ACLU of West Virginia Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Wheeling Suspends Public Camping Ban

The city of Wheeling has agreed to temporarily suspend its urban camping ban.

The ordinance bans camping on public property in the city, punishable by a fine of up to $500. City workers cleared an encampment behind the Nelson Jordan Center last week.

The city agreed to exempt a camping site at a leased parking lot near the Catholic Charities Neighborhood Center. Catholic Charities, along with other homeless agency partners, are developing rules for this temporary exemption. It is anticipated that this area will begin immediately. The city said it is a temporary location subject to further discussions with Catholic Charities.

The city will also temporarily pause enforcement of the ordinance to give people time to move their belongings to the exempted site.

The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia dismissed their suit against the city of Wheeling after the exemption was announced. The suit has asked for an injunction as well as declaratory relief finding that the ban and forced removals are an unconstitutional practice.

In a press release, ACLU West Virginia Legal Director Aubrey Sparks said she and others “hope the city will work with service providers and advocates on solutions that are not just constitutional, but also humane, practical and compassionate.”

Morrisey Argues In Favor Of Trans Sports Ban To Fourth Circuit

On Friday, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey continued to defend the state’s law barring transgender athletes from participating on sports teams that align with their gender identity.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey presented arguments Friday to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia in a case challenging West Virginia’s law barring transgender athletes from participating on sports teams that align with their gender identity.

In 2021, the West Virginia Legislature enacted a law “to defend the integrity of women’s sports” that prohibits transgender girls and women in the state from competing on sports teams at “any public secondary school or state institution of higher education.”

The bill was signed into law by Gov. Jim Justice on April 28, 2021.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of West Virginia, Lambda Legal, and Cooley LLP challenged the law on May 8, 2021, on behalf of Becky Pepper Jackson, a now 13-year-old middle school transgender girl who would be kicked off her middle school’s girls’ cross country and track and field teams if the law were enforced.

Since then, Morrisey’s office has fought to dismiss the lawsuit.

Morrisey was assisted by attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a Christian conservative legal organization, in filing this litigation.

In January, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia upheld the law, ruling that the state legislature’s definition of “girl” and “woman” in the context of HB 3293, the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” is “constitutionally permissible” and that the law complies with Title IX.

Title IX was signed into law on June 23, 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government.

Morrisey said the law protects female athletes’ safety and keeps female sports competitive for female athletes, consistent with Title IX and the Constitution.

Jackson’s legal team won a ruling from the lower court blocking enforcement of the law pending final resolution of the case. In February 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals and the Fourth Circuit blocked the state’s effort to kick Jackson off the team as her legal team appealed the lower court’s subsequent ruling upholding the 2021 law.

In August of this year, the Fourth Circuit reinstated a preliminary injunction that allowed Jackson to continue participating on girls’ sports teams until it rules on her appeal.

The Attorney General’s Office contends that Title IX doesn’t mention transgender status. Instead, the marker is biological sex, which recognizes that there are distinct differences between males and females. Further, Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of biological sex, not gender identity.

“Look, I’m very hopeful that we’re going to prevail on the Fourth Circuit,” Morrisey said in a recorded statement. “I think we’re absolutely correct on the law. The district court got it right. And to us, it’s a matter of basic fairness and common sense that biological males should not be playing sports with women. We submitted 3,000 pages; 500 docket entries. This should be so straightforward. I’m hopeful the Fourth Circuit sees our way after these arguments.”

West Virginia is one of 23 states that have banned transgender girls from playing on girls’ teams in the last three years.

ACLU-WV Parts Ways With Danielle Walker

Former House of Delegates member Danielle Walker of Morgantown is no longer leading the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia.

Former House of Delegates member Danielle Walker of Morgantown is no longer leading the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of West Virginia.

A statement provided by Anne Farmer, ACLU-WV Board of Directors president, notes, “We are unable to provide comment at this time, as this is a personnel matter. We can confirm that Eli Baumwell has been serving as the interim executive director since Sept. 15.”

The organization’s website says Baumwell will continue to serve as ACLU-WV’s chief lobbyist at the West Virginia Legislature.

An outspoken, progressive Monongalia County Democrat, Walker took the executive director post in April of this year, becoming the first Black woman to hold the position.

She was elected to the House of Delegates in 2018. With a fiery, church pulpit oratory, Walker often helped lead demonstrations at the Capitol protesting abortion bans and LGTBQ+ issues.

She resigned from the legislature and as vice-chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party to take the ACLU-WV job.

Walker told West Virginia Public Broadcasting when she took the ACLU leadership role that an initial priority would be to make the unaware in West Virginia understand how the ACLU-WV can help people to help themselves.

“ACLU has done some wonderful things and is still doing wonderful things in our state,” Walker said on April 3. “But we also have some pockets regionally, where some folks don’t even know the mission of ACLU. And so those are the target areas that we’re going to look towards.”

Messages to Walker for comment remained unanswered at the time of publication.

Appeals Court Again Allows Transgender Student To Participate In Sports

The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, has denied a bid by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey to allow the state to enforce a ban on transgender student participation in school sports.

A transgender student in Harrison County can continue to participate on her school’s track team, a federal court has ruled.

Lawmakers passed, and Gov. Jim Justice signed, HB 3293 in 2021. The student, Becky Pepper Jackson, challenged the law, represented by the ACLU of West Virginia and Lambda Legal.

A U.S. district judge in Charleston upheld the law in January. Pepper Jackson appealed to the Fourth Circuit, which allowed her to continue her participation on the track team.

On Friday, the Fourth Circuit rejected Morrisey’s assertion that Pepper Jackson’s improvement in discus and shotput was unfair to her teammates and she should be ineligible to participate.

Judge Steven Agee, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, dissented.

ACLU: Government Officials Should Think Twice Before Blocking On Social Media

ACLU-WV filed a lawsuit against Jefferson County commissioner Steve Stolipher for violating the First Amendment rights of a constituent.

The American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia (ACLU-WV) has filed a lawsuit in the Jefferson County Circuit Court against Jefferson County Commissioner Steve Stolipher. In May 2022, Stolipher blocked constituent Christy Stadig, a resident of Harpers Ferry, from his official government Facebook page.

Stadig had responded to a comment on Stoliphers Facebook page asking him about what he had posted. She got a notification that the commissioner had responded to her comment but when she went back to his page, her original comment and his response had been deleted. A few hours later, she realized she had been blocked.

Stadig went to a Jefferson County Republican Executive Committee meeting where she asked Stolpher to unblock her from his Facebook. He responded by laughing at her request.

Aubrey Sparks, the legal director at ACLU-WV, says that blocking a person from an official Facebook page is one of the most common complaints her department gets. She says sometimes there is no malicious intent, just a lack of knowledge.

“Sometimes public servants just legitimately don’t know that this is something they aren’t permitted to do, and so they rather block someone than really engage.” Sparks said. “Blocking is a problem that is incredibly widespread, and we want to make the point that it’s not okay at any level of government…it is a big deal to our client because she was relying on that access to information to learn about her representatives and policies that would affect her as a resident of Jefferson County.”

Del. Kathie Hess Crouse, R-Putnam, has three Facebook pages. Her personal, campaign, and official Delegate page. While she occasionally blocks or deletes from her personal and campaign pages, she does not on her official delegate page. She says she engages with those with similar and opposing views.

“Most of the time I let them vent, I’ll read what they’ve said, if it’s something I need to take into consideration I will, but I let them vent and say whatever they want to say,” Crouse said.

Government official’s social media pages are seen as public forums and blocking a constituent is restricting their freedom of speech. The ACLU-WV has a toolkit to let people know their rights if they have been blocked by a government official.

Jefferson County Residents Concerned ‘Adult Live Performance’ Ordinance Targets LGBTQ People

Jefferson County residents voiced their concerns Thursday at the Jefferson County Commission meeting over a new county ordinance that limits drag performances in front of minors.

The ordinance bars minors from attending what it defines as “Adult Live Performances” featuring obscene or sexual material — the ordinance defines that as “nudity, stimulated sexual acts, lewd behavior, and other obscenity.”

County Commissioner Jennifer Krouse, who introduced the ordinance, said it’s intended to keep kids out of “obscene situations.”

Violators could face a $500 fine or 30 days in jail on first offense, and a $1,000 fine and six months in jail for subsequent convictions.

The above screenshots are screenshots of the draft version of the ordinance that was passed by the Jefferson County Commission on Thursday, June 1, 2023. Credit: Jefferson County Commission

Though drag is not specifically mentioned in the ordinance’s text, citizens attending a public meeting say its wording is similar to anti-drag laws passed in other states, like Tennessee’s Senate Bill 3, and goes against the First Amendment rights of the LGBTQ community, for whom drag is a tradition.

“My concern is that it’s going to be used to create issues for LGBTQIA people, and especially trans people in our community,” Jefferson County resident Kelly Pannill-Perkins said. She was present and made comments during a lengthy public hearing portion of the meeting. “I’m also concerned it’s going to unnecessarily prohibit our theatrical and music and dance productions in our area, which are vital to not just our culture, but our economics in this region.”

That sentiment was echoed by Bill Veldran, a Charles Town resident who has performed in drag for 25 years.

“Does this ruling mean that if I step out of my house in drag, that I could be attacked by the police?” Veldran said. “It’s so vague, for one thing, and it just seems to encompass everything.”

The American Civil Liberties Union’s West Virginia branch also addressed the ordinance Thursday afternoon, tweeting, “If this ordinance is used in any way to quell the rights of performers, we will not hesitate to take swift action.”

Commissioner Krouse responded to concerns following the meeting.

“I’ve been to a drag show, I had a great time. It was fun,” Krouse said. “There was no reason to have kids there. It was not a political thing, but it was funny, it was light-hearted, nothing serious about it. These days, that’s changed. It’s become overtly political. It’s become very, very sexual in nature.”

The ordinance passed 3 to 2 after a committee discussion. Opposition included Jefferson County Commission President Steve Stolipher, who advocated for a public hearing before the ordinance’s passage.

A similar bill at the state level, Senate Bill 253, was also introduced during the 2023 West Virginia Legislative session. It was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee but did not make it past the Senate before the session’s end.