News & Commentary

Any student at Winamac Community Middle School who wanted to join the football team was allowed to play „ unless that student was a girl. So when "C.B.," a seventh grader at the school, and her Dad asked the principal and the athletic director if she could join the previously all-male football team, she was turned away.

Race weekend in Indianapolis is full of special traditions for the hundreds of thousands of spectators who gather in Speedway, Ind. It also is a lucrative weekend for taxi drivers, who shuttle people to and from the crowded Speedway track. However, in May 2013, as many as 80 cab drivers had their licenses seized on race day, according to the Speedway Police Department

In the 2014 legislative session, Indiana lawmakers once again attempted to pass a bill requiring drug testing for people who need public assistance for food and shelter. Fortunately, with your help, this legislation was defeated for the third consecutive session.

When the Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center decided to vacate its 21-acre site in downtown South Bend, Ind., St. Joseph's High School was the only prospect to step forward with solid interest in acquiring the site. The school wanted to build a new high school on the property with athletic facilities including a football field. In order to do that, the school also wanted to purchase an adjacent property, which was home to a Family Dollar store, but was unable to negotiate that purchase. In June 2011, the City of South Bend approved a plan to use $1.2 million in taxpayer funds to purchase the Family Dollar property with the sole intention of transferring the land to the Catholic Diocese, which operates the school, for $1.

During the 1990s police agencies became more aggressive in fighting the war on drugs, which often resulted in threats to individual liberties. In 1998, the Indianapolis Police Department began conducting traffic roadblocks to search for illegal drugs. The city set up checkpoints in neighborhoods with high crime statistics and used dogs to sniff out which cars they would stop to search for drugs. By the time the Indiana Civil Liberties Union (ICLU) won an appeal of a case in federal court on behalf of two men who were searched at a checkpoint, police had stopped 1,161 vehicles and arrested 104 people.

Denials of due process, the right of privacy, and equal protection of the laws are all ways that the poor in our society have their constitutional rights violated every day.  

When Sheila Perdue received a missive from the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) telling her she had to be certified by telephone to receive the benefits she'd gotten for several years, she phoned the agency as requested. But because of her severe disabilities, including nerve damage to both of her ears, she was unable to hear or respond to much of what the interviewer said.

One spring evening in 1996, David Smith, a sergeant with the Indiana State Police Department, was traveling home to his Carmel subdivision in an unmarked maroon Chevrolet Caprice. While waiting at a traffic light, he saw a Carmel police officer observing him from another lane. Moments later, the officer activated his emergency lights and motioned Smith to pull over.