A half dozen Republican governors are pushing alternative labels for June, which is widely recognized in the United States as Pride Month.

Without explicitly tying their efforts to a replacement of Pride Month — which celebrates the LGBTQ+ community — GOP governors in states including Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Nebraska, Tennessee and Utah have labeled June with conservative-friendly monikers that celebrate one type of family unit: a man and woman who are married with children.

The proclamations don’t carry the weight of law, but they are public statements about the kind of families that leadership in those states want to promote.

In Tennessee, GOP state lawmakers passed a resolution signed by Republican Gov. Bill Lee designating June as “Nuclear Family Month.” The resolution labels a ‘nuclear family’ as “one husband, one wife, and any biological, adopted or fostered children” and calls it “God’s design for familial structure.”

Indiana’s Republican Gov. Mike Braun also declared June “nuclear family month” in a proclamation with wording similar to Tennessee’s. Braun told reporters the proclamation wasn’t intended to send a message to other types of families, the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported.

In Alabama, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey declared June as “Strong Families Month.” Her official announcement of the designation highlighted the role of fathers as “head of the household.”

In Nebraska, Republican Gov. Jim Pillen designated June as “Marriage and Family Month,” with a proclamation saying “God’s design” for marriage is a family with one husband, one wife and children.

Pillen called it “the most important proclamation I’ve ever had the privilege to sign.”

The Republican governors of Arkansas and Utah declared June “Fidelity Month,” defining fidelity as dedication to faith, family and country. The proclamations don’t explicitly describe the composition of those families. The idea of a “Fidelity Month” was first proposed and promoted a few years ago by a conservative Christian legal scholar.

Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders posted about her declaration on X by sharing a link to an article calling such efforts “counter-programming” to Pride Month.

But the rebranding of June marks a departure for Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who declared June as Pride Month during his first three years in office and has previously expressed remorse for his attitude about gay people.

Pride Month celebrates LGBTQ+ history and culture, and serves as a platform to increase visibility for queer communities that continue to fight for civil rights and equality. It’s marked by celebratory parades, concerts and festivals in every state.

LGBTQ+ advocates have called the rebranding efforts “disappointing” and a deliberate attempt to erase communities that are already vulnerable.

“Pride month is a celebration that uplifts marginalized folks and gives them resources to survive and spaces where they can thrive,” the Utah-based organization Project Rainbow posted in a statement about Cox’s choice to designate June as Fidelity Month.

Advocates say the month is not only about celebration, but also provides important opportunities to support queer people. In 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more than 3 in 5 LGBTQ+ high school students experienced “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” in the previous year. One in 5 LGBTQ+ participants in the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey said they had attempted suicide.

While Republican governors have mostly shied away from directly mentioning Pride Month or tying their month-naming efforts to its erasure, some elected officials have been more explicit.

Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles, a Republican, posted from his official X account, “Homosexuality has no place in America. Happy Nuclear Family Month” on June 1 but later deleted it.

Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, a Republican, shared an illustrated version of the proclamation on social media, titled “Take back the Rainbow!” and depicting a heterosexual white couple with children.

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org

Salah Sarsour, a Muslim leader in Milwaukee and the president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, who was arrested by immigration agents in late March, has been ordered released by a federal judge. The news comes after sustained pressure from Sarsour’s family, his community and elected officials. 

“We are ecstatic for Salah Sarsour and his family that they will soon be reunited,” Sarsour’s lawyers said in a statement. “In issuing this order, the federal judge made clear that the government cannot detain a lawful permanent resident for speaking out about Palestinian rights.” 

In his 29-page decision, U.S. District Judge James P. Hanlon, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled against arguments by prosecutors that the federal court had no jurisdiction over immigration detentions. Hanlon sided with Sarsour’s attorneys who charged that Sarsour’s arrest was based on his speech supporting Palestinian human rights. Hanlon wrote that Sarsour “has presented a substantial claim of First Amendment retaliation” that his detention is unlawful. Hanlon’s decision has no sway over his pending immigration proceedings for possible deportation, the judge wrote. 

The Trump administration maintains that Sarsour should not have been granted legal residency in the U.S. in 1993 because of a decades-old conviction by an Israeli military court of attacking Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.

While lawyers “continue to fight these baseless claims in court, today is about celebrating a family being reunited,” Sarsour’s lawyers said in their statement. “It is also a sober reminder that, if the government can target Mr. Sarsour, everyone’s free speech rights are at risk.”

Sarsour’s oldest son, Kareem, praised the news. “We’re getting our dad back!” he said in a statement. “This experience has been a nightmare to wake up to every day, with his health at risk in a cruel basement cell simply for speaking up for Palestine. But we know who my dad is, he’s been a voice for the voiceless and the heart of our family and our community. I can’t wait to hug him, and I hope everyone like him will be released.”

Earlier this month, Sarsour’s attorneys also said that staff at the jail had impeded his religious liberties by interrupting or blocking his ability to pray. Jail staff offered Sarsour pork rinds — a food that is forbidden under Muslim dietary laws — his attorneys and family say, and did not provide adequate treatment for his type 2 diabetes, causing him to lose over 30 pounds while in detention. The Department of Homeland Security has denied the accusations.

U.S. Rep.  Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) applauded Sarsour’s release. Moore visited Sarsour at the Clay County Jail in Indiana last Sunday as an interfaith rally of supporters gathered outside and to protest.

“Over the course of two visits, I observed troubling signs of declining health and raised serious concerns about the conditions of his confinement,” said Moore. “No person in ICE custody should be denied adequate nutrition, medical attention, or humane treatment.”

Targeted First Amendment retaliation

Judge Hanlon acknowledged in his decision that Sarsour was born in the West Bank, where he was convicted in 1989 “by the Israeli Ramallah Military Court” of throwing Molotov cocktails and stones at Israeli forces, and of attempting to possess weapons in 1995. Sarsour became a conditional lawful U.S. resident in 1993, and became a full lawful permanent resident in 1998. Under Republican president George W. Bush, Sarsour’s naturalization application was approved by immigration authorities in 2002. Sarsour has not had a criminal record of any kind since arriving in the U.S. over 30 years ago.

Since his arrest, the Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly brought up Sarsour’s conviction by the Israeli military. Sarsour’s family and supporters, however, say that such convictions are often based on coerced confessions and should not be given weight. Sarsour often told stories of being detained and tortured by Israeli forces, his family members said. United Nations experts found that Israel has denied due process rights to Palestinians in the West Bank for the last 60 years, and there are pervasive reports from Palestinian prisoners of torture, sexual abuse, and maltreatment by Israeli authorities. 

Hanlon noted that Sarsour is president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, the largest mosque in Wisconsin, and is also a board member of American Muslims for Palestine. “Mr. Sarsour speaks openly about his support for Palestinian human rights,” Hanlon wrote. For this, Sarsour was added to the Canary Mission, an Israel-based doxxing website with “anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian animus,” Hanlon wrote. 

In October 2024, American Muslims for Palestine was labeled as part of a terrorist network which supports Hamas in a report authored by the conservative Heritage Foundations’ called “Project Esther: A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism.” Hanlon noted that the New York Times reported on Project Esther’s plan to brand “a broad range of critics of Israel as ‘effectively a terrorist support network,’ so that they could be deported, defunded, sued, fired, expelled, ostracized and otherwise excluded from what it considered ‘open society.’” 

 

Video of Salah Sarsour being reunited with his family. (Video courtesy of Yaseen Najeed)

 

Shortly after Trump was reelected, “government agents arrested or attempted to arrest noncitizens who had spoken publicly in support of Palestinian rights or critically of the Israeli government,” Hanlon wrote. In June 2025,  Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a Homeland Security memorandum stating that Sarsour was eligible for deportation “because his actions undermine U.S. foreign policy to combat antisemitism around the world as well [as] U.S. foreign policy to combat activity that supports foreign terrorist organizations.” 

Hanlon highlighted that in early February 2026 the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights announced that the department would “investigate,” “prosecute” and “dismantle” organizations like American Muslims for Palestine. Sarsour’s profile on the Canary Mission was updated on March 26, followed by his arrest by armed plainclothes agents four days later on March 30.

The judge denied requests from prosecutors to impose a $25,000 bond and an ankle monitor on Sarsour. 

“Such conditions are not necessary here,” Hanlon wrote. “Mr. Sarsour has no history of non-compliance and is well established in the Milwaukee community.” Sarsour’s family members all live in the U.S. and he has not traveled outside the country since 1998. Hanlon ruled that Sarsour had “provided voluminous evidence demonstrating that he is not a risk of flight.” 

Sarsour was ordered to be released on his own recognizance with the conditions that he remain in Wisconsin, attend all court hearings and participate in his removal proceedings.

“The court’s ruling affirms what many of us have been saying for months,” said Moore, “Mr. Sarsour’s continued detention is unjustifiable.” She expressed gratitude “to the legal advocates, community leaders and family members who fought tirelessly for Mr. Sarsour’s release.”

Nihad Awad, national executive director for the Council on American Islamic Relations, called the court decision “a welcome and long-overdue step toward justice for Salah Sarsour, a respected Muslim community leader whose detention has caused immense pain to his family and community.” 

Awad said that “no one should be punished for their faith, advocacy, or identity. We urge ICE to immediately comply with the judge’s order, reunite Mr. Sarsour with his loved ones, and end the disturbing pattern of targeting Muslim, Palestinian, and other community members for detention and intimidation. This case is a reminder that due process, human dignity, and constitutional rights must never be optional.”

Moore visits Sarsour in jail  

In an interview on Wednesday, before Hanlon issued his order, Moore told the Wisconsin Examiner that she believed Sarsour had become a “high value target for censoring people” as the Trump administration carried out its mass deportation campaign and the targeting of pro-Palestine activists. She visited Sarsour Sunday at the Indiana Clay County Jail, where he was detained. 

“It’s not a rundown place,” Moore said, adding that some of the facility was “definitely a new construction.” However, during her visit, she said, “I didn’t go back into the area where the prisoners live.”

After surrendering her phone, Moore sat with Sarsour, who she said appeared surprised to see her. 

Sarsour hugged her, Moore said. He’d clearly lost weight, even since her last visit in late April, she noted. 

“His health is at risk,” said Moore. “He has diabetes, as has been reported. And you know, I’m not a doctor, I’m not in a position to diagnose anything, but he has continued to lose weight. And he says that’s because he tries to exercise to manage his blood sugar.”

She added that she saw “other things that I noticed that I reported to his doctor, and I think he needs to see a doctor about his diabetes.”

Moore said that since Sarsour’s health began deteriorating, the facility had been asked to change his diet to accommodate his diabetes. She said jail personnel didn’t change his diet but simply gave him smaller portions of food. 

“If they served bread they just gave him a smaller piece. If they had mashed potatoes, they served him a smaller portion of mashed potatoes,” she said. “He hasn’t seen a fresh fruit or vegetable since he’s been in there.”

 Moore stressed that while in custody Sarsour “had earlier episodes of illness and he had to just wing it on his own.” She said that neither his doctor nor a jail doctor have visited him.

While Moore was visiting the jail on Sunday, a large Jewish-led interfaith rally uniting 150 supporters had gathered outside, Moore said. They chanted so loud that Sarsour could hear the commotion from inside the facility. 

They chanted “Free Salah Sarsour!” “No ICE Terror!” “You can’t deport a movement!” Kareem Sarsour was also outside the jail in support of his father’s release. 

“We never imagined we would be placed in the situation we are today,” said Kareem, according to a press release from the group that led the rally. “Every day is nerve-wracking knowing my father is only a few hours away, suffering, and we can’t reach him.”

Moore said she told Sarsour about the rally. “I told him that indeed there were people out there and described the crowd, and he was very — he said that it gave him hope for justice,” said Moore. 

The rally demonstrated how important Sarsour is to his community as a leader, activist, business owner and bridge builder, Moore said.

Moore said she met a minister outside the rally who told her he was a Trump supporter. “He was just hanging around,” said Moore. “Before that was over we had him praying for justice for Mr. Sarsour.” 

Like Sarsour’s attorneys, Moore said she believes Sarsour is a victim of retaliation by the Trump administration for speech. 

“Nobody gets to speak against the Trump deportation strategy,” she said. “We know that he told people who voted for him that he was going to target the murders and the rapists and the gang members. And these are people that no one has any problem with him removing. But no, people like teachers — like Yessenia Ruano —  people like Abrego Garcia, people like Salah Sarsour.”

Administration officials, Moore charged, are “thinking that they can create an inflammatory environment to cover up the outrageous immigration raids and programs that they’re conducting.”

Wisconsin must stop awarding small-dollar grants to help deter students from dropping out of college under a program available only to specific racial and ethnic groups, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

Although unanimous in part, the opinion also included concurrences by three of the Court’s liberal justices. They sharply critiqued a U.S. Supreme Court opinion that set the stage for the ruling, while acknowledging that its precedent required them to follow its contours.

At issue is the Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant Program operated by the state Higher Educational Aids Board. The program, established in 1985, provides grants from $250 to $2,500 for students who are Black, Hispanic, Native American and for immigrants or descendants of immigrants from Laos, Vietnam or Cambodia following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.

Eligible recipients are students at Wisconsin’s technical colleges, private universities and tribal colleges. The program and a companion program for University of Wisconsin students were both created “to reduce the financial burden which causes many minority students to leave school,” then-Gov. Tony Earl wrote in the 1985 budget proposal that led to their creation.

A 2023 Wisconsin Examiner analysis found that the money in the program largely went to Black students at Milwaukee Area Technical College who got training and jobs in building and construction and other trades.

In a February 2025 ruling the Wisconsin 2nd District Court of Appeals sided with the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, overturning a lower court and ruling that the retention grant program violates the Equal Protection Clause in the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. WILL filed the lawsuit with a group of families.

The appeals judges cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, issued in June 2023. That opinion, referred to as SFFA for short, held that the consideration of race in college admission policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina “cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause” in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Thursday’s opinion, written by Justice Annette Ziegler, affirmed the appeals court decision and cited the SFFA U.S. Supreme Court opinion.

The Higher Educational Aids Board argued that the retention grants were needed to help maintain student diversity.

Ziegler wrote, however, that when trying to ensure a diverse student body, race cannot be a defining factor. Rather, it can be one of  many factors in a flexible process that evaluates each applicant as individuals, she wrote.

“Under the Grant Program, race is not but one factor in a ‘highly individualized, holistic review.’ Race is the only factor,” Ziegler wrote. “Either a student is, or is not, a member of the preferred racial group.”

When the Wisconsin law that established the grant program was enacted 41 years ago, “the record does not reflect that Wisconsin’s technical or private colleges needed the legislature to enact a race-, national origin-, ancestry-, or alienage-based remedy in the 1980s,” Ziegler wrote. Lacking such evidence, “we cannot assume that the legislature enacted [the program] to address an unidentified retention and graduation problem at private and technical colleges.”

Ziegler was joined in the main opinion by Justices Rebecca Bradley, Brian Hagedorn and Janet Protasiewicz.

In a concurrence, Chief Justice Jill Karofsky acknowledged that “I am bound” by the 2023 SFFA opinion and that the grant program cannot survive as a consequence. But Karofsky described the SFFA opinion as part of a broader trend that was turning the 14th Amendment in the opposite direction from its original intent.

“Rather than turn a blind-eye to the scourge of racism and slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause faces it head-on by demanding change and requiring equal protection of the laws for all people. Inherent in its language is a recognition of the wrongs of prejudice, discrimination, and injustice,” Karofsky wrote.

“Why, instead of wielding the Equal Protection Clause as a sword against racism, do we employ it to shield against the promise of equality for all?” Karofsky asked rhetorically. “The answer appears to be that we have failed to fully recognize how societal and governmental practices have long continued to enforce a preference for White Americans and to burden Black Americans and those of other disadvantaged races or backgrounds.”

She was joined in the concurrence by Justice Susan Crawford.

Citing arguments made by dissenting justices in the 2023 SFFA opinion, Karofsky wrote that in Wisconsin, disparities between students of color and white students when they enter college “[are] about a reality where past state-sponsored racism continues to affect educational opportunities, and systemic racism continues to rob non-White people of equal educational opportunities. And as difficult and uncomfortable as that may be for some to acknowledge, it is the truth, and it cannot and should not be ignored.”

In the second concurrence, Justice Rebecca Dallet wrote that under current U.S. Supreme Court rulings that the Wisconsin Court must follow, the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause now imposes “substantial barriers to the adoption of race-conscious laws — even ones that seek to remedy the deep, structural inequalities in our society.” Karofsky and Crawford joined her concurrence.

The Higher Educational Aids Board’s defense of the grant program failed because there was “no evidence in the record establishing a problem with retention at Wisconsin’s private and technical colleges, or that race cannot be separated from that problem,” Dallet wrote.

Nevertheless, she suggested that it might yet be possible to redirect the Court with the production of “greater factual support” in the future.

State lawmakers react

Thursday’s ruling drew contrasting reactions from Wisconsin lawmakers.

Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee), chair of the Wisconsin Legislative Black Caucus, criticized the decision for applying the U.S. Supreme Court ruling to a different set of circumstances.

“That federal case was based on admissions while this program is about a student retention enacted by the state legislature and funded since 1985,” Drake said in a statement. The state Supreme Court justices “are setting a dangerous precedent by applying this federal ruling to distinctly different programs.”

Drake said she was a recipient of the grant when she attended Marquette University as a first-generation college graduate. She said she would introduce new legislation in the next two-year legislative session to replace the program with one that would support students based on income and zip code. “Disadvantaged communities need more resources, not fewer,” she said. “We can’t continue to make the same mistakes like our nation did post reconstruction and Jim Crow if we do we will never achieve true equity in our democracy.”

Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Gillett) praised the ruling in a statement. Wimberger authored a bill that would have changed the retention grant and several other programs, redefining them to apply to students who were identified as “disadvantaged” while excluding race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, sexual orientation or religion, or to “a student’s identity as a member of a group without regard to individual qualities.” The measure passed the Legislature on party-line votes and was vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers.

“Today, the state Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the policy outcome of my bill,” Wimberger said. “Giving benefits based solely on race presumes someone has individual personal characteristics simply because they belong to a race category. That is stereotyping and racism at their plainest and simplest.”

Wimberger said that there are “other state programs that give benefits based on race” and that he would “continue to fight against those policies and pursue equality under the law.”

This report has been updated with statements from Wisconsin lawmakers. 

WASHINGTON — The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against a transgender healthcare nonprofit Wednesday, accusing it of misleading and coercing parents over gender-affirming treatment for their children. 

The FTC’s complaint against the World Professional Association of Transgender Health is the latest in a series of legal actions from the Trump administration against organizations that provide gender-affirming treatment or work on transgender healthcare issues. 

“WPATH deceived parents and children about the medical and scientific basis for such services, as well as their medical necessity, safety and efficacy,” a senior FTC official, who wished not to be identified, said in a call with reporters Wednesday.

The FTC was joined by Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas in the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Texas. Another senior FTC official on the call Wednesday said that the suit is seeking to prevent the nonprofit from making “future false, misleading, or unsubstantiated claims to parents and children.” 

The suit alleges that the association’s standards of care, which are widely adopted by healthcare providers, were crafted with the specific goal of guaranteeing that insurance companies would cover the treatment as medically necessary, in turn generating profit for the association’s members. 

But the association described the complaint as “baseless,” and said in a statement Wednesday that it’s just another example of the Trump administration’s attempts to “interfere with Americans’ rights to seek and obtain the healthcare that should be decided between a patient and their physician.”

The guidelines are informed by established scientific standards, expert consensus, and patient-centered values, the association said, adding that it supports individualized patient care, rather than a “one size fits all” approach.  

The association also said the FTC is not a medical provider, and as such, has no right to interfere with individualized medical decision-making and doesn’t have jurisdiction over WPATH or its speech. It said the states’ claims have similar factual and legal flaws.

WPATH likes its chances

The lawsuit comes after the association filed its own suit against the FTC in February, seeking to block an investigation which it described as being part of an “all-of-government campaign to undermine access to gender-affirming care and attack the First Amendment rights of medical organizations.”

A federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the association in May, temporarily pausing the FTC’s probe into the organization.

The association said Wednesday it’s predicting a similar outcome this go-around as well. 

“A federal district court has already found WPATH is in a strong position to prove that the FTC is acting out of pure retaliation as part of the federal government’s relentless and targeted campaign to undermine gender-affirming care by attacking the First Amendment rights and the independence of professional medical organizations,” the organization said in its statement. “We expect the same result when we oppose this latest attack on WPATH and its mission to promote evidence-informed care and guidance for doctors and their patients.” 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education announced sweeping efforts Tuesday to outsource its special education programs and civil rights enforcement to other agencies, in another major step by President Donald Trump’s administration to dismantle the department.

The Department of Health and Human Services will administer programs under the Education Department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, or OSERS, while civil rights enforcement under Education’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, will be transferred to the Department of Justice. 

The move follows 10 earlier interagency agreements, or IAAs, with the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Interior, State and Treasury that transfer several of Education’s responsibilities to those agencies.

The Education Department clarified in fact sheets that in the agreements announced Tuesday, it “will continue to perform all statutorily required duties and responsibilities.”

“The Trump Administration has been clear: as we scale back federal micromanagement when it hinders success, we are equally committed to bolstering the efficacy of federal oversight where it is essential,” U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement Tuesday.

The administration has sought to do away with the 46-year-old department as part of Trump’s quest to return education “back to the states.” That push continues despite much of the oversight and funding of schools already occurring at the state and local levels. 

Congress created the Department of Education, and only Congress has the authority to abolish the agency. 

Special education

On a background call with reporters, a senior department official said OSERS “will maintain its independent statutory functions without interruption to vigorously enforce compliance with all of OSERS programs.” 

OSERS is responsible for administering the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, which guarantees a free public education for students with disabilities. The umbrella unit OSERS includes the Office of the Assistant Secretary, Office of Special Education Programs and the Rehabilitation Services Administration. 

The official added that “students will not lose any rights, including their right to a free appropriate public education,” adding that “no agreement can alter the rights that students with disabilities are afforded under federal law.” 

“In coordination with and at the direction of OSERS, HHS will support meaningful stakeholder outreach; grant administration; enforcement, compliance, and monitoring activities; annual performance determinations and assessments; collection, reporting, and analyzing of data for monitoring compliance; and drawdowns of Federal funds,” according to a fact sheet. 

Civil rights oversight

Meanwhile, Education’s agreement with the DOJ is intended to “support and bolster the federal government’s enforcement of federal civil rights laws,” a senior department official said. 

The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, is tasked with investigating civil rights complaints from students and families. 

Under the agreement, “OCR will utilize the Civil Rights Division to evaluate, investigate and resolve complaints filed under the laws enforced by OCR,” the official said. 

The official also stressed that under the interagency agreement, OCR “retains management and leadership of OCR in accordance with federal law.” 

Education will also partner with the DOJ on student privacy protection, in which the Justice Department will “review complaints alleging privacy act violations, conduct necessary investigations and recommend potential resolutions,” per a fact sheet.

In another agreement, the DOJ will “provide technical assistance” in training and advisory services regarding the desegregation of public schools, according to a fact sheet.  

‘This isn’t efficiency — it’s chaos’

The announcement sparked fierce condemnation from Democratic members of Congress, labor unions and advocacy groups Tuesday. 

Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, the union representing Education Department workers, said the interagency agreements regarding special ed programs and civil rights enforcement “will leave our most vulnerable students and families who have been shut out of our education system without the services they need and without protection when they face discrimination,” in a Tuesday statement. 

“This isn’t efficiency — it’s chaos,” Gittleman added. “Secretary McMahon is yet again targeting historically underserved students, eroding public trust, and sowing dysfunction for the federal employees who are trying to do their jobs on behalf of the public.” 

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that “instead of helping kids get a great education, this administration is spending its time, energy, and taxpayer resources fixated on where employees sit and illegally trying to shutter the Department of Education,” in a Tuesday statement.

“It’s an outrageous betrayal that undoes decades of hard-won progress for students,” Murray added. “More kids with disabilities will be denied the education they are entitled to by law, and more college students who were harassed or assaulted will go without the justice they are owed.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers unions in the country, said the decision “will have dire, real-world consequences.” 

“Congress — the only body that can legally take such actions — has refused to follow the whims of the White House when it comes to abolishing the Education Department,” Weingarten said. “And parents, educators, students, and the disability and civil rights communities are rising up — and will fight in every way possible to reverse this in the courts, at the ballot box and in the court of public opinion.”

Ahmet Kerem Korkaya, a 28-year-old pro-Palestine activist from Milwaukee, pled not guilty Monday to federal charges that he and seven other students at the University of Michigan conspired to commit acts of vandalism, harassment and threats targeting university officials, local businesses, and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit in an effort to get the University of Michigan to sever ties with Israel. Online court records show that Korkaya, who appeared before Magistrate Judge Kimberly Altman for the Eastern District of Michigan, was released on bond. 

A grand jury indicted Korkaya and the other activists including 23-year-old Zainab Aliasgar Hakim; 21-year-old Amatullah Aliasgar Hakim, 28-year-old Paige Elizabeth Feyock, 22-year-old Jonathan Hongru Zou, 24-year-old Mariam Muhammed Odeh, and 24-year-old Colin Hunter Weger — all of Michigan — as well as 23-year-old Alexander Matthew Sepulveda of Illinois.

Korkaya was a student at the Medical College of Wisconsin, where he was studying medical science, with a focus on cancer and tumor immunology, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. He also conducted research at the University of Michigan in 2023 and 2024, and holds bachelor’s and master degrees from two different universities.

In a press release, the Department of Justice points to public social media posts and activist demonstrations carried out by the group demanding that the University of Michigan enact a “full and complete divestment” from Israel and any businesses supporting Israel. The federal government asserts that when the university didn’t respond the way the group wanted, it engaged in tactics such as occupying university buildings, spray-painting buildings and disrupting university events. 

Some demonstrations involved using red paint to write messages on buildings, to simulate blood staining the hands of demonstrators and on white sheets representing the bodies of some of the at least 75,000  Palestinians killed in Israel’s war on Gaza. Although these were common tactics used by student activists who mobilized across the nation to condemn Israel’s attack on Gaza in late 2023, prosecutors have framed the actions as intimidating. 

Prosecutors also accuse the group of researching home addresses, photographs, business ownership and other details of university leaders. Korkaya and others are accused of discussing ways to “kill,” “torment,” “terrorize,” or “get” these people and their families. The group is also accused of carrying out nighttime actions where businesses and homes were spray-painted with pro-Palestine and anti-Israel messages. Prosecutors highlight that some of the incidents involved the spray-painting of a red upside-down triangle which the government claims is associated with Hamas. The Jewish Federation of Detroit was among the buildings spray-painted, prosecutors say. The group is also accused of throwing jars of noxious chemicals into the homes of people they targeted.

The allegations and evidence were not enough to persuade judges to keep members of the group behind bars as court proceedings continue. In considering the government’s claims that the activists pose a  danger to the community and a flight risk, U.S. District Magistrate Judge Anthony Patti said that the alleged actions were “terrorizing, but not terrorism,” Michigan Advance reported, in a separate hearing last week. 

That hearing was protested by about 50 people, who held signs that said: “Drop the Charges” and “Divest Don’t Arrest. Protesters described the arrests as “witch hunts,” asserting that pro-Palestine activists are being unfairly painted as terrorists by the federal government.

The indictments represent the latest move by the Trump administration to target pro-Palestine activism. In January 2025, shortly after returning to office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for the deportation of international students who attend pro-Palestine protests. Just a few months later at least 300 students had their visas revoked for “destabilizing” college campuses, and federal agents arrested Palestinian student activists including Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi. This year Salah Sarsour, the president of Milwaukee’s Islamic Society and an outspoken Palestinian activist, was also arrested by federal immigration agents and sent to an Indiana detention center. 

“Our justice system must carefully distinguish between alleged criminal acts and constitutionally protected political advocacy,” Dawud Walid, executive director of the Center for American Islamic Relations Michigan chapter, said in a statement about the arrests.

NSPM-7, a national security order signed by Trump, directs law enforcement members of regional  Joint Terrorism Task Forces  to “investigate, prosecute, and disrupt” groups and individuals with ideologies harboring themes of “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” “extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.” 

Numerous law enforcement agencies participated in what the government called a “multi-state operation” in order to arrest Korkaya and the others. Among the participants were FBI field offices in Detroit, Chicago and Milwaukee, as well as 12 local law enforcement agencies including the Milwaukee Police Department, the Michigan State Police, university campus police and public safety, and the Michigan Intelligence Operations Center, which is one of the nation’s Fusion Centers originally designed for homeland security and counter-terrorism functions. 

The Milwaukee Police Department also maintains a Fusion Center. The department would not comment on whether it was involved in gathering intelligence related to Korkaya’s arrest. The FBI office of Milwaukee also wouldn’t comment on whether the arrests are related to NSPM-7, directing the Examiner to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Michigan, which has not responded to a request for comment.

A federal judge heard from attorneys Monday about the treatment of Salah Sarsour, the Palestinian president of Milwaukee’s Islamic Society and a legal U.S. permanent resident who is being held in an Indiana immigration detention facility.

Sarsour’s lawyers say that since arriving at the Clay County Detention Center in Brazil, Indiana, following his arrest by federal immigration agents in March Sarsour has lost 30 pounds, is not receiving appropriate care for his type 2 diabetes, and has been denied the ability to practice his religion. Separate from Sarsour’s immigration proceedings, Sarsour’s attorneys pushed in federal court for his release, arguing that his treatment at the detention center amounted to a First Amendment violation. 

Luna Droubi, an attorney who represents Sarsour, said that U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon listened closely during the Monday status hearing and asked questions about the 53-year-old business owner, activist and grandfather’s experiences. The judge “addressed and directed the facility to take a look at Salah Sarsour’s medical guidance, and I do think he has real concerns about his treatment,” said Droubi, adding that Sarsour “really has been tormented for exercising his religious beliefs.” 

Initially, Droubi explained, “he wasn’t able to pray five times a day; they would disrupt his prayers at certain hours and tell him to stop doing it.” Sarsour’s requests for Halal meals, foods which are considered permissible in Islam, have been denied, and obtaining a makeshift prayer towel proved challenging as well. When he asked for food that would help him maintain balanced blood sugar levels because of his diabetes, Sarsour was offered pork rinds by detention facility staff according to his attorneys, in violation of his religious dietary requirements.

“It’s been a very difficult time for him,” Droubi told the Examiner. “He’s the president of the largest Islamic Center in Milwaukee. … He is a type 2 diabetic and he has very clear medical instructions that he requires daily glucose testing. At today’s hearing, they represented that they had started daily glucose testing and then somebody at the facility was instructed that they only need to do it once a month.” That goes directly against medical guidance, she added, since glucose levels can drop and rise on a daily basis, “and that can be incredibly dangerous.” 

At one point, Droubi said, Sarsour experienced severe abdominal pain and then was told “there’s nothing we can do for it. There’s no medical professional here. You’re going to have to wait until morning.” She stressed that “he couldn’t even stand up, and it’s only been two months. So he’s really, really struggled.”

Since Jan. 1 of this year, there have been 18 deaths of people detained in immigration detention facilities nationwide. This has outpaced the deaths reported last year –  the highest in two decades. This comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that it will stop reporting the deaths of people who’ve been recently released by detention, the AP reported.

Sarsour’s attorneys argued that there are numerous reasons why Sarsour needs to be immediately released, and that it’s within the federal court’s authority to do so. Droubi said that Sarsour is being held “because of his speech and associations,” and that the arrest was purely punitive for that speech.

Sarsour grew up in the West Bank and became an outspoken critic of the Israeli government and a supporter of Palestinian rights and freedoms as an adult. That activism continued after the militant arm of Hamas attacked Israel in late 2023, killing 1,200 people, followed by a large-scale Israeli assault on Palestinians living in Gaza which has killed at least 75,000 people while displacing thousands more. 

The Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly called Sarsour a “terrorist” who was convicted of throwing Molotov cocktails into the homes of Israeli forces.

“This was an Israeli military kangaroo court,” Othman Atta, executive director of Milwaukee’s Islamic Society, said of Sarsour’s conviction during a community gathering and press conference held in early April after Sarsour’s arrest. “Human rights groups will tell you that these claims are coerced under torture, under interrogation. So absolutely, that’s not true.” At the gathering Atta also said that Sarsour spent two years in Israeli detention as a teenager. “He would talk to us many times how for 80 straight days, he was interrogated, and brutalized, and tortured while he was in Israeli military custody.”

These experiences are widely reported by detained Palestinians. In 2024, United Nations experts found that due process rights for Palestinians in the West Bank, where Sarsour grew up and was detained, had been violated by Israeli authorities for the past 60 years. 

“He is also an illegal alien that lied on his green card application to fraudulently gain legal status in the U.S. under the Clinton Administration,” a DHS spokesperson said in an emailed statement to the Examiner. “Any accusation of discrimination by ICE agents is FALSE. All illegal aliens in ICE custody receive three meals a day and proper medical treatment. Sarsour is a criminal and a terrorist and will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.”

Droubi said that the federal judge is considering the argument for Sarsour’s release. Attorneys representing the government say that the federal court has no jurisdiction over a claim of unlawful detention. 

“He should be home with his family,” Droubi told the Examiner. “He really should.”

Controversy over Flock license plate reading cameras has rippled across Wisconsin, causing people to fill public hearings as some regions remove the cameras, and others overhaul auditing and oversight. Activists, elected officials and police departments are navigating disagreements over privacy, safety, freedom and the facts about the surveillance network.  

Communities including Dane County, Verona, Monona, Fitchburg, Appleton, Oshkosh and Sturgeon Bay are dropping contracts with the multi-billion company Flock Safety because of heightened awareness and public anxiety over surveillance. 

Officers and deputies from three different agencies and three separate counties stand accused of misusing Flock cameras, which compile images of vehicles and their license plates into a database which can be searched by police. When the Examiner reviewed five months of Flock data last year, it contained many thousands of searches conducted by 221 Wisconsin law enforcement agencies.

All three officers are accused of tracking their romantic partners, with officers Josue Ayala of Milwaukee and Cristian Morales of Menasha facing charges for which they have upcoming court appearances. Ayala is scheduled for sentencing in June and Morales has a jury trial in July. Kenosha County Deputy Frank McGrath was not charged for misconduct over his use of Flock to track another deputy he was dating and a John Doe petition seeking charges in the case has been sealed by a judge, according to court records.

“It’s powerful technology,” Heba Mohammad, an organizer with Milwaukee4Palestine — one of the local groups pushing against Flock cameras — told the Examiner.  

Milwaukee4Palestine has focused on police surveillance as cameras, automatic license plate readers like Flock, and facial recognition technology and drones came to Milwaukee. “As Palestinians, we know what that is a signal of,” said Mohammad, pointing out that similar surveillance tested on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank has been adopted by U.S. law enforcement agencies. “The road to fascism is paved with well-intentioned surveillance technology.”

Milwaukee4Palestine organized to oppose facial recognition technology and then Flock. “We know this is what is next,” said Mohammad. “We’ve seen how surveillance can be used to oppress people.”

Although MPD stands by its use of Flock, the department has also been forced to revamp its auditing procedures. Over the last couple of months, the department has limited the number of officers who have access to Flock. James Lewis, risk manager for MPD, told the Wisconsin Examiner that access was restricted to an “as needed basis,” and that requests need to go through the chain of command, creating more of a paper trail when Flock is used. 

While some units or bureaus investigating serious crimes had clearer needs for Flock, “in patrol, we wanted to make sure that the officers who had it really had the need to have this software,” said Lewis. MPD is also using audit data to flag “outlier” data that indicate questionable Flock uses, such as an officer searching the same vehicle multiple times over a short period, or not attaching case numbers to searches. MPD shares its Flock network with state partners, but not with federal agencies. 

Nevertheless, community members have expressed a lack of confidence and trust in MPD surveillance, especially after the passage of Act 12, which stripped some of the Fire and Police Commission’s oversight powers in exchange for allowing Milwaukee to adopt a sales tax. 

“We are of the position that the risks far outweigh the benefits of this technology and again, particularly with a police force like the Milwaukee Police Department that has been granted a lot of impunity through Act 12 [and has] basically no accountability,” said Mohammad. “And they are demonstrating time and time again that they don’t care what the community thinks.”

Lewis said that the department is trying to nail down exactly how Flock affects the community. “I think a lot of what we’ve seen through public comment, through the commissioners’ comments, through news media coverage for this is, ‘Hey this is this big data surveillance network and it’s got a lot of these pitfalls in it,” said Lewis. “But I think the other piece of it that we’re really trying to get our hands on is how is this making police work more efficient? Is it driving public safety outcomes? Are we getting what we want out of it and through audit, we’re trying to tell those stories as well.” 

Lewis said MPD is working on answering some of those questions, especially the question of whether there is a return on investment in terms of public safety. “If there is outlier data generated, I want to know not just compliance or not, but also what did the city get out of this? Is it a safer place because of this?” Lewis said that MPD has chosen to overhaul its auditing practices on its own in a tailor-made fashion, rather than waiting on Flock Safety to develop a fix. 

The department highlighted 24 different situations where Flock was used, including felony firearms investigations, parole violations, narcotics trafficking, homicide, material witnesses needed at criminal trials, stolen vehicles, overdose death investigations, sexual assault, shootings and armed robberies. In one of the examples involving theft, MPD specified in an email that “Flock was used to develop patterns of movement in the suspect vehicle” to determine whether it was related to other thefts. 

Balancing tracking, privacy, and public safety

The extent to which Flock can track and surveil people has been a source of tension at public meetings. In December, Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball and Chief Deputy Brain Barkow said that calling Flock a form of tracking is a misrepresentation. They argued that although Flock alerts officers that a vehicle has been sighted, they would still need to go to the area of the alert and search for the vehicle. In other words, Flock doesn’t see everything.

But the technology appears to have greater surveillance capabilities than some departments and even Flock itself have described.

The Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department has also said that Flock is “not used for general surveillance, traffic enforcement, or monitoring individuals not connected to an investigation.” However, the agency’s Flock data shows that officers entered “surveillance” and “traffic offense” as reasons for searching the camera network. 

Oshkosh officials voted to continue a Flock contract only to reverse course the next day, saying that they’d been misled by Flock representatives over the camera’s ability to produce heat maps visualizing where a vehicle has been. At a meeting in April, Oshkosh Police Chief Dean Smith told local elected officials that because of that “misrepresentation” he could “I can no longer recommend Flock.”

“I think it depends on how it’s used,” Green Bay Police Chief Chris Davis told the Examiner. “I think if it’s misused, you can misuse this technology in a way that would allow you to track someone.” Yet, Davis feels that Flock can be an asset when used for legitimate criminal investigations. “I think people sometimes misunderstand how the technology works.” 

Davis concedes of Flock use that in some ways, “yeah, that’s kind of tracking someone. But I have a legitimate criminal predicate for doing so.” At the same time, he condemns the use of Flock for personal reasons, like spying on ex-wives or partners. “The government doesn’t get to do that,” said Davis. “That’s unlawful overreach into someone’s life because there’s no legitimate public safety reason for getting access to that data.”

Davis was hired at Green Bay in late 2021, when the city was experiencing a rise in gun violence. After deciding not to adopt gunshot detection tech, the city pivoted to automatic license plate readers. 

“At the time Flock was one of very few, if not the only company that had stationary license plate reader technology,” said Davis. “With gun crimes, the faster you can develop a suspect and make an arrest, the better, because there’s a retaliatory cycle that happens.” The department has been able to locate homicide suspects who fled to other states, hit-and-run suspects, and stolen vehicles using Flock. 

Davis said that “license plate reader technology has been a game changer for all of us. On the other hand, you still have to take people’s privacy concerns seriously.” He stressed that “anytime you’re collecting that much data about people as they just go about their daily business, you have to be really careful with how that’s used.” 

How Flock can be layered with other surveillance technologies also worry community members. In May, officers in Wauwatosa used Flock surveillance and a drone to track a robbery suspect.

The debate reminds Davis of the words of a mentor, that being a police chief is “the great balancing act of municipal government.” He added that, “I think it would be a mistake for us to not take people’s privacy concerns seriously in this conversation.”

As cases of misuse have popped up, the Green Bay Police Department has also tightened its use of Flock. They used their own audit to look for suspicious searches, and didn’t detect any instances of misuse. “We didn’t find any of that in our audit that we did, but it doesn’t hurt to ratchet it down as much as we can,” said Davis. “Because again, I understand, like you’re talking about people’s sensitive information. We have to be responsible with how we use that, and there have to be safeguards in place.” 

The department has also restricted which outside agencies can access its Flock network. While there was an initial belief that “the bigger the network, the more valuable the tool,” Davis said that Green Bay PD has “re-thought that over the last few weeks.” Now only agencies in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, eastern Wisconsin from Green Bay to Milwaukee, and the Chicagoland area (including Racine, Kenosha, and Cook counties along with some Chicago suburbs and a small portion of Indiana around the city of Gary) can search within Green Bay’s network. 

“We figure that makes more sense to have more of a rationale for why we share data,” said Davis. “Because I don’t have control over how those other agencies manage their employees. It’s not that I don’t trust them, but if they want that information then they can call us and they can explain what they’re working on, and we’ll see if we can help them.”

Green Bay PD is also utilizing a drop down menu with pre-designated options for using Flock, rather than allowing officers to type whatever they want. When the Examiner conducted its first analysis of Flock last year, there were several departments which used vague search terms, even just putting a dot or “.” as the reason for searching Flock. When the Examiner brought it to the Waukesha Police Department’s attention, the department said an officer was re-trained and counseled. 

Captain Dan Baumann of the Waukesha PD said in an email statement that since then, the department has “strengthened its oversight of Flock Safety by increasing formal audits from twice per year to monthly.” There are also random audits in addition to the mandatory audit, as well as an AI-powered Flock audit assistance tool to flag suspicious searches. The department’s standard operating procedure has also been adjusted. No further instances of vague labeling have arisen, and no discipline has been issued in connection to use of Flock. 

Baumann said Flock has assisted investigations such as in a vehicle break-in where leads were limited, and using Flock allowed investigators to identify a suspect’s vehicle and connect it to cases in Dane County. Flock was also used to locate someone involved in a shooting, and who pointed a gun during a road rage incident, Baumann said.

Communities waking up to surveillance risks

While it may be encouraging that departments are changing procedures and upping auditing, advocates still have  questions about whether it will  be enough. Jon McCray Jones, policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin, hopes that people “don’t miss the forest for the trees” by focusing solely on Flock, when other companies sell similar technology. 

“I don’t believe that law enforcement are just acting out of good faith with a lot of these regulatory changes and auditing changes to Flock,” McCray Jones told the Examiner. “I believe that it comes from sustained pressure started at the most local level from people understanding and realizing the dangers associated with all these cameras and automated license plate readers, and specifically Flock, who is the worst company out of all of them so far.” 

It all also ties back to a growing mistrust and fear over the federal government. Under President Donald Trump, federal immigration agents have flooded Democratic-led cities across the country, resulting in multiple shootings and deaths in Minnesota earlier this year. The Trump administration has also directed federal agencies to begin investigating left-wing groups it has accused of domestic terrorism. 

Mohammad said that the ICE surges really brought surveillance to the forefront when people began to see “ICE agents scanning people’s faces in different cities, and telling them that we have a database and we can recognize your name. Or pulling people’s license plates and figuring out what their names were so that they could harass them directly by name.” She added, “I think this political moment is also a moral and ethical one.” 

McCray Jones also said the issue of police surveillance has new urgency as communities are “being targeted and their neighbors being disappeared by the federal government.” ICE and other federal agencies have access to Flock either directly, or through assistance from local and state agencies which have contracts with the company. Public officials, under pressure from voters, are “jumping on board,” McCray Jones said, “and they’re feeling courageous and empowered to take on these surveillance systems.”

Public meetings about surveillance technology in Milwaukee are energized, Mohammad said. “I don’t want to say exciting because I think that really betrays the seriousness of the moment,” she said. “But there is that buzz that often happens when that room is full, or there was a time when they had to open the overflow room.” It’s shown Mohammad that “people care about this stuff and that’s why I think that it’s really incredible that even though the FPC doesn’t really have any teeth to its accountability anymore, we as residents are using as many avenues as are open to us to make our voices heard.” 

McCray Jones suggests that people care about Flock because “at its core, it’s one of the easiest surveillance technologies for people to understand.” He believes that people understand that “anyone who drives is impacted by this technology in a way that other surveillance technologies, say like ShotSpotters or Stingray…I think people have a harder time one: knowing how these technologies work but two: viewing themselves as potential victims.” 

He added that in several cases, including in Milwaukee, officers who misused the technology were caught by people using websites like HaveIBeenFlocked, not by the department. “So we don’t know how much these systems are being abused,” he said. “And I think elected officials should use these moments of high, intense scrutiny from the community and in the media, and having anecdotal stories of officers doing this right now, to really be courageous and take the lead to fight for more accountability measures before the public forgets about this story, and forgets about the danger that they are under due to law enforcement’s ability to track where you are at all times.”

Mohammad said that she and her allies are not quitting anytime soon. “We understand our position, we understand the risks here,” she told the Examiner. “And so we’re not going to back down. We do not want our communities to be surveilled. And we believe that public safety comes from investments in other areas, not in police surveillance.”

In the 2024 election, Republican messaging that marginalized transgender Americans and attacked Democrats got widespread attention.

Opinion is divided among political analysts about whether anti-trans messaging contributed to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s narrow loss — about 29,000 votes in Wisconsin and about a 1.5% margin nationwide — or was irrelevant. 

A 2023 Marquette University Law School poll found that a majority of respondents favored protecting trans people against workplace discrimination, but 70% also believed athletes should be required to play sports on teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth. 

But whether or not the strategy helped seal Donald Trump’s victory two years ago, Republican candidates in Wisconsin have been leaning into messaging that targets transgender and nonbinary people.

Sen. Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove), whose adult son is transgender, sees little reason to “rehash” the 2024 election. “I think it’s always important to make sure that we are advocating for our trans community and for kids and speaking out against hate,” she said. “I think the bigger concern is why a party feels the need to attack our trans kids and use that as an issue to rile up part of their base ultimately.”

Transgender individuals account for less than 1% of the adult Wisconsin population, about 36,000 people, and 3.3% of teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17, fewer than 13,000 people — or 180 per county. The Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles Law School calculated those estimates based on survey data the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collected between 2021 and 2023.

The Republican majority in the state Legislature has passed bills that would bar gender-affirming care for young people and ban kids from playing on sports teams that didn’t match the gender they were assigned at birth or their biological sex. Gov. Tony Evers has repeatedly vetoed those measures.

“We’ve seen this in the Legislature, that by somehow going after children and bullying them is something that they see as a winning issue,” Ratcliff said. “It just doesn’t make any sense to me. And that grown adults think it’s OK to bully kids is just gross.”

Meanwhile, with Trump’s inauguration to a second term, federal policy has turned against transgender people and also against a more expansive understanding of gender.

During the Wisconsin Republican convention in Wisconsin Dells on May 16, speakers attacked the transgender population, particularly youth, sounding the alarm about the possibility of trans girls playing high school sports, mocking the use of inclusive language and promoting the  policing of bathrooms. 

Republican nominee for governor Tom Tiffany opened his speech by asking the delegates, “Are you ready for a governor that’s going to protect girls’ sports?”

Sen. Ron Johnson inveighed against “Biological males competing against our little girls in sports. Biological males invading their locker rooms, their showers, their bathrooms.” He as well as former Gov. Scott Walker falsely claimed that minors identified as transgender can be subjected to surgical procedures.

And a May 19 press release by Republican press secretary Zach Bannon falsely claimed that more than 90 lawmakers were “emphasizing their support of sex-change surgeries for minors” in an open letter to two leading Wisconsin hospital systems.

The false claim was repeated three times in the press release, which attacked Democrats in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District who are running in the party’s primary to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden. 

The letter called on the healthcare providers, Children’s Wisconsin in Wauwatosa and UW Health in Madison, to resume gender-affirming care for minors, which both suspended early this year following threats to federal medical dollars from the Trump administration.

That form of care does not include surgery, however. A Children’s Wisconsin spokesperson said medical treatment prior to the suspension of care involved medication, and that Children’s still provides mental health and behavioral care. 

“UW Health does not offer gender-affirming surgery to minors,” said Sara Benzel, a spokesperson for the Madison-based system.

Abigail Swetz, executive director of Fair Wisconsin, a statewide LGBTQ+ advocacy group, said that for the youngest children who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria — a deep-seated sense that their gender identity doesn’t match their biological sex — the first step is extensive counseling with a therapist.

Gender-affirming care “is also age-appropriate, and this is the part that I think people miss all the time,” Swetz said in a recent interview.  “There are no medical interventions until puberty for gender-affirming care.”

Interventions at puberty can involve medication but not surgery, Swetz said. Those can include hormone treatment to delay puberty and to redirect the body’s development.

“But that is all age-appropriate, and highly individualized, just like all good medical care is with the doctor,” Swetz said. “And always with full consent of parents and guardians. When we are talking about gender-affirming care for trans youth, that’s what we’re talking about. Not what the other side would like to pretend.”

Bannon did not respond to a Wisconsin Examiner email message seeking an explanation for the false statements in his press release.

A federal judge in April blocked the Trump administration from cutting off federal funds to hospitals that provide gender-affirming care. The judge’s order said the Department of Health and Human Services lacked the authority to override professional standards of care or to deny funding to healthcare providers following those standards.

Since then some health providers in other states, including Children’s Minnesota hospital, have resumed providing gender-affirming care for minors.

Both UW Health and Children’s Wisconsin said they sympathized with patients who had been undergoing that care and their families, but that they believe they would remain in legal jeopardy if they resume care involving medication.

Ratcliff said that as someone whose family has gone through the experience of addressing the needs of a transgender child, it was important to her “to make sure that all trans kids and the trans community know that there are people in the Capitol that care about our trans community, that see them, that are fighting for them, and that we can push back again and fight back against all the hateful rhetoric toward our trans community.”

She said she believes Republicans are ramping up  attacks on trans people as a deflection from the economic squeeze voters are feeling.

“We know that everyday costs are going up and they aren’t putting forward policies that actually help everyday lives of Americans or Wisconsinites,” Ratcliff said. “My child being trans is not causing these prices to go up. My child’s healthcare is not causing any difference in people’s lives except for my child’s life.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

A group of more than 60 nonprofits, advocacy organizations and businesses wrote to two Wisconsin health systems Thursday, urging them to resume gender-affirming care for minors that they halted five months ago.

The hospital organizations — UW Health in Madison and Children’s Wisconsin in Wauwatosa — stopped providing hormone medication and puberty-blocking medication to minors with gender dysphoria following Trump administration actions targeting such healthcare.

Thursday’s letter, led by the LGBTQ+ rights groups Fair Wisconsin and GSAFE, cites a federal judge’s ruling in April that threw out the administration’s order blocking gender-affirming care.

“Gender-affirming care is legal in Wisconsin, but it is increasingly more and more difficult to access due to decisions made to pause the provision of this care at your institutions,” states the letter. “These decisions must be reversed and care restarted immediately.”

Thursday’s letter was the second this week to UW Health and Children’s Wisconsin. On Tuesday, more than 90 elected officials from around the state released a letter urging both hospitals to restore the suspended services, “reaffirm [their] commitment to evidence-based care, and rebuild trust with the transgender and gender diverse community.”

“The most important thing for people to understand is that the support for this care is so much broader and deeper than people realize,” Abigail Swetz, executive director of Fair Wisconsin, told the Wisconsin Examiner Thursday. “I hope the leadership of these hospitals are seeing that in this letter and the others that are coming through.”

She said local groups, Madison TRAC and Reproductive Justice Action Milwaukee, are organizing petitions in their communities as well for the general public to sign.

Both hospitals released statements Thursday that acknowledged the concerns of families and their children seeking gender-affirming healthcare, but cited legal risks of providing such care.

“We know this issue matters deeply to many in our community, especially the patients and families we serve,” Children’s Wisconsin said.

“Due to ongoing legal and regulatory uncertainty affecting organizations and providers across the country, we are not currently providing gender-affirming pharmacologic care,” it said. “We recognize the impact this has on patients and families.”

Children’s said it continued to provide related mental and behavioral healthcare.

UW Health said it paused gender-affirming medication therapy for minors “due to ongoing federal actions that threaten health systems that provide this care.”

“While we continue to believe this is evidence-based care, threats from those federal actions are not fully resolved,” UW Health said. “Therefore, the current risk is too great to resume this care. We recognize the challenges faced by impacted patients and families and remain committed to providing patient-centered care and supporting their health and well-being throughout this critical time.”

Gender-affirming care is a response to gender dysphoria, which the American Psychiatric Association has defined as  “psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity.”

Based on survey data collected by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between 2021 and 2023, the Williams Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles Law School estimated in an August 2025 report that 3% of adolescents ages 13 to 17 and 1% of adults 18 or older identify as transgender or nonbinary.

Swetz said that when health professionals provide gender-affirming healthcare, they do so because it is medically necessary.

“I think it is sometimes seen as something that is not essential, but it absolutely is medically necessary, because we know that when gender dysphoria is treated then the mental health of our trans youth just drastically improves,” she said.

Gender-affirming care is also provided based on what is appropriate for the person’s age, “and always, with the full consent of parents and guardians,” Swetz said.

For a child who hasn’t yet reached puberty, it entails counseling and other forms of behavioral therapy — not medication, she said. At the start of puberty, medication may be used to pause that process, along with hormone treatment, but it’s also “highly individualized,” she added.

“We’re talking about high quality care that is respectful and meets a trans youth exactly where they’re at, in the age appropriateness of the kind of care that will help move them forward in their lives and make it possible for them to live in a body that really feels like home,” Swetz said.

The two hospitals paused their use of gender-affirming care medication after a Dec. 18, 2025 declaration from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that threatened to withhold federal health dollars, such as Medicaid reimbursement, from providers offering gender-affirming healthcare for minors.

Wisconsin was one of 21 states and the District of Columbia that sued to block the federal rule. In late March, a federal judge in Oregon ruled for the states on summary judgment, and in April issued a written order that vacated Kennedy’s declaration.

The judge ruled that the declaration violated the Administrative Procedures Act; that Kennedy and HHS officials lacked the authority to override professional standards for gender-affirming care; and lacked the authority to exclude providers from federal programs for providing gender-affirming care that meets professional standards.

The order also includes an injunction forbidding “any materially similar policy which supersedes or purports to supersede the professionally recognized standards of care for gender-affirming care that exist” in the 21 states and D.C. that filed the lawsuit.

“They’re trying to make sure that the federal government can’t go around and just, like, do something in another name,” Swetz said. “And I think it’s important for people to know that Wisconsin specifically is one of the states.”

This report was updated to correct the organizers of local petitions in Madison and Milwaukee.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Republicans on a U.S. Senate panel suggested Tuesday a recent Supreme Court decision weakening the federal Voting Rights Act invalidated U.S. House districts in Democratic states where most residents belong to a racial minority group. 

Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, signaled that Republicans will target majority-minority districts in blue states as they seek to maximize their opportunities to reshape the political map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. GOP-controlled Southern states are already rushing forward gerrymanders.

Schmitt urged the Department of Justice to crack down on states with maps drawn to protect majority-minority districts. A top DOJ official has suggested the agency supports scrutinizing the districts. The demand seems to extend the Supreme Court’s April 29 decision that limited states from using race to draw districts.

“These maps do not become constitutional because they’re already in use,” Schmitt said. “They do not survive because politicians call them voting rights maps. Yet, they will not disappear on their own. The Department of Justice has an obligation to act.”

The court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision gave states the OK to eliminate districts where most residents belong to racial minority groups in the pursuit of a partisan advantage. Alabama, Florida and Tennessee have advanced new maps, and Louisiana is expected to follow soon. South Carolina is debating its own gerrymander.

The new district lines, along with gerrymanders enacted before the Callais decision, could ultimately provide Republicans with a net gain of upwards of 10 seats.

The seats could prove critical as Republicans face political headwinds approaching the midterm elections amid sagging approval numbers for President Donald Trump. A successful legal campaign that forces Democratic states to break apart majority-minority districts could create additional competitive House races.

Breaking up Democratic districts

About one-third of all House districts drawn following the 2020 census were majority-minority, according to a Ballotpedia analysis — 148 in all. Democrats held 122 as of 2024. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, wrote on social media on April 30 that the department continues to prioritize equal protection under the law, including in voting. Dhillon’s post came in response to a letter Schmitt sent to DOJ raising similar points to what he said on Tuesday.

“Senator — we are ON IT!” Dhillon wrote.

Sen. Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat and the subcommittee’s ranking member, said the Supreme Court’s decision leaves many communities of color with few enforceable tools to fight unfair maps. He called on the Senate to act by passing a federal ban on mid-decade redistricting and partisan gerrymandering.

“Our democracy depends ultimately on protecting and preserving the right of individual citizens to pick their politicians, not intensifying the control that politicians have about who the voters are that they will permit to be involved in the election,” Welch said.

‘The definition of racism’

Some Republicans have begun to cast majority-minority districts as racist. The loaded rhetoric suggests eliminating these districts is not just politically useful but also a legal and moral imperative.

Missouri, where Republicans hold six of the state’s eight congressional districts, exemplifies the new reality under Callais. The Republican-controlled General Assembly approved a map in September that divides Kansas City in a bid to oust Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat who has long represented the city core. 

State lawmakers left in place a St. Louis-area district held by Democratic Rep. Wesley Bell where fewer than half of residents are white. But some Missouri Republicans have called the district a racial gerrymander and want the General Assembly to split it apart, too.

“That’s the definition of racism, is drawing districts based on the color of one’s skin,” Missouri Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins told reporters last week. “We don’t want that in Missouri.”

The Supreme Court in the Callais decision did not formally strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race and other characteristics. In practice, however, it may be effectively impossible for gerrymandering opponents to prove discrimination, voting rights experts say.

“It begs the question whether or not lawmakers will have to say, ‘not only do I not like Black voters, but this is the reason why I’m drawing up this piece of legislation,’” Rebekah Caruthers, president and CEO of the nonpartisan voting rights group Fair Elections Center, said in an interview with States Newsroom days after the release of the Supreme Court opinion.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court cleared away a court order that had blocked Alabama from implementing a map passed by state lawmakers in 2023 that could hand Republicans another seat. A lower court had found the map violated Section 2.

In Louisiana, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry suspended the state’s ongoing congressional primary election in anticipation of a new map that will likely eliminate one of the state’s two majority-Black districts. The Supreme Court fast-tracked paperwork in its Callais decision to clear the way for state lawmakers to act quickly.

Obligation to act

During Tuesday’s Senate hearing, Will Chamberlain, senior counsel at the Article III Project, a conservative legal group, said all states with maps drawn to protect minority representation have a “clear duty” to redraw them using race-neutral criteria. 

The calendar should be no obstacle, he argued, saying state legislatures can be called into special session and primary elections delayed until new maps are in place.

“The fact that we are well into the 2026 election cycle provides no blanket exemption from these constitutional obligations,” Chamberlain said.

Callais has unleashed chaos and already undercut fair representation for Black voters, Todd Cox, associate director-counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, told the subcommittee. But he argued the decision doesn’t call into question the constitutionality of majority-minority districts or other districts that give voters of color an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.

Cox cautioned against using Callais to justify targeting majority-minority districts that provide that opportunity, saying it might indicate that states intentionally discriminated against minority voters.

WASHINGTON — The Congressional Black Caucus and NAACP on Tuesday urged pushback against GOP-led redistricting efforts in Southern states via college sports, including a boycott of public universities by athletes and supporters.

U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and fellow Congressional Black Caucus members blasted a bill that sets forth a national framework for college athletes’ compensation. 

But the CBC’s backlash went beyond just the legislation — which was yanked from the House’s voting schedule this week following unanimous opposition from the major voting bloc. 

At a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol, the lawmakers rallied behind the NAACP’s call earlier Tuesday for Black athletes and fans to withhold “athletic and financial support from public universities in states that have moved to limit, weaken, or erase Black voting representation” following the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Louisiana v. Callais.

The decision from the nation’s highest court gutted the federal Voting Rights Act and has prompted a major redistricting push in Southern states that could threaten Black representation in Congress. 

Southeastern Conference targeted

“We are here standing in solidarity with the NAACP and its call for athletes to boycott institutions within the (Southeastern Conference) that belong to states that have unleashed these Jim Crow-like racially oppressive tactics, which is unacceptable, unconscionable and un-American,” Jeffries said. 

“We believe that the silence of these institutions is complicity, and we will not stand for it,” the New York Democrat added.

The SEC, a major athletic conference under the NCAA, includes several member universities located in states that have joined the redistricting wave. The NAACP pointed to Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas as “eight priority states.”

“In this moment, our democracy is in crisis,” said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, at Tuesday’s press conference.

“This is not about partisanship — this is about true representation, and for the NAACP, we will fight with all we have in solidarity with the Congressional Black Caucus to ensure that we have representation, or if we don’t, we will withhold the talent that play on the football field or on the basketball court,” he said. 

SCORE Act under scrutiny 

The Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements, or ‘‘SCORE” Act, seeks to allow compensation but bar student-athletes from being recognized as employees and provide broad antitrust immunity to the NCAA and college sports conferences. 

The college sports world continues to grapple with the fallout from the NCAA’s 2021 guidelines, which allowed student-athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness, or NIL. 

A federal judge in June 2025 also approved the terms of a nearly $2.8 billion antitrust settlement that paved the way for schools to directly pay athletes.

The college sports landscape is also grappling with gender inequity in NIL deals, a patchwork of state NIL laws, booster collectives and the NCAA’s controversial transfer portal, among other issues.

House GOP leadership had also pulled the SCORE Act from the House floor in December.

In a statement, the CBC said U.S. Reps. Shomari Figures, D-Ala., and Janelle Bynum, D-Ore., two of the bill’s lead sponsors, had been negotiating changes in the legislation to improve it but pulled their support, and the CBC did so as well.

The caucus said its members cannot support legislation that benefits large athletic institutions when their leaders are not speaking out about redistricting that weakens Black representation in government.

“This is not politics as usual. This is a defining moral moment for our country,” the caucus said.

“For generations, Black athletes have helped build college athletics into one of the most powerful and profitable industries in American life. The success, visibility, and cultural influence of major athletic conferences and institutions are inseparable from the talent, labor, leadership, and cultural contributions of Black communities. Yet at the very moment those same communities face coordinated attacks on their democratic representation, too many leaders across college athletics have chosen silence.”

Letters sent

The caucus also said it has sent formal letters to SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner Jim Phillips and NCAA President Charlie Baker “demanding immediate engagement and a public response regarding the ongoing assault on Black political representation throughout the South and across the nation.”

Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat, said the caucus “cannot support legislation benefiting major athletic institutions that continue to remain silent while Black voting rights and Black political power are being systematically dismantled across the South.” 

Jeffries noted that “with respect to the SCORE Act, our position has been clear: If LSU is for it, we’re against it. If the University of Alabama is for it, we’re against it. If Ole Miss is for it, we’re against it. If the University of South Carolina is for it, we’re against it. If the University of Tennessee is for it, we’re against it, and if the SEC schools are for it, we are against it.” 

It’s been over six years since Tracy Cole learned that her 17-year-old son Alvin had become the third person killed by Joseph Mensah, at that time a Wauwatosa police officer. Alvin’s death in February 2020 was followed a few months later by the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis officers, fueling months of protests and clashes with the Wauwatosa Police Department, followed by years of litigation in court. 

The Cole family is finalizing a confidential settlement over Alvin’s killing, and his mother has been reflecting on her personal journey to find solace amidst grief. The settlement, coming after two hung juries and as a third trial neared, will not come out of Mensah’s pocket despite what his attorneys implied during the trials, the Cole family’s lawyers told the Wisconsin Examiner. 

“We haven’t had time to grieve yet but it’s coming along,” Tracy Cole told the Examiner in an exclusive interview. The settlement, she said, brings some “closure to my family.” 

Alvin Cole was killed in February 2020 after a foot chase at Wauwatosa’s Mayfair Mall. The teen and his friends left the mall after being involved in a noisy quarrel, during which witnesses told police that a handgun had been displayed. The group ran as officers intercepted them outside the mall, with Mensah arriving in an unmarked squad car without first announcing his presence on the police radio. 

As Cole ran away from officers and mall security a single gunshot rang out and Cole fell to the ground, having shot himself in the forearm. Mensah shot at Cole five times shortly thereafter, while Cole was on his hands and knees listening to officers yell contradictory commands,  “Drop the gun” and “Don’t move!” 

Mensah told police investigators that Cole pointed a gun at him while he was on the ground. Further testimony gathered by the Cole family’s attorney’s, however, found that a security guard and Wauwatosa officer who were closest to Cole when he was shot asserted that neither the teen nor the gun had moved at all before Mensah fired. The only Wauwatosa officer who also said that Cole pointed a gun — Evan Olson — contradicted Mensah by saying that the gun had been pointed in a completely different direction, towards Olson and away from Mensah. 

The contradictions led to a federal civil lawsuit over Cole’s death that went to trial twice. Testimony at those trials revealed that Mensah and Olson were good friends on and off the job and had violated protocols requiring officers to be separated after a shooting. They got into a squad car alone together and turned off their dash cameras and audio equipment before driving back to the police department. According to trial testimony, they did not share those facts with police investigators. Both trials ended in hung juries, leaving jurors unable to decide unanimously whether Mensah’s killing of Alvin Cole was excessive. 

Tracy said that she still remembers those trials, and what it was like to see Mensah for the first time. 

“It’s like I could finally see a person instead of a name,” she said. “It never changed anything of how I feel about him.” 

She also recalled other officers taking the stand as she sat with her husband and remaining children “listening to the different testimonies, just listening to the videos.” Images of Alvin’s body were also briefly shown, something that Tracy said “I’ll never forget.”

The two trials were tense at times, as attorneys battled over what evidence could be shown or attempted to discredit each other’s witnesses while bolstering their own.  At various points, U.S. Marshals stood sentry or increased their presence, which confused both the Cole family’s attorneys and U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman. Several Wauwatosa officers also arrived to watch the proceedings in the gallery, dressed in full uniform, sitting around Mensah’s wife, who is a disgraced Milwaukee officer, or chatting with the pair in the hallways. The Cole’s attorneys argued that the presence of fully uniformed Wauwatosa officers could influence the jury, and that the officers were expressing a sort of solidarity with Mensah, which the Cole family was prohibited from doing for Alvin. 

Nevertheless, the two hung juries were encouraging for Alvin’s mother. “It was somebody in the jury [who] basically believed that my son was never a threat,” said Tracy. “It was somebody listening.” 

Although Alvin’s father was allowed to testify freely in the first trial, Tracy was not allowed to testify. The effort to keep her testimony out of the court record stuck out to Tracy and her attorneys, especially after her testimony was limited during a separate trial in 2023, when Wauwatosa PD stood accused of spying on and surveilling the Cole family and protesters who supported them in 2020. 

“I would basically had said how my son was,” she told the Examiner. “The events that I had with the Wauwatosa Police Department, what they did to me as a mother, that should never had happened.” 

After the Cole family began protesting in 2020, Wauwatosa PD put them, their attorneys, a Wisconsin Examiner reporter, and dozens of supporters on what they called a “target list” on at least one occasion. The list was shared with numerous local, state, and federal agencies. Wauwatosa officers also violently arrested Tracy and her daughters, one of whom claimed to have been stripped searched at a jail and questioned by the FBI. 

Tracy would have testified to all of this if asked, she said, “but they didn’t want a mother’s testimony,” because it would’ve been emotionally impactful to the jury. “But my husband, he was able to speak on my son’s behalf.” 

Tracy feels that the protests, held for over 400 days after George Floyd’s death, changed Wauwatosa for the better. 

“We changed laws,” she told the  Examiner. Wauwatosa PD adopted body cameras in 2021 after the protests, one of the family’s key demands. The department refused to adopt body cameras previously, even after Mensah killed three people over five years. Two of those were less than a year apart, when Mensah was still a rookie, and all the incidents were troubled by a lack of good video. The Milwaukee County District Attorneys Office declined to charge Mensah with any of the killings. The first jury in the Cole family’s case stated that a lack of good video was a main reason they couldn’t agree on a verdict. 

No other fatal police shootings occurred in Wauwatosa during Mensah’s time at the department, and the Cole family’s attorneys say that they’re unable to find other examples of fatal police shootings in Wauwatosa besides Mensah’s, no matter how far back they look.

The protesters also pushed for a ban on no knock warrants, and for Mensah and longtime Police Chief Barry Weber to be removed. Mensah resigned in late 2020 followed by Weber, who retired after leading the department for over 30 years as local media covered how Weber’s department had targeted anyone who was seen as anti-police. 

Finding forgiveness 

Memories of those days are still with Tracy, regardless of how much Wauwatosa officials claim their community has moved on. Fighting back was something she had to do, she said, even though it took a lot out of her. She also needed to learn to forgive Mensah, she said. 

“At the end of the day, I had to learn to forgive him, for what he did to my son,” she told the Examiner. “It took a process to learn to forgive him. I can’t hold a grudge, because that would take a whole part of me. I had to learn to forgive him.” Mensah left law enforcement in 2025 after a stint at the Waukesha County Sheriffs Office, following his time at Wauwatosa PD.

Alvin’s death was tragic and painful for the Cole family, yet it also brought them together.

“It made us stronger, it made us united as one,” said Tracy Cole. She’s had to learn again how to trust law enforcement after her experience with not just Mensah, but with Wauwatosa PD and the suburb as a whole. 

Yet, her experience of being surveilled remains with their family. Tracy watches her every move now. “I never had to, but now I’m very particular where I go, who I be around, who I talk to.”

Since Alvin’s death, more families have been touched by police-related violence and killings in Milwaukee County. 

“I would tell people that’s going through what I went through to never give up,” said Tracy. “Never give up. …the Devil wanted me to give up but I didn’t. Don’t give up. Keep fighting for your child.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Thousands of people joined demonstrations in Selma and Montgomery on Saturday to protest redistricting by southern Republican state legislatures targeting Black Democratic members of Congress.

An afternoon rally in Montgomery that drew over 5,000 people featured politicians, activists and civil rights dignitaries as part of the All Roads Lead to the South campaign, aimed at organizing voters to offset the advantages Republicans may gain from redistricting.

“Our democracy is on the line,” said Victor Coar, who traveled from Birmingham to Montgomery. “Our rights are on the line. They are trying to take it all away. They are suppressing our vote, trying to keep us quiet, trying to silence our vote.”

The events on Saturday deliberately invoked the Civil Rights Movement in cities that featured some of its most famous moments, and came just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court targeted one of its major legacies. In Louisiana v. Callais, decided last month, the nation’s high court weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which bans racial discrimination in voting and election laws, by saying plaintiffs challenging maps under Section 2 would have to prove intentional discrimination, a significantly higher standard than the prior one.

The court’s decision led Republican-controlled legislatures across the South to introduce redistricting legislation targeting Black majority districts. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Alabama to use a 2023 congressional map it had previously ruled racially discriminatory. Gov. Kay Ivey set special primary elections in four congressional districts for August, though plaintiffs in the state’s major redistricting case, known as Allen v. Milligan, have continued litigation. A federal court Friday set a hearing in the case for Friday.

Earlier on Saturday, faith leaders gathered at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Selma and offered prayers, criticisms of the Supreme Court and President Donald Trump and calls for voting rights protections for vulnerable communities.

After an hour, 400 people then marched silently from the church to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where civil rights protestors were attacked on March 7, 1965, an assault that eventually led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

“I know how important moments like these are, and I am here because I know that one of us can go far but we cannot go far enough,” said Rev. Cece Jones-Davis, who traveled from Washington, D.C. to participate in the day’s events, in an interview after the march. “It is going to take all of us, and so I am just here to add my voice to the collective.”

At the Montgomery rally, speakers spoke to several grievances aimed at the Trump administration and at the U.S. Supreme Court regarding voting rights, but also urged the crowd to have resolve during the current political climate.

Bernice King, the daughter of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and CEO of the King Center, harkened to the past as a rallying cry for the present.

“Today we return to the very grounds where my parents and freedom families stood, when Black voter registration was scarce, when discrimination was the norm, and when violence was the price for seeking dignity. Their sacrifice opened the door to the Voting Rights Act,” she said.

Now, she said, people are called once again to act.

“Because the recent Supreme Court rulings demand our presence,” she said. “It was not only a legal decision, it is a moral disgrace and a shameless assault on Black political power.”

Lawmakers from Alabama took the stage to urge the crowd to continue their efforts to mobilize the vote.

“Sometimes I wonder what would I have done if I had been present and alive during the movement,” said Sen. Merika Coleman, D-Pleasant Grove. “Would I have marched? Would you have marched? Would I have participated in a boycott? Would you have done that? Would I be one of the lawyers who filed one of those lawsuits? Would I have been a freedom singer, singing and moaning for the movement like my grandfather? We are here to tell you, you don’t have to wonder anymore. This is our time, right now, and we are fired up and ready to go.”

Then Alabama’s congressional delegation and their colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives took the stage to rally the audience and to meet the moment.

Changing Alabama’s congressional maps will significantly threaten the re-election prospects of U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures, D-Mobile, and could eventually put U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, at risk.

“It is time to show up and show out, not just in one state capital, not just for one election but we need you to step up and show up for every one of our state legislators who are trying to get out the vote,” Sewell said.

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, said that the freedom that we enjoy also requires responsibility.

“We also stand here with the understanding that the freedoms we inherited from our ancestors are not possessions that we hold, they are rights that we hold in trust,” he said to the crowd. “That we were given to be stewards of. A lot of people are drinking deeply from wells of freedom and liberty that they did not dig. They are eating from banquet tables prepared for them by their ancestors, sitting back, getting dumb, fat and ugly, and happy and comfortable. This is one of moments where we understand our blessings come with obligations.”

Khadidah Stone, one of the Allen v. Milligan plaintiffs, criticized Ivey’s decision to schedule the special session during an interview at Saturday’s event in Montgomery.

“I would really like those legislators to focus on the quality of life of Alabamians,” Stone said. “We have a lot of rural hospital closures, we have the highest maternal mortality rate in the country, 50,000 Alabamians just lost SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits, and most of the recipients are the elderly and children.”

Figures said after the rally that he was “inspired by what we see.”

“It is an incredibly humbling experience to see thousands come out and, in essence, help defend my seat, and defend Congresswoman Terri Sewell’s seat, so we can’t help but be overwhelmed by gratefulness and humility by what we are seeing, and encouraged because we think this is going to carry over until November,” he said.

Figures, however, said that he felt there were factual differences between the Callais case and the Milligan case, and expressed confidence that the Milligan plaintiffs could still win.

“The dispute with our district goes all the way back to the 2020 census, and the original maps that the state Legislature redrew, and the three-judge panel, two of whom were appointed by Trump and one by (Ronald) Regan originally, they found that the state had engaged in intentional discrimination in how they drew those maps.”

Several of those who attended the afternoon rally criticized attempts by the various legislatures to reconfigure their district maps.

“It is important for folks to understand what folks are getting taken away from them, and they are getting taken away their right to representation,” said former Sen. Doug Jones, D-Alabama, who is seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination to be governor, in an interview at the event in Montgomery. “We have come so far in the state of Alabama. We have 60 years of progress that has been thrown backwards by the Supreme Court and the Legislature just a few blocks from here.”

Reginald Mason, who also traveled from Birmingham, said voting is what matters.

“People who don’t actually vote are not informed, they don’t know about the struggle that our ancestors went through,” Mason said. “I never thought I would be standing here today fighting for what they have already fought for me.”

Religious and faith leaders expressed many of the same concerns when they led congregants in prayers prior to the morning march across the Edmund Pettus bridge.

“What I realize is that it is just our turn, and freedom is not fought for once, freedom has been fought for many times,” Jones-Davis said. “We are here to do our part.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision gutting the federal Voting Rights Act could upend American politics and trigger a new rush to redraw congressional districts.

The opinion released on Wednesday, in a case called Louisiana v. Callais, holds sweeping consequences for how states and local governments draw district lines at all levels of government, from Congress to school boards. 

Louisiana, whose congressional map is at the center of the case, may even suspend an upcoming primary election so state lawmakers can pass a new map. Other states are also weighing new gerrymanders, either this year or before the 2028 election. 

Gerrymandering refers to drawing political maps for the purpose of gaining some form of unfair advantage — whether partisan or racial or to help or hurt an incumbent or candidate.

Following the decision, Democrats are calling for Congress to pass new federal voting rights legislation, but President Donald Trump would likely veto it. Others are urging more radical changes, including expanding the size of the Supreme Court.

As the nation responds to the decision, here’s a States Newsroom look at the decision, what it means and what could happen next.

What is Louisiana v. Callais?

After the 2020 census, the Louisiana Legislature passed a congressional map that included one district where a majority of residents are Black. About a third of the state’s population is Black.

States typically draw new congressional lines once a decade following the census, though several states have pushed through new maps this year after Trump called on Republicans to maximize their political advantage heading into the midterm elections this November.

Black voters challenged the Louisiana map and an appeals court ordered lawmakers to pass a new map. The legislature in 2024 approved a map that includes a second district where a majority of residents are Black, also called a majority-minority district.

In response, a group of white voters sued over the new map, claiming it violated the U.S. Constitution and was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantees equal protection under the law and the 15th Amendment prohibits denying the right to vote on the basis of race.

The lead plaintiff in the case is Phillip Callais, hence the case’s name. The New York Times reported last year that Callais is a veteran who lives near Baton Rouge. 

The Supreme Court held its first oral argument on the case in March 2025. But instead of issuing a decision later that spring, the court held a second round of oral argument in October. 

At that time, comments by the conservative justices strongly suggested the court was interested in weakening the federal Voting Rights Act.

What is the Voting Rights Act and what role did it play in redistricting?

The Voting Rights Act, or VRA, is a 1965 federal law passed by Congress and signed by President Lyndon Johnson.

The law was designed to stop racial discrimination in voting and combat Jim Crow laws like literacy tests that Southern states used to prevent Black people from voting.

It contains several sections but the Supreme Court decision in Callais dealt with Section 2. That section prohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race and other characteristics. In 1982, Congress expanded Section 2 to ban voting practices that have a discriminatory effect, whether or not the law was intended to discriminate.

Section 2 has acted as a ban on racial gerrymandering, or the practice of drawing districts to minimize the political influence of minority voters. Over time, that’s led to the creation of numerous majority-minority congressional districts.

Many of these majority-minority districts are located in Republican-controlled Southern states  but are held by Democrats. In the past, if states drew new maps to spread minority voters across several districts, they could face challenges in federal court under Section 2.

What did the Supreme Court decide?

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Louisiana’s congressional map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. 

The court found that because the Voting Rights Act didn’t require Louisiana to create a second majority-minority district, the state didn’t have a compelling reason to consider race when drawing its map.

Under the court’s reasoning, Section 2 only applies when evidence supports a strong inference that intentional discrimination occurred. In other words, lawmakers only violate Section 2 when they draw districts with the purpose of affording minority voters less opportunity because of their race.

The court’s majority opinion says “none of the historical evidence presented by plaintiffs came close to showing an objective likelihood that the State’s challenged map was the result of intentional racial discrimination.”

Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, which was joined by all of the court’s conservatives: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neal Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

The court’s three liberal justices — Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented.

Why is the decision a big deal?

The decision empowers states to gerrymander in ways that break apart districts where a majority of residents are Black, Hispanic or belong to another minority group.

In 2019 the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts would no longer take cases about partisan gerrymandering. That’s where states draw maps to help a political party.

Because many majority-minority districts in the South are held by Democrats, the Callais decision gives Republican states the power to break apart these districts if they can show they are doing so for a partisan purpose.

“Under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power,” Kagan wrote in a dissent.

In the short term, the decision means several Black Democrats in the U.S. House may lose their seats if states pass new maps either this year before the November midterm elections or before the 2028 election. At least one projection has pegged the potential losses as high as 19 seats.

The loss of even a few Black representatives would constitute the largest drop in Black representation in Congress since Reconstruction following the Civil War, according to an NPR analysis. 

In the long term, minority voters will have a more difficult time electing their preferred candidates if they are moved into majority-white districts. The decision also applies to state legislative districts, meaning the number of Black state lawmakers may drop as well.

What impact does the Voting Rights Act have after the ruling?

Not nearly as much.

The Supreme Court’s decision didn’t strike down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. But Kagan and other critics of the opinion say the protections once extended by Section 2 are effectively dead.

To block a map under Section 2, challengers will now have to show states intentionally discriminated against minority voters, a very difficult standard when states can say they drew maps for partisan advantage.

In a series of decisions during the past 13 years, the Supreme Court has also weakened other elements of the Voting Rights Act.

In 2013, the court effectively blocked preclearance, another major portion of the law contained in Section 5. Preclearance required states and local governments with a history of discrimination to obtain federal permission before making voting changes.

Preclearance applied to most Southern states and a handful of others. The justices didn’t strike down preclearance, but ruled that the criteria used to determine whether governments should be subject to preclearance was unconstitutional.

The law required districts that had voting tests in place in 1964 and had less than 50% turnout in the 1964 presidential election as eligible for preclearance. The court found that the criteria no longer made sense and were outdated. 

In theory, Congress could pass new criteria that would restore preclearance.

How are Republicans responding?

Republicans in Southern states are pushing for new maps that could hand their party more seats in the November elections — but also oust Black Democratic members of Congress.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, announced on Thursday that the state’s primary election, set for mid-May, would be paused. The suspension will give time for state lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional map to eliminate the state’s second majority-minority district.

“We are working together with the Legislature and the Secretary of State’s office to develop a path forward,” Landry said in a statement.

Florida lawmakers passed a new map hours after the court’s decision that could provide Republicans with up to four additional seats. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis had introduced the map earlier in the week and had cited Callais in urging lawmakers to act.

In Tennessee, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican running for governor, called on state lawmakers to pass a new map. Prominent Republicans in Georgia said the state should pass a new map.

Not all Republicans are pushing for immediate action. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said that while she supports the Supreme Court’s decision, the state wasn’t in a position to hold a special session to redistrict.

How are Democrats responding?

Democrats have condemned the Supreme Court’s opinion and say lawmakers and the public should fight back.

Many Democrats say Congress should pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named after civil rights activist and Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis, who died in 2020. The legislation would set new criteria for preclearance, seeking to restore the practice after the Supreme Court stopped it in 2013.

The U.S. House passed the measure in 2021, but it didn’t advance through the Senate. 

Enacting the measure remains extremely difficult. If Democrats retake control of Congress in the November elections, Trump would almost certainly veto the measure. Republicans in the U.S. Senate would also likely block the bill, unless Democrats eliminate the filibuster.

Democrats are also weighing a new round of gerrymanders in blue states. While most attention has focused on Southern Republican states, Democrats can now also engage in racial vote dilution in states like California to secure additional U.S. House seats.

Some Democrats and opponents of the Supreme Court’s decision are pushing for other responses. 

They include expanding the size of the court from nine justices to dilute its conservative majority, implementing term limits for justices, banning mid-decade redistricting or requiring states to use independent commissions to draw congressional maps.

“We must continue to fight for a democracy in which every vote counts, and in which every vote holds equal power, starting by banning mid-decade gerrymanders nationwide and establishing fair redistricting criteria,” Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, said in a statement.

But those changes would require federal legislation, giving Republicans the opportunity to stop the proposals through filibusters in the Senate or by Trump’s veto.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office on Monday invoked an upcoming landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on the role of race in drawing congressional districts to justify the Republican’s proposed gerrymander.

“The use of race in redistricting should never happen,” the governor’s general counsel, David Axelman, wrote in a memo unveiling a map that aims to hand Republicans four additional U.S. House seats in Florida.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court delivered an opinion sharply weakening a major portion of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Even before the decision, Republicans and Democrats across the country were scrambling to get ahead of the court’s anticipated ruling. 

The rush comes even as state legislative sessions wind down and the window to redraw maps rapidly closes ahead of the midterm elections in November — likely pushing most redistricting battles into the 2028 election cycle.

The opinion in the case, Louisiana v. Callais, could reverberate for decades. The court’s conservative majority significantly curtailed the consideration of race when drawing legislative maps. 

Until now, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has limited states from using maps that dilute the voting power of minority citizens.

“If the Supreme Court does decide to gut or significantly weaken Section 2 of the VRA, we’re very concerned that it would give, basically, the green light to states to racially gerrymander,” Michael McNulty, policy director at Issue One, a group focused on protecting American democracy, said in an interview ahead of the decision.

Republicans could ultimately secure up to 19 U.S. House seats nationally directly because of the Supreme Court’s decision, according to a projection by Fair Fight Action, a Georgia-based progressive voting rights group, and the Black Voters Matter Fund, which advocates on behalf of Black voters. At the state level, the groups have projected that Republicans could gain up to 200 state legislative seats across the South. 

“It is hard to overstate what an earthquake this will be for American politics,” Rick Hasen, a professor at UCLA School of Law and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project, wrote in a blog post following the opinion’s release on Wednesday.

Louisiana case

A group of white voters challenged Louisiana’s congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander after the state in 2024 created a second district where a majority of voters are Black. 

The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative justices agreed, ruling 6-3 that the map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander because the state didn’t need to create a second majority-minority district.

In the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that “none of the historical evidence presented by plaintiffs came close to showing an objective likelihood that the State’s challenged map was the result of intentional racial discrimination.”

Justice Elena Kagan, one of the court’s three liberal justices, wrote in a dissent that the Supreme Court has “had its sights set” on the Voting Rights Act for more than a decade.

“Under the Court’s new view of Section 2, a State can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power,” Kagan wrote.

Following the opinion, Republican-led legislatures across the South are expected to move to break apart Democratic districts where a majority of residents are Black or from other minority groups. 

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, called on the state legislature to reconvene and redraw the state’s congressional districts to create another Republican-held seat in Memphis. Blackburn, who is running for governor, said an additional seat is essential to cement President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves last week announced a special session to redraw the state’s Supreme Court districts, to begin 21 days after the court releases its decision.

“It is a decision that could (and in my view should) forever change the way we draw electoral maps,” Reeves said in a statement announcing the session.

Although the Supreme Court case centered on Louisiana, state officials are likely out of time to adopt a new map for this year’s election. The primary election is set for May 16.

Still, Louisiana will be free to pursue redistricting next year.

U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, Sr., a Democrat who represents one of the state’s two majority-minority districts, said the court’s decision was a “devastating blow” to the promise of equal representation.

“This ruling is about far more than lines on a map — it’s about whether Black Louisianians will have a meaningful opportunity to make their voices heard,” Carter said in a statement.

The redistricting wars of 2026

As of 2024, roughly a third of U.S. House seats represented majority-minority districts — 122 held by Democrats and 26 held by Republicans, according to estimates by Ballotpedia. Texas and California account for nearly half of all the districts.

Seven states have already taken the extraordinary step of redrawing their maps this year after President Donald Trump urged Republicans to draw lines that maximize partisan advantage ahead of the midterms. Maps are typically redrawn every 10 years after the census.

Texas and California struck first, followed by Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Utah. Virginia voters last week approved a redraw, and Florida lawmakers approved a new map Wednesday. 

All told, Republicans may emerge from the redistricting war with a small net advantage of a handful of seats if the Florida plan is enacted and the other maps are upheld.

The calendar will prove a major obstacle to additional gerrymanders this year. Primary elections have already been held in some southern states and ballots have been distributed in others. 

Mississippi, North Carolina and Texas have already held primaries, while ballots have been distributed in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. 

But after November the clock resets, giving states more than a year to pursue further changes to their maps before the 2028 election.

“We are much more concerned about the impact on 2028 and beyond that that would have, letting these politicians basically just pick their voters instead of the voters picking them,” McNulty said.

John R. Lewis bill

As Democrats look ahead to Callais’ likely fallout in the coming years, they have begun urgently calling for action in Congress and at the state level. They also say the decision emphasizes the stakes of this year’s elections.

“Today is a devastating day for democracy and a wake-up call for all those who seek to protect it,” Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said in a statement.

Democrats in Congress have repeatedly offered the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Named after the civil rights activist and Georgia congressman who died in 2020, the legislation aims to strengthen Section 2 and other elements of the current Voting Rights Act, though it’s unclear whether the bill would be constitutional under the Callais decision.

The U.S. House, under Democratic control, passed the legislation in 2021 but it was filibustered in the Senate. Some lawmakers are speaking about the measure again, and Democrats may take control of Congress in November’s elections—though they would still face President Donald Trump in the White House. 

“We can and must revive the Voting Rights Act,” Rep. Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat and the ranking member of the House Administration Subcommittee on Elections, said at a shadow hearing on voting rights on Monday.

For their part, Republicans hailed the Supreme Court decision as long overdue.

U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, in a statement said “activists” for too long had manipulated the redistricting process to achieve political outcomes, dividing Americans in the process.

“The Supreme Court made clear that our elections should be decided by voters, not engineered through unconstitutional mandates,” Hudson said.

Voting Rights Act over the years

Over more than a decade, the Supreme Court has narrowed the potency of the Voting Rights Act, a 1965 law banning racial discrimination in voting that came as Congress battled Jim Crow laws in southern states. 

The measure was intended to help enforce the U.S. Constitution’s 14th and 15th amendments, which guarantee equal protection under the law and prohibit denying the right to vote on the basis of race.

In 2013, the court effectively halted preclearance — the requirement that some states and local governments with a history of discrimination obtain federal permission before changing their voting practices. At the time of the decision, most southern states and a handful of others were subject to preclearance.

The Supreme Court in 2019 ruled that federal courts cannot review allegations of partisan gerrymandering. The decision cleared the way for state lawmakers to gerrymander their maps for political advantage without fear they would be second-guessed by federal judges. 

The opinion helped empower a wave of gerrymanders after the 2020 census and set the stage for this year’s mid-decade redistricting.

Turning to the legislatures

Facing a bleak federal landscape, some voting rights advocates are increasingly turning to state legislatures. The Supreme Court decision undercutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act will likely intensify efforts to advance state-level legislation.

“Because political participation is inherently local, it is imperative to press for protections at the ground level,” Todd Cox, associate director counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, a racial justice legal organization, said at the shadow hearing.

Some Democratic state lawmakers already introduced measures in anticipation of an unfavorable Supreme Court decision.

The Illinois House last week approved a state constitutional amendment that would require districts to be drawn “to ensure that no citizen is denied an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of his or her choice on account of race.”

The Illinois amendment would also require, where practical, the creation of racial coalition or influence districts — terms that refer to districts where racial minorities together constitute a majority of residents. The measure, which must also pass the state Senate before going to voters, was a pre-response to the Callais opinion.

“This will ensure that Illinois will always recognize the fundamental principle that a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people must include all the people,” Illinois Democratic House Speaker Emanuel Welch told reporters after the amendment advanced.

Illinois Republicans have cast the amendment as a Democratic power grab. The state has some of the most gerrymandered maps in the nation, Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, a Republican, said in a statement. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project has given Illinois’ maps an overall “F” grade.

“Let’s be clear: this has nothing to do with strengthening democracy,” McCombie said. “It’s about locking in one-party control at any cost.”

Over six years after 17-year-old Alvin Cole was fatally shot by then-Wauwatosa officer Joseph Mensah, the two sides in a contentious civil case have confirmed that they are close to reaching a confidential settlement deal, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. 

A third jury trial in federal court has been set for early May. Each of the first two trials — both held in 2025 — ended in hung juries, with jurors unable to unanimously decide whether Mensah used excessive force when he shot Cole in February 2020. 

The shooting occurred at Mayfair Mall, after a group of teenagers got into an  argument. One of the teens flashed a handgun and Wauwatosa police officers responded to a call  and encountered the group outside the mall. The teens fled when they saw the police, Cole among them. As Mensah and other officers chased Cole, Cole accidentally shot himself in the arm when the handgun he was carrying went off. Cole fell to the ground as police surrounded him, shouting various commands. 

Mensah told investigators that he shot Cole, believing that Cole was raising or pointing the handgun at him. Other officers’ accounts contradicted Mensah’s.  An officer who was closer to Cole, David Shamsi, said that neither Cole nor the gun moved after Cole was on the ground. Another officer, Evan Olson said that the gun was pointed at him, even though he was in a different position from Mensah. After the shooting, Olson and Mensah — who said that they were friends on and off the job — went off alone together in a squad car, violating policies which state that officers need to be separated after shootings to avoid contaminating statements. 

During the trials, Mensah said that he fired to protect himself and others around him, and that he didn’t want to die. Mensah also testified that he did not remember much of what happened that night. Cole was the third person Mensah had killed on the job during his five years as a Wauwatosa officer. Mensah resigned from the department in 2020 following months of protests over the shooting, and was hired by the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department before he  retired from law enforcement. Jurors  in the case were not allowed to know about Mensah’s two other shootings in 2015 and 2016, less than a year apart.

The terms of the settlement, including the amount awarded to the family, will remain confidential, lawyers said. During the first trial, attorneys representing Cole’s family asked for $22 million, and then $9 million in the second trial.

This article has been edited to correct the settlement figures sought during the first and second trials. 

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

National leaders warned the Detroit NAACP of an ongoing attack on democracy during what organizers say is the largest sitdown dinner of its kind in the world Sunday.

Speakers at the 71st annual Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner, including U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and New York Attorney General Letitia James, said efforts to obtain Michigan ballot data, require proof of citizenship to vote and potentially weaken the Voting Rights Act present a major threat to the rights of Americans.

James received the Ida B. Wells Freedom and Justice Award, which she said she shares with Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel after Nessel pledged to deny the federal government access to Michigan’s ballots from the 2024 presidential election.

“This award’s namesake once said, ‘The way to right wrongs is to light the truth upon them, to shine light in the darkness,’” James said. “AG Nessel is the holder of that light of liberty in Michigan, just as our ancestors grabbed the torch of freedom and used it to light the way forward for all of us.”

Jeffries said the election of President Donald Trump in 2024 “was definitively a setback,” but said that “a setback is nothing more than a setup for a comeback.”

He said 2026 will be the year of the “great American comeback.”

“We’re not here to step back,” Jeffries said. “We’re here to push back at all times and ensure that this country will have a free and fair election in November.”

The Democratic leader – who was introduced by several speakers as the next speaker of the House – said that “when the gavels change hands,” Democrats will pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act “so we can end the era of voter suppression in the United States of America once and for all.”

The theme of this year’s dinner was “Liberty or Oppression – The Choice is Ours.”

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said the “choice between liberty and oppression is really one between apathy and action.”

“They don’t want Detroit to have a voice. They can’t defend their record of failure, so they want to rig the game to win. But not on my watch, not on your watch, not on our watch,” Whitmer said. “I know it’s hard to feel energetic right now, but nothing changes if we take a back seat.”

The dinner came one day after a gunman opened fire near the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C., reportedly targeting Trump.

Jeffries condemned political violence and thanked law enforcement for protecting the attendees at both events.

“Here in America, we should be able to agree to disagree without ever being disagreeable with each other,” Jeffries said. “At the same time, I can assure you that we will continue to speak truth to power at all times as we navigate our way through the trials, the turbulence and the tribulations of this moment.”

James said political violence “has no place in society,” adding that she has faced threats to her own life.

But she added that she continues to “yearn and pray for a compassionate, civil, competent and inclusive government in Washington, D.C.”

The Detroit NAACP also honored civil rights activist Ruby Bridges, who was the first Black child to attend the formerly whites-only William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana in 1960.

Jeffries said “our community has always had the ability to imagine a better future here in America and then work hard to bring it about.”

James said Bridges set an example for everyone to follow.

“If a 6-year-old Ruby Bridges can find the courage to walk through an angry, screaming mob just to get to school, so can we,” James said.

A grand jury indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, which alleges payments the organization made to informants in extremist groups functioned as financial support for them.

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday that a federal grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama returned an 11-count indictment against the SPLC, a civil rights nonprofit based in Montgomery, Alabama, that helped take down some of the most prominent white supremacist groups in the country.

“As the indictment describes, the SPLC was not dismantling these groups,” Blanche said. “It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”

SPLC interim CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement Tuesday evening that the organization was “outraged by the false allegations levied against SPLC — an organization that for 55 years has stood as a beacon of hope fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice to create a multi-racial democracy where we can all live and thrive.” 

“Taking on violent hate and extremist groups is among the most dangerous work there is, and we believe it is also among the most important work we do,” Fair said. “To be clear, this program saved lives.”

Fair said in a video released earlier on Tuesday that SPLC was the subject of a criminal probe and that he believed it was connected with a now-discontinued paid informant program, which Fair said provided information and intelligence on extremist groups that was passed to law enforcement.

The indictment characterizes those payments, dating back to the 1980s, as funding for leaders and organizers of racist groups including the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation and the National Alliance.

No individuals were named in the indictment, but Blanche at the news conference, referred to one individual who was paid $270,000 over eight years. In total, according to the indictment, between 2014 and 2023, SPLC paid at least $3 million to eight people.

The indictment also pointed to an imperial wizard of the United Klans of America, as well as an alleged member of the online leadership chat group that planned the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

Additionally, the indictment accuses the organization of funneling money to violent extremist groups by using the informants SPLC recruited.

FBI Director Kash Patel said at the news conference that SPLC tried to hide criminal activity from banks.

“They set up shell companies and entities around America so that the financial institutions that we rely on as everyday Americans were deceived in believing that the money was not coming from the Southern Poverty Law Center in perpetuation of this scheme and fraud, but rather fictitious entities they stood up to perpetuate this ongoing fraud,” Patel said.

The indictment includes  six counts of wire fraud, alleging SPLC defrauded donors; three counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank and one count of money laundering.

Fair said earlier on Tuesday that the paid informant program operated “in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system.”

The interim CEO said that SPLC did not “share our use of informants broadly with anyone to protect the identity and safety of the informants and their families.”

“And while we no longer work with paid informants, we continue to take their safety seriously,” he said.  

A spokesperson for the organization said Tuesday that the program “predates me and a lot of people here. Most people who were involved are not even with the organization, because it has been a very long time since it has ended.”

Fair accused President Donald Trump and the DOJ of targeting SPLC for political purposes.

“Today, the federal government has been weaponized to dismantle the rights of our nation’s most vulnerable people, and any organization like ours that stands in the breach,” Fair said. “We stood in the vanguard then, and we stand in the vanguard today. We will not be intimidated into silence or contrition, and we will not abandon our mission or the communities we serve.”

The SPLC, founded in 1971, rose to prominence by bringing lawsuits against the Klan and other organizations that forced them to declare bankruptcy. Members of the Klan bombed the organization’s headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama, in July 1983. The group has also done work on voting rights, immigration and labor issues.

The group has often been outspoken and critical of Trump, and Republicans and conservatives have made it a target for years, saying it lumps right-wing groups in with extremist organizations. The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the SPLC in December.

Updated at 6:37 p.m. with details of indictment, comments from DOJ press conference and reaction from SPLC.

Two right-wing organizations are taking aim at the ban on conversion therapy in Wisconsin’s professional code for social workers, citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

But the head of a group that fought for the ban says professional standards are the central issue — and aren’t subject to free speech claims. 

In a joint letter Wisconsin Family Action and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty are demanding that Wisconsin repeal the ban. Conversion therapy is a widely discredited practice purporting to change sexual orientation or gender identity.

The Wisconsin Marriage and Family Therapy, Professional Counseling, and Social Work Examining Board included the ban in its updated professional code published in April 2024.

The code declares that it is “unprofessional conduct” for practitioners to use or promote “any intervention or method that has the purpose of attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, including attempting to change behaviors or expressions of self or to reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same gender.”

WILL has been at the center of many conflicts over trans-inclusive policies and gender identity. Wisconsin Family Action has also lobbied against including gender identity in state civil rights protections.

Their letter seeking the conversion therapy ban’s repeal cites a U.S. Supreme Court ruling March 31 in a lawsuit that challenges Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy on First Amendment grounds.

The high court ruling didn’t throw out the Colorado law directly. Instead, it instructed the federal court hearing the Colorado lawsuit to subject that law to “strict scrutiny” on First Amendment grounds because it seeks to “regulate speech based on viewpoint.”

The WILL-Wisconsin Family Action letter, first reported by Wisconsin Health News, was sent April 14 to Gov. Tony Evers, the Department of Safety and Professional Services and the chair of the social work examining board. 

The letter demands that the board stop enforcing the ban and start the process of repealing it. WILL represents a Christian counselor in a pending federal lawsuit to block a La Crosse city ordinance that bans conversion therapy.

Marc Herstand, executive director for the National Association of Social Workers’ Wisconsin chapter, said the U.S. Supreme Court ruling isn’t relevant to the Wisconsin rule.

“I don’t think it applies because we have a rule, and according to state statute, professional boards can create their own ethical standards,” Herstand told the Wisconsin Examiner. That is supported by both the general law that applies to the state’s licensing boards as well as specific provisions authorizing the social worker board, he said.

Herstand said rules against conversion therapy are to prevent harm. He compared the practice to an electrician’s bad advice that leads to a homeowner’s fatal electric shock or a health provider whose bad advice leads a patient with diabetes to lose a limb to nerve damage or the loss of circulation.

“That’s not free speech — that’s unprofessional conduct,” Herstand said. The electrician or health professional “would be held accountable by the [relevant professional] board. Conversion therapy is exactly the same thing.”

Republican lawmakers repeatedly blocked several previous attempts to update Wisconsin’s social work standards. In April 2024, after the Legislature’s session ended, the social work examining board updated its professional standards to restore the conversion therapy ban.

Then, in a landmark state Supreme Court ruling in July 2025, Chief Justice Jill Karofsky wrote that the statutes that state legislators had used to review and suspend administrative rules violated the Wisconsin Constitution. The examining board “exercised its statutory authority” when it revised its rules to ban conversion therapy, Karofsky wrote in the 4-3 decision.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE