Articles

Federal appeals court finds parts of anti-riot law violate free speech

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the convictions of two members of a white supremacist group who admitted they punched and kicked counter-demonstrators during the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. However, the panel found that part of an anti-riot law used to prosecute them “treads too far upon constitutionally protected speech.”

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Protests erupt after Wisconsin police shoot Black man

Police in the southeastern Wisconsin city of Kenosha shot and wounded a Black man, apparently in the back, after responding to a call about a domestic dispute, setting off a night of protests and unrest in which officers fired tear gas and demonstrators apparently hurled objects and set fire to parked cars.

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Operation Legend puts focus on violent crime, not politics

President Donald Trump  and Attorney General William Barr have touted Operation Legend, spread across nine U.S. cities including Indianapolis, as a much-needed answer to spiking crime that Trump claims is caused, at least in part, by the police reform movement and protests that have swept the U.S. since George Floyd’s death in May.

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Exercising their right: Women voting in greater numbers than men, but impact at ballot box is limited

As Indiana prepares to celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment, women are still going to the polls, often in higher numbers than men, and still have diverse political views. In addition, they are galvanized to vote by issues that range from the environment to immigration, health care and pay equity. Yet in 100 years of voting, how much impact have Hoosier women had?

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Giving and taking: Landmark high court LGBTQ employment ruling clouded by ministerial exception expansion

Just as celebrations were starting over the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that Title VII protections cover transgender workers, another opinion from the nine justices shielded religious organizations from lawsuits by expanding the ministerial exception legal doctrine and injected more energy into potential religious liberty challenges to anti-discrimination laws.

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Young: John Lewis’ legacy shows path forward

A collective approach to evaluate, critique, plan and deconstruct inequities within the legal system is the only way we can improve a legal construct created more than 240 years ago. How do we, in the state of Indiana, synthesize our efforts into a coordinated plan of action that addresses statewide and local issues of inequity?

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