News & Commentary

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. January 9, 2012--The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri (ACLU-EM) has filed a lawsuit challenging the language of an initiative that would appear on the November 2012 ballot. The initiative would transfer control of the St. Louis Police Department from the state of Missouri to the City of St. Louis. However, the summary fails to inform voters that the initiative creates important exemptions to the Civilian Review provisions of the Missouri Racial Profiling Law and to parts of the Missouri Sunshine Law. These exemptions would apply only to St. Louis.

ST. LOUIS – On Jan. 3, 2012, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Eastern Missouri filed a lawsuit charging the Salem Public Library and its board of trustees with unconstitutionally blocking access to websites discussing minority religions by improperly classifying them as “occult” or “criminal.” Salem resident Anaka Hunter contacted the ACLU after she was unable to access websites pertaining to Native American religions or the Wiccan faith for her own research. After protesting to the library director, Glenda Woff

JEFFERSON CITY – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Eastern Missouri will be in court Wednesday, November 30 to argue on behalf of Kelly Glossip, whose partner, Dennis Engelhard, was a state trooper killed in the line of duty while responding to an accident on Christmas Day, 2009. Missouri offers survivor benefits to spouses of state troopers who are killed in the line of duty, but excludes committed same-sex partners from receiving those benefits. Glossip is seeking the same survivor benefits provided to different-sex partners.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A federal judge granted class certification this week in the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Eastern Missouri’s federal lawsuit charging Linn State Technical College with violating the constitutional rights of its students by forcing them to submit to mandatory drug tests as a condition of their enrollment. The ACLU now represents a class of all current and future students seeking degrees or certificates at the college.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Eastern Missouri and the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri filed today a lawsuit challenging the misleading description of a constitutional amendment that will be put to a vote in November 2012 and which would deny religious protections to prisoners and would allow students to refuse to participate in any assignment that they claim violates their religious beliefs.

ST. LOUIS, October 12, 2011--Linn State Technical College has embarked on an unprecedented course of action in forcing students to take drug tests without cause for suspicion. The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri (ACLU-EM) believes their policy is an ill-considered and dangerous attack on fundamental American liberties.

ST. LOUIS — A federal judge today entered judgment in an class-action lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Eastern Missouri on behalf of a man held in jail by mistake without seeing a judge for 37 days.

ST. LOUIS - October 5, 2011 – The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit today affirmed last summer’s decision striking down the City of Manchester, Missouri’s funeral protest ordinance. The Court reaffirmed that peaceful pickets on public sidewalks near funerals are entitled to the protection of the First Amendment.

Linn State Technical College Forcing Students to Submit to Tests Without Any Suspicion of Wrongdoing