Missouri Bill To Ban Racial Profiling Draws Attention For Including Gays
Legislation Inspired By Michael Brown’s Murder Covers Race, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity
Two African-American Democrats in Missouri, ground zero for the #BlackLivesMatter movement in the wake of Michael Brown’s 2014 murder at the hands of Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson, have introduced a bill that would ban police profiling of racial and other minorities, including gays.Â
The bill would require Missouri law enforcement officers to report the “perceived race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, English language proficiency or national origin” of motorists and pedestrians who are stopped by police. Agencies would then report the data to the state, and if it were to show a pattern of police profiling, they could be subject to increased officer training requirements, funding cuts and even de-certification.Â
In addition to anecdotal evidence such as Brown’s shooting, existing data in Missouri shows that a ban on racial profiling by police is sorely needed. Missouri already requires law enforcement officers to report the ethnicity of those who are stopped, and in 2014, blacks were 75 percent more likely to be pulled over than whites, according to The St. Louis Post Dispatch.Â
“Blacks and Hispanics also were more likely to be searched as a result of those stops — even though white drivers were more likely to be in possession of drugs, weapons or other illegal contraband,” the newspaper reports.Â
Unfortunately, a column in the Post Dispatch misrepresents the new bill, known as the Fair and Impartial Policing Act, by referring to it in a headline as a “driving while gay” measure and questioning the rationale of requiring police to record characteristics that aren’t readily discernible. Not surprisingly, commenters expressed outrage about the proposal, even calling one of the bill’s authors, state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, a “communist.”Â
To be clear, though, the bill would prohibit law enforcement officers from asking drivers, passengers and pedestrians for anything other than ID, motor vehicle registration, name and address. In addition, the identities of those who are stopped and the officers who stopped them would remain private.
Moreover, numerous studies have shown that LGBT people, just like other minorities, routinely are victims of police profiling — especially transgender and gender-nonconforming people, queer people of color, and homeless youth.
In a 2015 paper titled “Discrimination and Harassment by Law Enforcement Officers in the LGBT Community,” researchers at UCLA’s Williams Institute wrote:
“A 2014 report on a national survey of 2,376 LGBT people and people living with HIV found that 73% of respondents had face-to-face contact with the police in the past five years. Of those respondents, 21% reported encountering hostile attitudes from officers, 14% reported verbal assault by the police, 3% reported sexual harassment and 2% reported physical assault at the hands of law enforcement officers.”Â
In December 2014, in response to controversies nationwide over fatal police shootings, the U.S. Department of Justice released guidance prohibiting federal law enforcement officers from profiling based on race and other factors, including sexual orientation and gender identity. At the time, the National Center for Transgender Equality said the DOJ guidance didn’t go far enough because it exempted TSA and border security agents, as well as certain anti-terror investigators, in addition to state and local law enforcement officers:
“At a time when many communities are reeling from violence at the hands of police misconduct, our nation’s commitment to equality must be firm and without exception,” NCET Executive Director Mara Keisling said. “Whether ‘driving while Black,’ ‘flying while Muslim,’ ‘walking while Latino,’ or ‘walking while trans,’ it is always and everywhere wrong.”Â
(Notably, the Missouri bill includes sexual orientation and gender, but not “gender identity,” in its definition of “biased policing.” However, it includes “gender identity” in describing a violation of the statute.)
In March 2015, President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing released recommendations mostly focusing on racial profiling, but also addressing LGBT issues. The recommendations included legislation similar to the new Missouri bill, as well as establishing search and seizure procedures “that cease using the possession of condoms as the sole evidence of intent to engage in prostitution-related offenses.”Â
Also last year, Democratic Congressmen Ben Cardin and John Conyers reintroduced the End Racial Profiling Act (ERPA), which also includes sexual orientation and gender identity. The bill currently has only 99 co-sponsors:
“From Stonewall to stop-and-frisk, LGBTQ people … have long been targets of profiling and other forms of discriminatory policing,” Lambda Legal wrote in support of the bill. “The consequences have ranged from deportation to death, arrest to assault, homophobic harassment to humiliation.”Â
Maryland — site of widespread protests over the 2015 death of Freddie Gray by Baltimore police — recently became the first state to enact a ban on police profiling of minorities, including LGBT people, and it seems likely that other progressive states will soon follow suit.
Let’s just hope debates about these critical measures aren’t reduced to “driving while gay.”
Â
This article has been updated.Â
Image by N!(K — loveforphotography – via Flickr and a CC license
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
