly wrote them off as “slight,” “minimal” or “low-level.” One engineering consultant’s report from the 1970s incorrectly claimed that human contact with the creek was “rare.”

The Missouri Independent, MuckRock and The Associated Press spent months combing through thousands of pages of government records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and interviewing dozens of people who lived near the contaminated sites, health and radiation experts and officials from government agencies.

Some of the documents, obtained by a nuclear researcher who focuses on the effects of radiation, had been newly declassified in the early 2000s. Others had been previously lost to history, packed away in government archives and not released publicly until now.

All told, the documents from the now-defunct Atomic Energy Commission; its successors, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and the Environmental Protection Agency span the 75-year lifespan of the nuclear saga in St. Louis.

It starts in downtown St. Louis, where uranium was processed, and at the St. Louis airport, where it was stored at the end of the war; a monthslong move of the waste to industrial sites on Latty Avenue in suburban Hazelwood and a quarry in Weldon Spring, next to the Missouri River; an illegal dumping of waste at the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton in the 1970s by a private company; and the declaration of the landfill as a federal toxic Superfund site in 1990.

The documents have a familiar cadence: Year after year, decade after decade, government regulators and companies tasked with cleaning up the sites downplayed the risks posed by nuclear waste left near homes, parks and an elementary school. They often chose not to fully investigate the potential harms to public health and the environment around St. Louis.

Bob Criss, a now-retired geologist and geochemist, studied St. Louis’ history with nuclear waste at Washington University in St. Louis and wrote a report in 2013 critical of the EPA’s stewardship of the West Lake Landfill Superfund site.

In an interview last month, Criss said the waste changed hands so often and was overseen by an assortment of lightly regulated private companies, resulting in what he called a “ridiculous chain of events…driven by irresponsibility.”

“The government should have been responsible for this material,” Criss said.

The Department of Energy has assisted with the costs of remedial studies at West Lake under a legal agreement called a consent decree since 1993. It referred questions about the landfill’s history and other contaminated sites to the Department of Justice, which did not respond to a request for comment, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Presented with details of the newly-revealed documents, Dave McIntyre, a spokesperson for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in a statement that the agency conducted numerous investigations and studies at the West Lake Landfill over a period of almost 20 years that were “extensively documented.” It transferred authority to the EPA in 1995 and directed further questions to the agency.

The EPA has jurisdiction only over the West Lake site. Staffers for the agency acknowledged cleanup at the site had been slow, but there has been progress toward designing an excavation plan and placing a cap on the landfill.

St. Louis becomes vital piece of Manhattan Project war effort

The St. Louis region proved pivotal to the development of the first atomic bomb in the 1940s.

Old downtown factories, suburban storage sites and the landfill represent some of dozens of properties that were contaminated in pursuit of the nuclear bomb.

The West Lake Landfill is one of well over 1,000 EPA Superfund sites across the country. The Department of Energy, too, is the steward of other nuclear sites, like a complex in Hanford, Washington, on the banks of the Columbia River, in desperate need of cleanup.

Mallinckrodt Chemical Works processed uranium for the Manhattan Project, the name given to the effort to build the bomb, in downtown St. Louis. Uranium from the Mallinckrodt plant was used in the first sustained nuclear reaction in Chicago, a significant breakthrough.

By the end of the 1940s, there was already a risk of contamination, the new records show.

An internal Mallinckrodt memo from 1949 shows the company was storing highly radioactive residue called K-65 in deteriorating steel drums at the St. Louis airport near Coldwater Creek. The material was so dangerous, the memo said, that Mallinckrodt couldn’t simply put it in new containers because “the hazards to the workers involved in such an occupation would be considerable.”

Mallinckrodt, which still exists as Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, declined to comment for this article. By 1960, the company had more than 1,000 employees at its uranium processing facility in St. Louis. It took some measures to protect its workers, such as putting them on timed shifts to limit exposure, but it determined possible pollution of Coldwater Creek was far less “serious and immediate” than the threat handling the waste posed to workers.

As the nation’s oldest radioactive waste of the atomic age, many details about Mallinckrodt and other private companies’ storage and maintenance of nuclear waste have been well documented, first as part of a grassroots civic effort in the 1970s by environmental activist Kay Drey and then as part of a seven-part series published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1989.

More recently, the issue was the focus of a 2017 documentary called “Atomic Homefront” and a 2022 book, “Nuked,” by Linda Morice, who grew up near Coldwater Creek.

But the new documents reveal government agencies were plainly aware of the risks posed by prolonged storage and seepage of waste into soil, groundwater and the creek — and yet dismissed concerns about them.

Following the war, material from Mallinckrodt was trucked to a site next to the airport, which would later become the center of some of the region’s most populated suburbs. At times, waste fell out of trucks and spilled onto public roadways, only to be picked up by a single worker carrying a shovel and broom and loaded back onto the bed of a pickup truck. It was then left for years in the open, without a cover, where wind and rainwater dispersed it.

After a few years, the Atomic Energy Commission, which was later replaced by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, began looking for a buyer for the waste. A private company would purchase the waste, process it to obtain any valuable materials — such as copper, nickel or cobalt — and dispose of the rest.

While the waste awaited purchase, a 1965 government report found drainage from the 20-foot-tall mounds of material — including almost 200 tons of uranium — had produced “some minor contamination in Coldwater Creek.”

The document doesn’t specify the level of radiation in the creek at the time, but it says the levels are “well within permissible and acceptable limits.”
Within a few years, most of the waste was sold and moved just up the road to a site on Latty Avenue in Hazelwood where it, again, sat exposed to the elements and adjacent to Coldwater Creek.

But despite the move, the airport would remain contaminated for years to come.

Between 50 and 60 truck loads remained buried there, and in the late 1970s, uranium, radium and thorium were found in the drainage ditches along a public road next to the site.

According to a draft report uncovered as part of the document release, four members of the health and safety research division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee tested the airport site in 1976 at the request of the Energy Research and Development Administration, which would become the Department of Energy.

The results showed onsite radiation sources were as high as 8.8 millisievert per year, five times the typical dose of radiation humans receive in a year, and nine times the EPA’s limit for water pathways, according to an expert who calculated the annual dose for the Independent and MuckRock. The reading was 220 times higher than the EPA’s limit for drinking water pathways.

Though the federal government knew about the contamination, the public wouldn’t find out until 1990.
“These site doses are deadly because there is no safe dose of radiation,” said Kristin Shrader-Frechette, professor and PhD with the University of Notre Dame’s Biological Sciences Department and Environmental Sciences Program, who reviewed the 1976 study’s findings.

The runoff sources next to Coldwater Creek, Shrader-Frechette said, are “far higher than what is allowed. The only question is whether any scientific studies have documented these health problems.”

In 1979, the Department of Energy acknowledged the site was eroding, carrying contamination into the drainage ditch and Coldwater Creek. But a planned meeting that November, with representatives of multiple federal agencies and local elected officials, was abruptly canceled after then-U.S. Rep. Robert Young openly fought with the federal agencies over a lack of funding for the cleanup.

In a description of a meeting between Young and a Nuclear Regulatory Commission official, the congressman railed against the federal government, saying St. Louis and its airport had been “hoodwinked” into taking ownership of the radioactive waste, which he described as a “Pandora’s Box.”

The airport site wasn’t fully cleaned up until 2009.

In 1986, then-St. Louis City Health Commissioner William B. Hope Jr. wrote to a city alderwoman that he had been “quietly” testing Coldwater Creek and city water supplies, to ensure the city’s drinking water wasn’t contaminated. It wasn’t, he found, but he offered a blunt assessment of the federal government’s nuclear waste program in the St. Louis region.

“Sufficient information was known about the radioactive contaminants to have warranted a different type of decision regarding their disposal,” he wrote. “These materials should not have been deposited near populated areas and certainly not in areas where geographically the material could migrate into the water table or into adjacent areas as a result of erosion over time.”

Illegal dumping of radioactive waste

When the Atomic Energy Commission sold the remnant nuclear waste, it anticipated being able to get rid of the more than 100,000 tons of toxic residues without spending any money.

The first company to purchase the waste, Continental Mining and Milling Co. of Chicago, borrowed $2.5 million to buy it in 1966 and then, shortly after, went bankrupt. Continental’s lender, Commercial Discount of Chicago, re-purchased the waste at auction for $800,000 and, after failing to get a bidder at a second auction, sold it to the Cotter Corp. To turn a profit, Cotter would ultimately dry the material and ship it to its uranium mill plant in Cañon City, Colorado.

By 1972, most of the valuable metals in the waste had been identified and shipped. Cotter was now looking to dispose of remaining waste that had little or no monetary value — 8,900 tons of worthless leached barium sulfate and “miscellaneous residues and debris.”

But the cost estimates to properly dispose of the waste were pricey: $150,000 ($1.1 million in 2023 dollars) to bury it onsite at Latty Avenue near Coldwater Creek or about $2 million ($15 million in 2023 dollars) to ship it hundreds of miles away to a commercial site in West Valley, New York, and bury it there.

A third location was proposed: A pit at the Weldon Spring quarry in St. Charles County, which was already a disposal site for other radioactive waste.

The Atomic Energy Commission had initially planned to allow it to be dumped in the Weldon Spring quarry, just outside the banks of the Missouri River, when it was looking for a buyer for the waste in 1960, government records show.

But on the advice of the U.S. Geological Survey, the Atomic Energy Commission reversed course on the quarry plan. Among other issues, the agencies said there was a “high probability of contaminating the Missouri River shortly above the intakes for the St. Louis City and St. Louis County water supplies.”

Cotter asked the government to bury the waste at Weldon Springs multiple times, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but were rebuffed each time, meeting minutes show.

So, over a period of 2 ½ months in the summer and fall of 1973, Cotter took the problem into its own hands, without telling government regulators.

The company mixed the radioactive waste with tens of thousands of tons of contaminated soil from the site and illegally dumped it in a free, public landfill called West Lake, under three feet of soil and other garbage.

Within months, the Atomic Energy Commission discovered what Cotter had done.

Government records show staffers from the commission visited the site as part of a routine inspection in April 1974 and were told about the illegal dumping. Internal memos and letters show AEC staffers believed Cotter’s actions violated agency regulations and were misled about the amount of the waste involved.

Internally, the AEC struggled with how to respond to Cotter’s illegal dumping.

While noting Cotter was “clearly in violation” of a federal law “in that [the company] disposed of licensed material in an unauthorized manner,” “the large numbers involved need to be brought into prospective (sic).”

Cotter had mixed enough topsoil with the radioactive waste to, in theory, render it harmless, the agency concluded.

AEC’s enforcement division found that the waste in the West Lake Landfill was now “virtually unidentifiable and nonrecoverable.” Still, Cotter should provide evidence that the waste “does not constitute an undue hazard to the public or the environment.”

A draft letter by the AEC to Cotter was drawn up, requiring the company to study the potential environmental and health consequences of dumping the waste at the West Lake Landfill and propose solutions.

But that requirement was cut from the final letter, without explanation. The decision to let Cotter off the hook was not revealed to the public.

Cotter subsequently informed the AEC that it had finished processing the waste and decontaminating the property and asked the government to terminate its license and release it from responsibility over the site.

The AEC released Cotter from its St. Louis permit without immediate sanctions in 1974, but the company is partially responsible for the cleanup costs at the site.

Cotter’s parent company, General Atomics, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

By most government accounts, the human health risk at the West Lake Landfill is remote. Lee Sobotka, a chemistry and physics professor at Washington University in St. Louis, has studied the radiation levels at West Lake Landfill site and noted that the waste is diluted enough to be considered “low-level.”

Despite the low risk of illness, Sobotka said the government, and by extension the surrounding communities, are left with a never-ending cleanup and maintenance problem. Federal and state agencies will have to be a “custodian in perpetuity” at West Lake.

“Looking back at history, you find a litany of mistakes by companies and contractors and so you can get very upset about that,” he said.

Looking forward, Sobotka said, “it’s not something you seal and forget.”

‘Tip of the iceberg’

In 1999, when Robbin Dailey moved into Spanish Village, a neighborhood of only a few dozen homes with its own park less than a mile from the back side of West Lake Landfill, she had no idea she was living next to a Superfund site.

When the EPA decided initially in 2008 to cap the waste at West Lake and leave it in place, Dailey never heard about the plan. Two years later, in 2010, she was alerted to the radioactive waste when a “subsurface smoldering event” — a type of chemical reaction that consumes landfilled waste like a fire but lacks oxygen — sent a pungent stench into the air around her home.

Dailey and her husband had their house tested and found thorium in the dust at hundreds of times natural levels. They sued the landfill’s owners, Republic Services, as well as the Cotter Corp. and Mallinckrodt.

Dailey said she and the companies had “resolved” their legal issues, but she, like all of the residents in North St. Louis County, was still in the dark about where within the landfill site the waste actually was.

Court records reveal a bevy of lawsuits against the private companies involved, at various times, with the West Lake Landfill. Not only that, but the landfill operators sued Mallinckrodt in an attempt to force the maker of the radioactive waste to pay for part of the cleanup.

Since the late 1970s, federal regulators repeatedly failed to uncover the true extent of contamination at West Lake.

In October 1977, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission used a helicopter to take hour-long passes back and forth over the landfill from an altitude of 200 feet. The goal was to measure gamma radioactivity coming from the site using specialized equipment.

While the effort correctly identified two areas with high levels of radiation, it had serious limitations, experts say. A survey of that type can miss contamination if it’s buried deep underground or if the ground is obstructed by vegetation.

And it did.

Despite the shortcomings of that sort of test, the government’s conclusion that the radioactive waste was confined to two areas of the West Lake Landfill would stand for more than 40 years.

Nathan Anderson, a director of natural resources and environment for the federal Government Accountability Office, said the federal government often fails to compile complete and reliable information in environmental cleanups.

“We’ve done a number of these evaluations where there is contamination that the federal government is on the hook for cleaning up,” Anderson said. “And we’ve found that oftentimes, it’s the tip of the iceberg.”

In May, almost 50 years after the waste was dumped at West Lake, the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged what many residents had long feared: Radiological waste was spread throughout the West Lake Landfill, not confined to two specific portions as officials had long maintained.

Bob Jurgens, the EPA’s superfund and emergency management division director for the region, announced at the community meeting in May that the health risk “remains unchanged.”

The additional radioactive waste is largely underground, he said, so “we believe that is protective at this time to the folks that are outside.”

EPA officials said the contamination was found all over the property — in some areas at the surface and, in other areas, at great depths.

The agency looked at the dates on newspapers above and below the radioactive waste in two areas of the site previously thought to be uncontaminated to approximate when it was dumped, said Chris Jump, the EPA’s lead remedial project manager for the site.

It’s likely been there the whole time.

In one area where contamination was at the surface, the EPA moved quickly to add gravel and rocks to cover it. The waste had migrated outside the fence line in some areas, the EPA said.

Readings showed contamination in a drainage ditch along a public road bordering the landfill. It migrated right under the EPA’s nose.

While the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry did not find any causal link between the West Lake Landfill and illnesses in and around Bridgeton, it said in a 2015 report that radon concentrations appeared higher than typical. It encouraged further testing using long-term monitoring devices.

Dawn Chapman, who left her job and co-founded Just Moms STL to advocate for the community around the landfill, said the EPA used to treat her and other activists like their fears were hysterical.

“We spent more time fighting them as an agency than we did the g—–n polluters,” Chapman said.

EPA officials, in an interview last month, acknowledged the flyover and previous testing missed considerable areas containing radioactive waste. But they said they did not need to test soil over the whole site before deciding on a partial excavation strategy.

“It doesn’t change anything about the remedy itself. It doesn’t change anything about the risks that the site poses,” said Tom Mahler, a remedial project manager for the EPA. However, Mahler said finding all of the contamination was important for the next step of the work at the site: designing and executing the excavation.

State pleads for help

By the time the EPA listed the landfill on the National Priorities List in 1990, state officials had already been sounding the alarm for years.

A staffer with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources wrote in 1980 that contamination at the landfill was more severe and widespread than previously thought. In 1986 and 1990, onsite sampling showed possible radiological contamination in the groundwater in areas outside the sections of the landfill thought to be radioactive.

In 1987, the state classified the landfill as a hazardous waste site. The radioactive waste was in direct contact with the groundwater, the agency said in its annual report.

“Based on available information, a health threat exists due to the toxic effects of chemicals and low-level uranium wastes buried at the site and the possibility that off-site migration of these materials might occur,” the agency wrote.

The next year, Missouri began lobbying the EPA to designate the landfill as a Superfund site, contending that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission knew the site needed to be cleaned up but had no intention of taking action and the Department of Energy said the site didn’t qualify for its cleanup program.

Yet there was little movement from the federal agencies – despite growing evidence.

A 1982 study commissioned by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission showed that, as the waste in the landfill decays, radium activity will increase by nine times over 200 years.

Despite that finding, as of 1984, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission believed stabilizing the waste and leaving it onsite was the best solution, in part, because of the high cost of alternative solutions, such as excavating the site or new construction to control groundwater.

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission report from 1988 shows radioactivity in the groundwater on site anywhere from two to 30 times levels it would occur naturally.

“Based on monitoring-well sample analyses, some low-level contamination of the groundwater is occurring,” the report says, “indicating that the groundwater in the vicinity is not adequately protected by the present disposition of the wastes.”

Even after the Superfund declarations, Missouri and the EPA sparred over how the contamination was quantified.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources told the EPA in 1997 that it feared the extent of the contamination was underestimated. Until disagreements around how to calculate the severity of the contamination and whether sampling showed false positives were resolved, the agency said, “we cannot concur with the conclusion that the…extent of the contamination has been defined.”

Ryan Seabaugh, project manager for the West Lake site for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, said in an interview that the state agency asked the EPA to do more testing or provide information to confirm the boundaries of the contamination.

“We just had concerns that there might be a little bit more,” said Seabaugh, who has overseen the site for the state for eight years. “We were pretty surprised at the relatively large extent that we did find.”

It wasn’t until around the time the EPA settled on a plan to excavate parts of the site in 2018, Seabaugh said, that the federal agency started “listening” to its Missouri counterpart.

After several studies, the EPA designated the groundwater at West Lake as its own “operable unit” to be investigated and, potentially, remediated. That work is ongoing.

Still, even by the EPA’s admittedly slow process for classifying and cleaning up toxic sites, the West Lake Landfill timeline was glacial. For Superfund sites listed in 1996, it took an average of more than 9 years from discovering the site to placing it on the National Priorities List. Cleanup took an average of 10 ½ years, a Government Accountability Office review found.

The West Lake Landfill contamination was discovered in 1974. It was designated a Superfund site in 1990, and there is still no date certain for when the cleanup will begin.

John Madras, who worked for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources at the time it was asking the EPA to classify West Lake as a Superfund site, said that, even among slow-moving government cleanup projects, West Lake stands out: “They’ve given us a new understanding of what a really long time is.”

Back to the drawing board

EPA’s first plan for the site would not have included moving the radioactive waste at all.

In 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency approved a plan for the landfill’s “primarily responsible parties” — the government and private contractors responsible for the site — to place a cap over the landfill and leave the waste in place.

Following criticism from the surrounding communities, EPA asked the Department of Energy, the Cotter Corp. and the landfill’s owner, Republic Services, to test the site again.

In the meantime, an underground fire brought a new level of scrutiny.

Starting in 2010, the Bridgeton Landfill, which sits adjacent to the West Lake Landfill, has been experiencing a subsurface smoldering event.

The smell from the heated trash got the attention of the Bridgeton community when it worsened in 2013. The situation also caught the attention of then-Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, who sued the landfill’s owner, Republic Services, for its track record at the Bridgeton Landfill.

And as Koster’s office investigated the site, it too became concerned the EPA was underestimating the risk. Testing performed in preparation for a fire barrier to keep the reaction from reaching the radiological contamination, Koster wrote, appeared to demonstrate that the waste was not confined just to where the EPA thought.

Koster’s office would release additional findings as part of its investigation for the lawsuit against Republic Services, including reports in 2015 that radioactive waste had been found in vegetation offsite and the fire was moving closer to the onsite contamination, which the EPA dismissed as “unhelpful” at the time and continues to dispute.

In the midst of strife over the stench and studies conducted in search of a new plan, the owners of the landfill decided to fence off one of the two areas then thought to contain the radioactive waste.

But as it turned out, they were digging in close proximity to radioactive waste.

After construction of the fence began, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources visited the site in June 2013 with a portable radiation reader. State officials found radiation at levels 35 to 50 times what is normal in the tire ruts leaving the site and just a short distance from the post holes dug along the planned fence line.

The department flagged the finding for the EPA, the documents show.

“Elevated readings indicated an area of radiologically contaminated soils located within close proximity to the new fence installation and also in close proximity to the exit route from the landfill,” Shawn Muenks, then the project manager for West Lake for DNR, wrote in an email.

Muenks warned the contaminated soil could be spread by trucks leaving the site. A consultant for the government and private companies wrote back, saying crews realigned the fence so the contamination would be contained within the boundaries. The consultant’s email said testing along the new fence line showed no elevated levels of radiation.

“Therefore no ‘track out’ or erosional transport had occurred,” the email said.

But since then, testing in preparation for the remediation at the site has uncovered radioactive contamination all along that fence.

“Knowing what we know now based on the new EPA findings, I don’t see how they couldn’t have been digging in it,” said Christen Commuso, a spokesperson for the nonprofit advocacy organization, the Missouri Coalition for the Environment.

The EPA has said the additional contamination found along that fenceline is below the surface.

The depth and severity of the new contamination the EPA found is not yet clear. The agency is preparing to release a report that will include the readings, a spokesperson said. A remedial design portion of the project is underway, the last step before the excavation begins.

But EPA doesn’t have a date certain as to when work on the project might start.

Curtis Carey, a spokesperson for the EPA, said despite decades of delays, the agency is planning next steps for the landfill “with a great deal more information because of our purposeful approach than was available 10, 15, 20 years ago.”

The following people contributed reporting, writing, editing, document review, research, interviews, photography, illustrations, analysis and project management. Chris Amico, Dillon Bergin, Kelly Kauffman and Derek Kravitz of MuckRock; Jason Hancock, Allison Kite and Rebecca Rivas of The Missouri Independent; Michael Phillis and Jim Salter of The Associated Press; Sarah Fenske, Theo Welling, Tyler Gross and Evan Sult of the Riverfront Times; EJ Haas, Madelyn Orr, Sydney Poppe, Mark Horvit and Virginia Young of the University of Missouri; Katherine Reed of the Association of Health Care Journalists; Liliana Frankel, Erik Galicia, Laura Gómez, Lauren Hubbard, Sophie Hurwitz and Steve Vockrodt; and Gerry Everding and Carolyn Bower of the original St. Louis Post-Dispatch team that published the seven-part “Legacy of the Bomb” series in 1989.

Lorie Smith, the owner of 303 Creative, a website design company in Colorado, speaks with supporters outside of the U.S. Supreme Court Building on Dec. 5, 2022, in Washington, DC. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in her favor Friday (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images).

Colorado cannot compel a website designer to create custom sites for same-sex couples, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in an opinion released Friday.

The 6-3 ruling, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, came in 303 Creative v. Elenis. Plaintiff Lorie Smith argued the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, violates her constitutional right to free speech.  She believes, based on her religion, that marriage should be between one man and one woman, and therefore she does not want to create wedding websites that feature her own original content for same-sex couples.

Aubrey Elenis, who is named as a defendant, is the director of the Colorado Civil Rights Division.

“The First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees,” the court said.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, during a Friday news conference at the Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center in Denver, cast the ruling as an extreme shift that will allow all sorts of businesses to discriminate against many different communities.

“Today’s decision in 303 Creative permits businesses to turn away customers because of who they are,” Weiser said. “Based on the claimed ‘expressive’ interest, this radical opinion is far out of step of the will of the American people and our values as Americans. It is a significant departure from decades of established cases that all uphold the principle that our nation is committed to equal justice for all.”

Smith argued that creating the kind of websites she envisions is a form of speech, while the defendants argued it’s a service, and therefore “public accommodation” laws apply. Smith’s team said during oral arguments in December that the anti-discrimination law constitutes compelled speech in Smith’s case, meaning she would be forced to convey messages against her personal beliefs.

The court’s opinion says that while many states’ public accommodations laws have extended to cover most forms of business operations, “no public accommodations law is immune from the demands of the Constitution,” and therefore cannot compel speech.

“In this case, Colorado seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance,” the court said. “As this Court has long held, the opportunity to think for ourselves and to express those thoughts freely is among our most cherished liberties and part of what keeps our Republic strong.”

Gorsuch was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett in the majority opinion. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“As I will explain, the law in question targets conduct, not speech, for regulation, and the act of discrimination has never constituted protected expression under the First Amendment,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent. “Our Constitution contains no right to refuse service to a disfavored group.”

This is the second case from Colorado related to LGBTQ discrimination that made its way to the Supreme Court. The first was Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which involved a cake shop owner who denied a same-sex couple a wedding cake based on religious beliefs. The Masterpiece case focused on the First Amendment’s freedom of religion clause, while the 303 Creative case focused on the free speech clause.

Sweeping effects

In his remarks Friday, Weiser emphasized the potential broad implications of the ruling. He said the court’s decision “means a business could refuse to serve an interracial couple claiming that interracial marriage is wrong. It means a payroll company or photographer could say, ‘I don’t want to do business with women-owned businesses, because I don’t believe women should be working outside the home.’ It means a bookseller of religious texts could say, ‘I’m not going to sell books to a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, because I don’t believe that it’s a legitimate religion,’ and so on.”

President Joe Biden in a statement echoed Weiser’s interpretation.

“While the Court’s decision only addresses expressive original designs, I’m deeply concerned that the decision could invite more discrimination against LGBTQI+ Americans,” Biden said in a statement. “More broadly, today’s decision weakens long-standing laws that protect all Americans against discrimination in public accommodations — including people of color, people with disabilities, people of faith, and women.”

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, the country’s first openly gay man elected governor, noted that while the ruling did not invalidate the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Law, it opened a legal pathway for business owners who claim they’re selling “expressive” or “artistic” items to discriminate.

“Unfortunately, Americans have seen the Supreme Court become increasingly obsessed with taking away freedoms,” Polis said in a statement.

Weiser suggested a solution Friday.

“On the legal front, we’re going to do all we can to work to limit the impact of this decision and, ultimately, to overturn this decision,” Weiser said during the news conference, adding, referring the Supreme Court’s reversal of the constitutional right to get an abortion, “Like the Dobbs decision of last year, this decision is not what our Constitution, what our democratic republic, stands for, which is founded on the promise of equal justice for all.”

The most important response to the ruling is for businesses to choose to serve everyone, he said.

This was a message that Nadine Bridges, executive director of One Colorado, which advocates for the LGBTQ community, voiced during the news conference.

“We call on all fair-minded businesses and owners to condemn discrimination and continue the long-standing commitment to treat everyone with dignity and respect and to remain open to all,” Bridges said.

This story was originally published by Colorado Newsline, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

A transgender teenager, born and raised in Missouri, prepares to leave the state as he and his parents pursue a safer environment (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Democratic governors and state lawmakers across the country are mobilizing against a surge of Republican restrictions on transgender health care by establishing their states as sanctuaries for gender-affirming care.

Earlier this month, Democratic Gov. Wes Moore signed an executive order making Maryland the 11th state, plus the District of Columbia, to declare itself a sanctuary. A bill in New York has cleared the legislature and is awaiting the signature of Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Last year, California became the first state to declare itself a sanctuary. It has since been joined by Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington. A growing number of cities, including New York City; Kansas City, Missouri; and West Hollywood, California, also have become sanctuaries.

These states and cities are emerging as havens with legal protections to shield health care providers, transgender people and their supporters from lawsuits and criminal penalties levied by other states.

Maryland’s executive order prohibits the use of state resources, such as incarceration facilities, to comply with subpoenas against transgender people and their health care providers. It mandates that all state agencies “take whatever action is necessary” to protect those involved in providing, receiving or assisting in travel for gender-affirming care.

The order also ensures that transgender people will not be extradited from Maryland for seeking gender-affirming care, and doctors will not lose their licenses for providing such care. Similar measures have been implemented by other sanctuary states.

New York Democratic Assemblymember Harry Bronson, who led the effort to pass the sanctuary bill in the lower house, highlighted his state’s commitment to embracing and protecting transgender people.

“That’s what New York state is saying by this piece of legislation, that we love you for who you are, and we’re going to support you for who you are,” Bronson said in an interview with Stateline. “We’re going to make sure that whatever legal means we have, we’re going to make sure that you’re protected from those who will hate.”

Republican-led efforts to curtail or criminalize providing or receiving gender-affirming medical treatment have gained momentum in recent years, fueled by concerns over parental rights, religious beliefs and the ongoing debate surrounding gender identity.

At least 20 states have restricted or banned gender-affirming care for minors, according to data from the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank that advocates for LGBTQ+ rights.

At least five states — Alabama, Florida, Idaho, North Dakota and Oklahoma — have made it a felony to provide gender-affirming care to minors. In other states, laws range from banning the use of public funds or state property to provide care or promote social transitioning, to prohibiting out-of-state providers from delivering telehealth care.

On Tuesday, a federal judge struck down Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. The ban, which had been blocked from going into effect for nearly two years, prohibited physicians from providing “gender transition” treatments such as hormones, puberty blockers and surgeries to those under age 18.

Idaho’s Vulnerable Child Protection Act, which was signed into law in April by Republican Gov. Brad Little, bans puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries for minors. The law also makes providing gender-affirming health care for minors a felony with a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.

“In signing this bill, I recognize our society plays a role in protecting minors from surgeries or treatments that can irreversibly damage their healthy bodies,” Little wrote in a transmittal letter to state lawmakers. “However, as policymakers we should take great caution whenever we consider allowing the government to interfere with loving parents and their decisions about what is best for their children.”

Some states, including Arizona, Georgia and Texas, approved bans with exceptions, such as allowing medication or nonsurgical gender-affirming care and allowing minors who were diagnosed or receiving treatment prior to the law’s passage to continue or wean off medication.

Many of the laws explicitly bar gender-affirming treatments such as hormone therapy and surgeries for transgender minors. Proponents argue that they protect children from making potentially irreversible medical decisions, while preserving parental authority.

“There is no doubt that these procedures are ‘abuse’ under Texas law, and thus must be halted,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a February statement. “The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) has a responsibility to act accordingly. I’ll do everything I can to protect against those who take advantage of and harm young Texans.” (Paxton has since been suspended from office and faces an impeachment trial.)

Olivia Hunt, the policy director for the advocacy group National Center for Transgender Equality, said proponents of transgender health care bans often misrepresent transition-related health care as new or experimental to garner support.

“The science reliably shows that the proponents of anti-trans policies are simply wrong,” Hunt said in an interview with Stateline.

Gender-affirming care encompasses both medical and non-medical services, such as social affirmation, puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgical procedures, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Social affirmation involves adopting or using a name, hairstyles, clothing, pronouns and restrooms or other facilities that correspond to one’s gender identity, according to the department.

Surgeries are typically reserved for adults, although they may be considered for adolescents on a case-by-case basis, the department said.

Leading medical associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, endorse gender-affirming care as safe and effective. The American Medical Association considers it medically necessary, highlighting the importance of these interventions in supporting the well-being of transgender individuals.

However, some European nations, including Norway, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom, recently have introduced restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors.

Research conducted by public health authorities in England, Finland and Sweden has not shown “meaningful improvements in youth’s mental health” as a result of gender-affirming care, according to an article published in the journal Current Sexual Health Reports in April. The article also suggested that puberty blockers may hinder bone development.

Attitudes toward transgender people and issues in the United States are divided, according to polling data from the Pew Research Center. Although the survey found that 64% of adults support transgender nondiscrimination laws, 60% also hold the belief that a person’s gender is determined by the sex assigned at birth, and 46% support legislation that would prohibit gender-affirming health care for minors.

At least 130 bills restricting gender-affirming health care have been introduced in state legislatures across the country this session — a roughly threefold increase from 43 bills last year, according to American Civil Liberties Union data.

The consequences of transgender health care bans are profound, Hunt said. These restrictions may exacerbate gender dysphoria — a disconnect between a person’s gender identity and their assigned sex at birth — leading to heightened rates of depression, anxiety and self-harm, according to research cited by the Association of American Medical Colleges Center for Health Justice.

“Having your civil rights up as a matter of public debate is one of the most stressful things that you can do to anybody who’s part of a marginalized population,” Hunt added.

In addition to simply declaring themselves sanctuaries, Hunt said, states that want to support the health care needs of transgender people should pay attention to insurance coverage and affordability.

“When politicians are considering these sanctuary refuge laws, they also need to look at what they’re doing to ensure broader equity for people who are trying to rely on them to actually access care, access social services and be able to lead fulfilled lives as part of the communities they’re moving into,” she said.

Transgender health care bans have led a growing number of transgender people to seek refuge elsewhere.

“Trans people who can afford to do so and have the flexibility to do so are often picking up and leaving,” Hunt said. “That’s creating people who are refugees within our own country. That’s something that every lawmaker that’s voting in favor of these bills — those that are attacking their own constituents — should be deeply ashamed of.”

Recent polling data gathered by Data for Progress, a progressive think tank and polling firm, showed that at least 43% of transgender adults have considered relocating and another 8% have already relocated due to anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

Sheresse Jackson, a transgender woman who relocated from Philadelphia to Baltimore about a year ago, said she discovered a newfound sense of belonging and purpose in her new home.

“I love Baltimore. I love being trans. I wouldn’t change it for nothing in the world,” she said in an interview with Stateline. “I can say it’s making me a better person to be Sheresse because back home, I had my mind on the streets still — running around doing nothing with my life other than working. But being Sheresse, now I’m in school to try to get my CNA [certified nursing assistant] license and my high school diploma.”

Maryland’s sanctuary status, Jackson said, fosters an environment in which transgender people can experience a sense of safety, acceptance and comfort.

“To make [Maryland] a sanctuary state, that will be good for other trans people that’s in the closet and for the ones that’s out because you’ll have a place where you can come to feel safe and comfortable,” Jackson said.

Prior to becoming a sanctuary state, Maryland enacted the Trans Health Equity Act, which eliminated state-imposed restrictions on who can receive gender-affirming care, leaving the decision-making process to patients and their doctors. Moreover, the law overturned the previous prohibition on gender-affirming care for Medicaid recipients under 18.

Maryland state Del. Kris Fair, one of the bill’s sponsors and the chair of the LGBTQ+ Caucus, emphasized the importance of providing equitable health care options for the transgender community.

“Ensuring that trans people have access to the same medical health care options that every other American has is a critical piece towards ensuring that there is a sense of equity in our society,” Fair said.

This article was initially published by Stateline, an affiliate of States Newsroom.

People protest in response to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling June 24, 2022, in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Chris Price, associate at the Trimmer Store, walks St. Louis resident Lisa Thomas through care instructions for her new marijuana plant on April 20, 2023 (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

In St. Louis in the 1980s, if you got caught with even a “butt of a joint,” you were going to do jail time, said Bob Ramsey, who was assistant public defender at the time.  

Ramsey particularly remembers the head of the prosecutor’s marijuana task force, under then-Circuit Attorney George Peach. 

“She was just absolutely ruthless and brutal,” Ramsey said. “You didn’t even bother to talk to her because you knew you were going to get a plea-bargain offer for jail time.

Honestly, the Black defendants always seemed to get the worst treatment of all.”

The War on Drugs left many with criminal records that limited their economic opportunity for decades. Now, because of the way state regulators are writing rules for small marijuana businesses, people who live in St. Louis could lose out again — on the economic opportunity to sell legal pot.

Addressing the historic criminalization of Black residents for marijuana offenses has been a big topic of conversation surrounding Amendment 3, the constitutional amendment legalizing recreational marijuana that voters passed in November.

Missouri’s cannabis industry is poised to hit over a billion dollars in its first year of recreational sales — and many believe that people who live in communities that have long felt the brunt of marijuana criminalization should get a piece of the pie. 

Studies show that it’s largely Black communities. 

Advocates pushed for the constitutional amendment to establish a “microbusiness license” program to boost opportunities in the industry for businesses in disadvantaged communities. 

Missouri has licensed 213 dispensaries, 89 infused-product manufacturers and 67 cultivating facilities, almost all started when only medical marijuana was legal in the state. 

And few went to Black-owned businesses. 

This fall, Missouri will award 48 microbusiness licenses — the only new avenue for licensure created by Amendment 3 — and the window to file applications is July 27 to Aug. 10. The application is now available on DHSS’ website.

But the state’s new cannabis regulations that govern the application process has stirred fear that Black Missourians will once again lose out in marijuana licensing.

The state agency that regulates the cannabis program, the Department of Health and Senior Services, released a list of ZIP codes it will consider to have high incarceration rates of marijuana-related offenses. And none are in North St. Louis where about half of the state’s Black population resides. 

In the St. Louis area, there were three regular ZIP codes are that covered a geographic area, and they matched where the courthouses are. They were downtown St. Louis, which is among the least residential areas in the city, and downtown Clayton, among the most affluent suburbs in the region where the average household income is $200,000. And the last one is for St. Charles, where the population is 90% Caucasian, according to the census. 

Most of the ZIP codes on the list were in the state’s rural areas.

Both Ramsey and former Circuit Attorney Dee Joyce-Hayes had an idea why the list likely turned out that way. 

The constitution defines “the historic rate of incarceration for marijuana-related offenses” as 50% higher than the rate for the entire state. But under DHSS’ rules, the agency will just look at incarceration rates for the past 20 years. 

After city jails quickly became overcrowded in the 1980s with the low-level marijuana offenses, they both said incarceration became less likely of a sentence in the cities compared to rural areas by the 1990s. 

“If that’s all they’re going back to, in my opinion they’re only going to find higher incarceration rates for marijuana in the out-state counties,” Ramsey said. “I absolutely think they ought to look back further.”

Joyce-Hayes, who served as city prosecutor from 1993 to 2000, said someone would have to go back at least 40 or even 50 years to see the true impact on Black St. Louis residents. 

“In out-state Missouri, I think they were still making a lot of Mickey-Mouse marijuana type of arrests and prosecutions, but we just weren’t,” she said. “So if you look at the statistics, that would seem to kind of make sense to me that the city’s ZIP codes are not included.”

In an email to The Independent, DHSS spokeswoman Lisa Cox said the data set they have from the Missouri Highway Patrol is the most comprehensive the state currently has. 

“Other data sources we reviewed going back further in time were incomplete and/or based on voluntary reporting,” Cox said. “If an individual would like to propose an alternative source, we may consider it.”

After receiving criticism from local and state NAACP leaders, DHSS issued an eligibility variance on June 6. It essentially says that if a hopeful business owner doesn’t live within one of the listed ZIP codes, then the applicant could provide other documentation that shows the standard, including “results of an independent study or an attestation from a state or local official.”

Nimrod Chapel, president of the Missouri NAACP, said the variance instructions are “about as clear as mud.”

However, Cox said DHSS is allowing applicants to show “additional proofs” other than the specific documentation requested.

“We are designating at least one way to show eligibility with very specific documentation but also allowing for applicants to show eligibility in other ways,” Cox said.

Application criteria

Adolphus Pruitt, president of the St. Louis City NAACP chapter, sat down with DHSS officials in late May regarding the incarceration ZIP codes. He and others are working with the local police department and prosecutor’s office to hopefully dig up information that will meet DHSS’ variance standard. 

However, the incarceration rate is not the only criteria microbusiness license applicants can use, and Pruitt said he’s hopeful the other requirements will help bring in more Black applicants. 

DHSS recently listed ZIP codes for what will be accepted as high unemployment and poverty rates, which he said more applicants from predominately-Black communities would have more opportunities under that list. However, Pruitt said he’s encouraging applicants to consider Census tracts over the ZIP code list because he believes it will have a wider reach.

There is also an eligibility requirement regarding an arrest or conviction for marijuana offense.

DHSS will likely work through some of the questions around the incarceration rates, he said, during the four outreach events June 20-23 in Lee’s Summit, Jefferson City, St. Louis and Springfield respectively. That includes what documentation DHSS will accept if applicants don’t live in a listed ZIP code.

“They got some workshops coming up, and we’re supposed to talk about this at the workshops,” Pruitt said. “I’m doing some digging to come up with what we can use as a way of showing that.”

Microbusiness license applicants must meet one of seven requirements: 

• Have a net worth of less than $250,000 and have had an income below 250% of the federal poverty level
• Have a valid service-connected disability card 
• Be a person who has been, or a person whose parent, guardian or spouse has been arrested for, prosecuted for, or convicted of a non-violent marijuana offense. That doesn’t include a conviction involving distributing of marijuana to a minor or driving under the influence of marijuana. The arrest, charge, or conviction must have occurred at least one year prior to Dec. 8, 2022. 
• Reside in a ZIP code or census tract area where:

1. 30% or more of the population lives below the federal poverty level
2. The rate of unemployment is 50% higher than the state average rate of unemployment
3. The historic rate of incarceration for marijuana-related offenses is 50 % higher than the rate for the entire state

• Graduated from a school district that was unaccredited, or had a similar successor designation, at the time of graduation, or has lived in a zip code containing an unaccredited school district, or similar successor designation, for three of the past five years.

(PeopleImages/iStock Images)

June 19^th, Juneteenth, has been set aside as a national holiday to celebrate the end of the enslavement of Black people. Today is a good day to take inventory of the state of Blacks in America.

There is no better place to begin than to revisit the journey of the Black family unit to help us better understand where we are, and more importantly, where we need to go.

The health and well-being of individuals are inextricably tied to that of the family unit.

Scholars agree on the central role a healthy family plays in the life of an individual. They also readily acknowledge that whatever plagues families in society generally, the impact of those same negative forces on Black families are much more severe and the ramifications more far-reaching and long-lasting.

The impact can be seen throughout communities across the country.  You need only to review a few grim statistics. We can begin with poorer health status caused by limited or no access to health care services. That became very evident during the Covid-19 pandemic. There is an ongoing health disparity when it comes to the higher mortality rate among Black pregnant moms and their infants.

Higher rates of unemployment persists for Blacks during period of economic prosperity.

By comparison, the Black family, disproportionately, lives in poor housing and blighted neighborhoods. This is also the case for Black home ownership, which is much lower than that of whites.

While there are many strong Black families, headed by one or both parents, there are many others still plagued, imperiled, and suffering from some indelible scars from the ravages of history — beginning with the institution of slavery that did everything in its power to rip apart and destroy the family unit, separating mother and father, mother and child.

There was simply no value and no nurturing of the Black family unit for centuries. Such utter disregard went on far too long.

And even though it has been over a 160 years since that wretched institution supposedly died, the many negative effects are still seen today.

Since the abolition of slavery, the Black family has been imperiled by one destructive force after the other.

For example: in addition to higher rates of unemployment, the alternative is to take part in a welfare system that encourages separation and dissolution of the basic family unit.  Girls and women can have babies and continue to get financial support for those babies as long as the father is not around to help raise them.

Perhaps, the greatest and long-lasting impact of these destructive forces is on the children.

They are the ones who find it difficult, if not impossible, to have vision, to see beyond their immediate living environment. They are the ones who are more vulnerable, who are likely to succumb to drugs and a life of crime to escape their deprived and disheartening condition.

They are the children having children, in part out of ignorance and a lack of direction, in part out of hope and the need to feel important to someone, to show love, to receive love.  The result is double jeopardy, double loss.  A young girl may never reach her potential; and the child she brings into the world starts out at a disadvantage.

For a family unit that is already frail and weak, this can only make it weaker, more vulnerable — perpetuating the cycle generation after generation.

Where do the answers lie? Where do we begin to stop the destructive forces?

First, regain a level of appreciation for the importance of family and make protecting and strengthening it of the highest priority.

Blacks and whites must refuse to believe those destructive forces are beyond our control. We must commit ourselves to do whatever we can to address the conditions that the family unit confronts on an ongoing basis. The answers are neither simple nor easy.  Nor can they be achieved overnight.

As we continue to work for better housing, better education, equal access to jobs and other economic opportunities, we should invest a substantial amount of time and resources in our young people. We must help them overcome many hurdles and misconceptions that can destroy their future — even before they have any idea of what that future can be.

Providing them opportunities to have access and achieve a quality education in an ever-advancing technological society is paramount. Without an education both in terms of tradition and emerging technologies, the odds of improving their living conditions are firmly stacked against them.

To achieve appreciation for the value of a strong family unit, and address those needs to build and preserve it, often like any positive outcomes, must be taught, learned, and practiced, and passed on.

While no one can undo the past conditions that have left destruction, disenfranchisement, and disadvantages in its wake, today and moving forward, we can refocus our energy and efforts on what is necessary to build a stronger family unit — for generations to come.

But the Black family unit cannot become stronger existing in a societal silo. Physical and social segregation and isolation between Blacks and whites will not yield a good or lasting outcome.

Our lives, and more importantly our future well-being, are inextricably tied whether we like it or not.

Instead, educators, policymakers, leaders, and all of us as caring citizens alike must be willing to acknowledge the long-existing disparities, inequities, and overall disenfranchisement of Blacks in America, come together, commit, and continue to work at making things better.

Then, maybe, there will be real reasons to celebrate the meaning and promise of Juneteenth as a national holiday.

A Juneteenth celebration in Prospect Park in New York City in 2022. (Michael Nagle/Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images)

After decades of being celebrated at mostly the local level, Juneteenth – the long-standing holiday that commemorates the arrival of news of emancipation and freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, in 1865 – became a federal holiday in 2021. In honor of this year’s Juneteenth, The Conversation reached out to Wake Forest University humanities professor Corey D. B. Walker for a list of readings that can help people better understand the history and meaning of the observance. Below, Walker recommends six books.

‘On Juneteenth’

Combining history and memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed’s “On Juneteenth” offers a moving history of African American life and culture through the prism of Juneteenth. The award-winning Harvard historian presents an intimate portrait of the experiences of her family and her memories of life as an African American girl growing up in segregated Texas. The essays in her book invite readers to enter a world shaped by the forces of freedom and slavery.

Reed’s exploration of the history and legacy of Juneteenth is a poignant reminder of the hard history all Americans face.

‘O Freedom! Afro-American Emancipation Celebrations’

William H. Wiggins Jr.‘s “O Freedom! Afro-American Emancipation Celebrations” is the historical standard for African American emancipation celebrations. It offers an accessible and well-researched account of the emergence and evolution of Juneteenth.

Wiggins brings together oral history with archival research to share the stories of how African Americans celebrated emancipation. It explains how Juneteenth is part of the tapestry of emancipation celebrations. These celebrations included such dates as January 1, in North Carolina, April 3, in Richmond, Virginia, and April 16, in Washington, D.C.

What began as a local holiday has evolved into a national celebration.

Juneteenth celebrations are known for the variety of programs and events that highlight African American history and culture. In the 1960s, students at Prairie View A&M University in Prairie View, Texas, informed faculty that classes would not be held on Juneteenth. In Milwaukee, the local Juneteenth parade includes a group known as the Black Cowboys riding their horses along Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Juneteenth celebrations also feature cultural fairs and exhibitions, artistic performances and historical reenactments. Lectures and public conversations, community feasts and religious services are also part of the celebrations.

‘Juneteenth’

Ralph Ellison, perhaps best known for his novel “Invisible Man,” offers multiple meanings of Juneteenth in African American and American life in his posthumously published novel “Juneteenth.”

The ambivalence of Juneteenth is of a freedom delayed but not denied. Ellison’s spiraling novel captures this in the entangled and tragic lives of the racist Senator Sunraider – previously known as Bliss – and the minister who raised him, the Reverend A. Z. Hickman. For Ellison, Juneteenth represents more than just a celebration of emancipation. It also represents the shared fate of white Americans and African Americans in the quest to create a just and equal society. The promise and peril of Juneteenth is elegantly captured in Hickman’s words, “There’s been a heap of Juneteenths before this one and I tell you there’ll be a heap more before we’re truly free!”

‘Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning of African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915’

Mitch Kachun’s book, “Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning of African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915,” traces the history of emancipation celebrations and their influence on African American identity and community. Juneteenth joined a longer tradition of emancipation celebrations. Those celebrations included ones at the end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the United States on Jan. 1, 1808. They also included the August First Day/West India Day celebrations that marked the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire on Aug. 1, 1834.

With an eye for historical detail, Kachun narrates a complex history of how Juneteenth and other freedom festivals shaped African American identity and political culture. The celebrations also displayed competing meanings of African American identity. In Washington, D.C. in the late 19th century, different groups of African Americans held distinct celebrations. These variations underscored tensions around political ideals, status and identity. Kachun’s book reminds us that Juneteenth served as a crucible for forging a collective and contested sense of African American community.

‘Rites of August First: Emancipation Day in the Black Atlantic World’

Similar to Kachun’s book, Howard University historian Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie’s “Rites of August First: Emancipation Day in the Black Atlantic World” reminds readers of a broader history and geography of emancipation celebrations.

Kerr-Ritchie focuses on how various African American communities adopted and adapted West India Day celebrations. He also explores how they created meaning and culture in celebrating the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies. Kerr-Ritchie’s book details how these celebrations moved across political borders and boundaries.

‘Juneteenth: The Story Behind the Celebration’

Contemporary invocations of Juneteenth often overlook its military history.

Edward T. Cotham, Jr.‘s “Juneteenth: The Story Behind the Celebration” fills the void by exploring the Civil War origins of Juneteenth.

Cotham renders explicit the military context leading up to the events on June 19, 1865, in Galveston. This is when enslaved Black people there finally got word that they had been freed more than two years prior. Cotham reminds readers that the history of Juneteenth involves ordinary actions of many individual people whose names may not be widely known.

Collectively, these books about Juneteenth offer fresh perspectives on the history and culture of African Americans on a quest to fully express their freedom. Juneteenth is also an invitation for all Americans to continue to learn about and strive for freedom for all people.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A dancer performs at the Juneteenth Racial Injustice Solidarity March in St. Louis on June 19, 2020. Organizers of the event say the celebration has grown exponentially in the past years. (Photo by Rebecca Rivas/The Missouri Independent)

As Missourians go out to celebrate Juneteenth this weekend and commemorate the end of slavery in the United States, local advocates say they may feel a new sense of hope brewing. 

In the past year, the state’s two major cities, St. Louis and Kansas City, have established reparations commissions. These groups of community members are now tasked with studying how slavery and segregation have fostered present-day inequities and recommending ways to repair those harms. 

Places like St. Joseph will hold their biggest celebration yet, after receiving unprecedented federal funds to size up their annual event. State legislators allocated $500,000 this year in grants for Juneteenth events. And next year, the grants budget will double to $1 million.

But for organizers, the overall message remains the same as it was before Juneteenth became an official federal holiday in 2021 and a state holiday last year. Juneteenth is a platform to talk about pressing inequities and the calls to action for the work year round, said Makeda Peterson, program director of JuneteenthKC. 

“It’s deep work that has to be done,” Peterson said. “We have to have everyone at the table to be able to make the progress that needs to be made. And it has to be continued conversation. The real goal is to make long-lasting, lifelong changes for the community.”

JuneteenthKC is continuing its conversation from last year’s event around housing inequities that have festered since the era of covenants and other racist government policies, she said. This year, they’re coming back with “tools” and resources the group has developed over the past year.

“I definitely see a lot of promise for Kansas City,” she said. 

Kansas City’s reparations commission met for the first time on May 23, and St. Louis’ commission will have its third meeting soon.

St. Louis’ commission chair Kayla Reed said the group plans on spending the summer learning from experts and hearing from community members and then beginning drafting the report in the fall. This year’s call to action, Reed said, is for community members to stay engaged throughout the reparations process.

“The establishment of the commission is just means to an end,” Reed said. “We have a lot of reports in St. Louis, and making sure that these recommendations are meaningful and addressed, that is the North Star of it all.” 

History of reparations

Juneteenth recognizes June 19, 1865, the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed. It was two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in January 1863. 

Calls for reparations for slavery goes all the way back to that time. At the turn of the 20th century, the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty, and Pension Association successfully rallied hundreds of thousands of people nationwide to call for federal pensions for formerly enslaved people as compensation and reparation for their unpaid labor and suffering. They were also asking the federal government to provide food and medical expenses.

However, federal pushback squashed the efforts.

In recent years, national reparations advocates say they’re receiving “unheard of” support nationwide that could lead to long-awaited action. 

Missouri had 114,931 enslaved people in 1860 on the eve of the Civil War. There were 3,572 free Black residents. 

The St. Louis Board of Aldermen passed legislation last year establishing two reparations funds to “support African Americans who have been victims of the effects of slavery” and provide economic development for disinvested neighborhoods. And the mayor also signed the executive order to establish the commission.

When St. Louis advocates pushed for a reparations commission last Juneteenth, their request outlined the framework the United Nations used for  Holocaust survivors and apartheid victims in South Africa.

According to the United Nations, five conditions must be met for full reparations to exist: restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition. 

California’s nine-member task force has used the United Nations’ framework for their study and released the first 500-page report on June 1, 2022.

The California report describes how the federal, state, and local government created segregation in California through redlining, zoning ordinances, decisions on where to build schools and highways and discriminatory federal mortgage policies. 

“From colonial times forward, governments at all levels adopted and enshrined white supremacy beliefs and passed laws in order to maintain slavery…” it states. “This system of white supremacy is a persistent badge of slavery that continues to be embedded today in numerous American and Californian legal, economic, and social and political systems.”  

The task force’s six pages of preliminary recommendations to state legislators included providing housing grants, free tuition and to raise the minimum wage.

Reed said St. Louis has already completed numerous reports on local inequities that commissioners can draw upon.

A study in 2018 found that for over a century, Black St. Louis residents experienced housing policies and development strategies that trapped generations in segregated and disinvested neighborhoods.

Another study found that residents living in some majority Black neighborhoods in St. Louis have a life expectancy that’s 18 years lower than residents of majority white neighborhoods less than 10 miles away.

Black residents in Kansas City face a similar reality, Peterson said, and historical racist housing policies continue to impact Black residents’ health.

“Because we’re in underserved communities, because we don’t have access to the same quality of schools and grocery stores, because we’re having to eat different things, it has severe health impacts that are affecting our mortality rates,” she said. “So it’s really making the connection that it all goes together.”

In St. Louis, the push for reparations has been part of a larger vision, called the People’s Plan, to address a wide range of inequities, said Blake Strode, executive director of the ArchCity Defenders nonprofit law firm. 

“And this year, we really wanted to invite people into that broader vision of what St. Louis can be,” he said, “and how people are on the ground every day trying to make that a reality.”

Protesters in front of the Senate side of the US Capitol urged Congress to pass the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, in December 2017 in Washington, DC. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Gender-based violence is a public safety and public health crisis, according to the White House, and it is affecting urban, suburban, rural and tribal communities across the U.S. (Getty Images).

For the first time in history, the White House has launched a national plan to address gender-based violence on a federal level, introducing seven strategic action plans to help communities across the United States.

“As long as there are women in this country and around the world who live in fear of violence, there’s more we have to do to fulfill this sacred commitment,” President Joe Biden said in the U.S. National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence. “No one — no one, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, should experience abuse. Period. And if they do, they should have the services and support they need to get through it.”

Gender-based violence is a public safety and public health crisis, according to the White House, and it is affecting urban, suburban, rural and tribal communities across the U.S.

The national plan defines gender-based violence as any harmful threat or act directed at an individual or group based on actual or perceived sex, gender, gender identity, sex characteristics or sexual orientation.

Gender-based violence impacts all populations, but the experiences of persons of color are disproportionately affected. The national plan reported that Black women and Indigenous women are killed by a current or former partner at a rate 2.5 times that of white women.

An estimated 56% of Indigenous women have reported experiencing sexual violence in their lifetime, more than 55% have experienced physical violence by an intimate partner and 49% have experienced stalking, according to the White House’s plan.

“Gender-based violence violates fundamental human rights, destroys communities, and fosters social inequities,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said in a press release. “Identifying and preventing these crimes is a top department priority, underscored by this first-ever national plan and the government’s collective commitment to this cause.”

The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey reported that more than half of women (54.3%) and nearly one-third (31%) of men in the United States had reported some form of sexual violence victimization in their lifetimes.

The rate of intimate partner violence of women was seven times the rate of men, according to National Crime Victimization Survey, and the rate of rape or sexual assault of women was also seven times the rate of men.

The White House launched the national plan on May 25, resulting from the Biden administration’s Gender Policy Council, which was established in 2021.

“Sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, and human trafficking are serious violent crimes that make our nation less equal and less just,” Acting Director Allison Randall of the Office on Violence Against Women said in a press release.

“Only a comprehensive response that is deeply informed by survivors and historically marginalized communities can end gender-based violence,” Randall added.

The seven strategic pillars part of the national plan include: prevention; support, healing, safety, and well-being; economic security and housing stability; online safety; legal and justice systems; emergency preparedness and crisis response; and research and data.

The White House said that these strategies are building upon existing federal initiatives, and the national plan will provide an essential framework for strengthening ongoing federal action and interagency collaboration.

Each strategic pillar identifies different goals and objectives to help address gender-based violence. For instance, the prevention pillar outlines three goals which include: Enhancing and promoting gender-based violence prevention; enhancing dissemination and implementation of gender-based violence prevention strategies; and improving prevention efforts to change social norms that support or condone gender-based violence and to promote healthy and respectful relationships across the life course.

The national plan serves as a framework for federal agencies and other stakeholders working to end gender-based violence. It is intended to inform and guide federal and nonfederal entities’ research, policy development, program planning, service delivery, and other efforts.

This story originally appeared in the Arizona Mirror, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

Of the 39,302 Black drivers stopped by the patrol in 2022, nearly 35,000 were issued a citation, or 89%, with almost 7% of stops resulting in an arrest (Douglas Sacha/Getty Images).

Black motorists stopped by Missouri law enforcement are much more likely to end the encounter with a citation or in a jail cell than whites, according to the latest state report of racial data on traffic enforcement.

The report also shows that Black drivers away from their home communities – or visiting the state – tend to be stopped in higher numbers than whites away from home or both groups while in their hometowns. 

Published Thursday by the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, the report compiles data on stops for 2022 from 581 of the state’s 613 police agencies. Most are municipal police or county sheriff’s departments, but the report also gathers data from specialized forces like the University of Missouri Police Department and the only statewide agency, the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

The report is the 23rd consecutive compilation of police statistics that show Black drivers are stopped at higher rates than their share of Missouri’s population.

Four of the other ethnicities listed — white, Native American, Asian and other — have been stopped every year at lower rates than their share of the population. A fifth ethnicity, Hispanic, has not had a stop rate above its share of the population since 2007.

During 2022, police made more than 1.25 million traffic stops, issued almost 550,000 citations and made 49,122 arrests. More than three-quarters of the stops were white motorists and roughly 17% were Black.

White motorists were released with a warning or no action after more than half of those stops, with just under 40% receiving a citation and arrests in 3.65% of cases. Black drivers received a citation after almost 58% of stops, with 5.26% arrested.

When the agency making the stop is the highway patrol, very few Black drivers are sent on their way with only a warning or no other action. Of the 39,302 Black drivers stopped by the patrol in 2022, nearly 35,000 were issued a citation, or 89%, with almost 7% of stops resulting in an arrest.

The patrol stopped 274,680 white drivers and issued tickets in just under 60% of cases, making arrests in 3.26% of those stops.

The report’s executive summary notes that there are a variety of reasons why there may be disparities in any individual agency’s report. 

“Observed differences may result from differential impacts of policing, differential treatment by police or some combination of these and other factors,” the report states. “Differential treatment refers to bias (unintended or not), whereas differential impact refers to several potential sources of disparities that are not a direct result of bias on the part of officers conducting vehicle stops.”

Don Love of Columbia, who has been analyzing the annual vehicle stops report for more than a decade, said the difference in outcomes of stops deserves a deeper look. The report aggregates totals, so it does not indicate whether the citations were for speeding, careless driving or broken lights.

The Columbia Police Department, under pressure from local activists, releases non-identifiable data on every stop for independent analysis. More agencies will be providing that data for analysis as part of the state report, the executive summary states.

“You’ve got a much better idea of the violations the officer saw, and see whether it looks likely that any of those violations really justified the citation or, a citation instead of a warning, or a citation instead of an arrest,” Love said.

In an email, a spokesman for the patrol wrote that the agency would not be able to respond to questions about the annual report until next week.

Racial concerns

Missouri began compiling and publishing data on vehicle stops in 2000 under a law passed in response to concerns about bias in policing. Every police agency is required to deliver data on the number of traffic stops. This year, 30 agencies did not report and could lose access to some state funding as a result.

In addition to race, gender and age of the drivers, the agencies report the locations and reasons for the stops in broad categories and the outcomes, including whether a search was conducted or contraband was found and whether the driver was cited, arrested, warned or no other action was taken.

From the data, the report also calculates what is known as a disparity index, intended to show whether drivers from any particular ethnic group are being stopped at higher rates than their share of the driver-age population.

There can be several explanations for disparities, the report states, and not all indicate racial bias. Concentrating police in high crime areas if the area has a higher concentration of an ethnic group is one example given. Another is that social or economic disadvantages may lead to different rates of offending.

The report does acknowledge that bias, whether implicit or explicit, can play a role.

“Implicit bias can be difficult to detect, even for the individual operating under its influence,” the report states.

For all reporting agencies, the disparity index for white drivers was 0.94, which means they were stopped in smaller numbers than their proportion to their population. The index for Black motorists was 1.59, which means they are being stopped at rates about 60% higher than their share of the population would indicate.

For three other small groups – Hispanic, Native American and Asian drivers, the disparity index was well under 1.

Recently added data on residency shows white drivers are pulled over in their home communities at about their share of the population, with a disparity index of 1.01. For Black drivers in their home communities, the disparity is less than the overall index, 1.21.

For the highway patrol, the disparity index for all white drivers was 1.01, and 1.05 for drivers who are Missouri residents. For Black drivers, the overall index was 1.09, the third highest recorded in the 23 years of reports, but 0.963 for Black Missouri residents. 

The patrol’s overall disparity index for Hispanic drivers, about 3.7% of all Missouri drivers, was 1.09, the highest recorded, but only 0.68 for Hispanic residents of the state.

Agency responses

Along with the required data, police agencies are given an opportunity to make comments that explain their results. Most do not, but some that have high traffic volumes wrote that while policing busy roads, they stop many people who do not live in their community.

Gladstone, near Kansas City, has a stop rate for Blacks that is five times the rate for whites and a disparity index of 3.93 for Black drivers. The city contended in its comments that the rates are meaningless because 73% of officers’ stops are non-residents.

“Since the numbers clearly show the vast majority of individuals contacted by Gladstone officers during vehicle stops are not residents, comparing the demographics of these drivers to the demographics of Gladstone’s residents will result in flawed conclusions,” the Gladstone Department of Public Safety stated.

Love said he has frequent conversations with the Clayton Police in St. Louis County about traffic stops data. The overall disparity index for Black drivers in Clayton is 4.46, but when only stops of resident Blacks are counted, it is 0.48.

As a shopping, entertainment and administrative center, Clayton has many visitors daily and the department is aggressive on traffic enforcement, Love said.

“If you look at the overall disproportion, it’s high when you figure it on the basis of residents in Clayton, but if you sort out the residents from the non-resident residents, you get a better idea of what’s going on,” he said.

One big change likely to come into play in future reports will involve motorist searches. In 2022, law enforcement conducted 75,014 searches of a driver, the vehicle or both after a stop. Of that number, drivers gave their consent in 42.5% of cases and the officer used an odor of alcohol or drugs as the probable cause for 21.6% of searches.

Among white drivers, an odor of drugs or alcohol was cited as the reason for 17.8% of searches, while for Black drivers the share was about double, 33.8%.

The constitutional amendment that legalized marijuana also prohibits law enforcement from using the odor of marijuana as grounds for a search if there is no indication that the motorist has more than the legal amount of three ounces.

Love said he would like to see more research about the disparity in searches. He said the odor is probably marijuana for Black drivers because arrest data shows that 31% of white driver arrests were for DWI, compared to 19.4% of Black driver arrests.

“I think officers were distracted by racial stereotypes,” Love said. “I can’t prove that. But it sure seems to be likely to me that blacks aren’t using drugs more frequently than whites.”

This article has been updated since it was initially published.

St. Louis NAACP chapter president Adolphus Pruitt sent a letter on May 25, 2023 to Amy Moore, the director of Missouri's division of cannabis regulation, demanding the division address confusion in the microbusiness application requirements. (Photo by Wiley Price/The St. Louis American)

When a marijuana legalization amendment was being criticized last year over concerns it would calcify the lack of Black participation in the burgeoning industry, Adolphus Pruitt was one of its most vociferous defenders.

Pruitt, the president of the St. Louis City NAACP, and other local NAACP leaders insisted the constitutional amendment establish a “microbusiness license” program. The intent was to award marijuana licenses to business owners who live in communities that have long felt the brunt of marijuana criminalization — and studies show that’s largely Black communities. 

But Pruitt’s tone changed Thursday when he saw the fine print in the requirements for the microbusiness license application the state will release on June 6.

“I was shocked,” Pruitt said when he saw the list of ZIP codes the state deemed as qualifying for historic high rates of incarceration for marijuana-related offenses.

Of the 121 ZIP codes listed, nine are in the St. Louis region — but none are in North St. Louis where about half of the state’s Black population resides.

Three are ZIP codes for P.O. Boxes — two in downtown St. Louis and one in St. Charles. 

Three are to banks and the U.S. Postal Inspection service in downtown St. Louis that have  “unique” ZIP codes, which are designated to institutions with high mail traffic. 

The three regular ZIP codes that cover a geographic area included downtown St. Louis, which is among the least residential areas in the city, and downtown Clayton, among the most affluent suburbs in the region where the average household income is $200,000. And the last one is for St. Charles, where the population is 90% Caucasian, according to the Census. 

Applicants must show they live within these ZIP codes by showing utility bills, personal property tax bills, or copies of a current mortgage or lease.

“Listen, not today, not if it’s legal and not even when it was illegal, will you find a bunch of Black people smoking weed in the middle of Clayton,” Pruitt said. “There is no way in the world the people in Clayton have been arrested more than the people who live in North St. Louis. It’s impossible.”

Pruitt on Thursday sent a letter to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, which oversees the marijuana program, demanding an “immediate correction” ahead of the application form’s release in two weeks. 

This fall, Missouri will award 48 microbusiness licenses, according to the proposed marijuana regulation rules, and the window to file applications is July 27 to Aug. 10. 

The St. Louis ZIP codes, Pruitt said, are just the start of the problems with the “qualifying ZIP codes,” listed in the state’s new cannabis rules.

Thirty-five of those on the list are either P.O. Boxes or unique ZIP codes throughout the state, including to six state agencies in Jefferson City, the Federal Reserve in Kansas City and the University Hospital medical complex in Columbia. 

Many of the other ZIP codes point to rural areas throughout the state where populations are sparse.

In a letter on Friday responding to Pruitt’s concerns, Amy Moore, director of the state’s Division of Cannabis Regulation, said DHSS stands by the list.

“The drafters of the law did not provide any mechanism for conducting the required incarceration rate analysis,” she wrote.

Moore told Pruitt the Missouri State Highway Patrol has the only complete incarceration data set that applies equally across the state, so that’s the data DHSS based its analysis on.

“We believe the mechanism we used to find eligible ZIP codes under the incarceration rate criteria is the most effective mechanism available,” Moore wrote in her email to Pruitt, “and during the public rulemaking process, we received no alternative suggestions for how to determine eligible ZIP codes.”

When The Independent asked DHSS last week about the five ZIP codes in downtown St. Louis that are to single addresses or P.O. Boxes, DHSS spokeswoman Lisa Cox said that they were included “because they are part of a Census tract area.”

However, according to Lt. Eric Brown, spokesman for the Missouri Highway Patrol, those St. Louis ZIP codes were not provided to DHSS by the highway patrol. 

“I do not know how many of the zip codes were not provided by the Patrol,” Brown said in an email Friday. “DHSS will be your best source for finding an answer to that question since they are the agency in charge of the rules.”

In Pruitt’s letter to Moore, he questioned if the ZIP codes only represent areas with prison or jails, where people are incarcerated and not where they actually live. He thought that might explain why the ZIP codes are in so many rural areas. 

Moore also told Pruitt correction facilities did not skew the data. 

Six of the state’s prisons are within these ZIP codes, but Missouri’s other 15 prisons are not. 

Downtown St. Louis and Clayton both have jails, Pruitt said. But Moore responded, “…they would have been on the eligible list of zip codes with or without a jail population.”

Pruitt said if downtown St. Louis, Clayton and St. Charles remain the only regular geographic ZIP codes where people qualify for microbusiness licenses under this category, “I think it will be time to challenge it and even if necessary, litigate it, because that should not be the case.”

St. Louis Democratic Rep. Peter Merideth, who sits on a House committee tasked with reviewing the new cannabis rules, said he will “definitely be looking into this.”

“If the ZIP codes are supposed to be identifying communities that were harmed the most by criminalization of cannabis and they aren’t including those communities, we have a problem,” Meredith said. “It’s even more concerning if, in fact, ZIP codes are included where nobody actually lives.”

Nimrod Chapel Jr., president of the Missouri NAACP, was one of the biggest opponents to last year’s legalization amendment because he didn’t believe the promises made by backers that more social equity would come to fruition.

“This is exactly what we were afraid of,” Chapel said. “When I look at the map (of ZIP codes), I can’t hardly tell that there would be any Black people affected. But rural Missouri has big old swaths of sections where apparently the microgrow is going to be allowed. That doesn’t seem fair.”

Outreach for microbusiness applicants

Another concern for Pruitt, Chapel and others who are working with potential applicants is the lack of education and outreach on the program.

“I’ve been talking with folks around the state the last couple of weeks, and not one, to my knowledge, has any information about the eligibility requirements, the application process or anything — from St. Joe to the Bootheel,” Chapel said. 

By law, DHSS had to hire a chief equity officer for its marijuana program by Feb. 6 — a position meant to ensure the social and economic equity requirements of Missouri’s new marijuana law are met.

The chief equity officer, Abigail Vivas, now oversees the microbusiness license program. DHSS has yet to make Vivas available for an interview following The Independent’s repeated requests. 

The law mandates that the chief equity officer create and promote educational programming around the licensing process and available support and resources for individuals applying for microbusiness licenses.

In an email to the Independent, Cox said Vivas has been “building a network of individuals and groups who may assist with spreading the word to eligible applicant populations about training and technical assistance opportunities.” 

Those assistance opportunities include a series of in-person training and technical assistance across the state over the course of the next two months, Cox said, and resources and events will also be made available online soon.

Denise McCracken, an attorney of D.B. McCracken Law practice who is working with clients to prepare for the application process, said she’s yet to see any outreach from Vivas’ office so far. Pruitt hasn’t either.

Applicants must meet one of eight requirements: 

• A a net worth of less than $250,000 and gross household income below the poverty line three of the last 10 years; 
• a military service-connected disability; 
• an arrest on a non-violent marijuana charge at least a year before legalization or be the spouse or guardian of such person; 
• live in an area with high poverty or unemployment; 
• live in an area with historically high marijuana incarceration rates; 
• graduate from an unaccredited school district; 
• or live in an unaccredited school district three of the last five years.

Applicants have to provide several pieces of evidence to prove they qualify in the various categories, but it’s not always clear what will be accepted, she said, as the ZIP code list has proven.

“It would be very helpful if they had a pre-application process where someone couldn’t submit the evidence that they have and see if DHSS would find it acceptable,” McCracken said. 

By law, the department has 300 days from Dec. 8 to issue the first set of microbusiness licenses, a minimum of 48.

In late April, DHSS touted the agency was going to accept microbusiness applications early — in July instead of September.

Then 270 days after the department begins issuing the licenses and the equity officer ensures they went to eligible applicants, the department will issue another 48 licenses. That repeats again at the 548-day mark, which will bring the total to 144 licenses at minimum by early 2025.  

In each round, there will be at least six licenses issued in each of the state’s eight congressional districts — at least two for dispensaries and at least four for wholesale facilities. 

Pruitt said the intent of these licenses was to provide people with a “lower socioeconomic status” with the opportunity to become cannabis business owners.

“The constitutional intent of the amendment is clear with respect to the beneficiaries of microlicenses,” he said. “And the current rule making with respect to ZIP codes does not past muster.”

CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to clarify the criteria applicants must meet in order to obtain a microbusiness license.