Civil Rights & Immigration

Jordan Laatz, a UW-Whitewater student who is a member of the university's Native American club, braids white corn cobs together so that the cobs can be hung and dried before being processed and distributed to Oneida Nation tribal members. (Photo by Julian Emerson)

Native American agricultural leaders detail farm bill priorities at U.S. Senate hearing

BY: - March 27, 2023

WASHINGTON — A roundtable of Native American agricultural leaders at a recent U.S. Senate hearing lobbied for increased sovereignty and social justice in the coming farm bill by expanding tribes’ jurisdiction over U.S. Department of Agriculture programs.  It’s called “638” authority and refers to Public Law 93-638, which gives tribes the power to manage certain […]

Protesters march toward Wauwatosa as the curfew sets in. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

Contradiction raised in Wauwatosa curfew lawsuit ruling

BY: - March 17, 2023

A motion was filed in federal court Friday to restore claims that were dismissed in a federal lawsuit filed over the city of Wauwatosa’s handling of protests in 2020. Claims raised by 17 of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs argue that Wauwatosa police Lt. Joseph Roy violated the Drivers License Protection Act (DPPA) by sharing personal information […]

Riot police and National Guard confront protesters in Wauwatosa. (Photo by Isiah Holmes)

Judge dismisses more claims in Wauwatosa curfew lawsuit; others remain

BY: - March 16, 2023

A federal judge has thrown out First Amendment claims raised in a lawsuit over the city of Wauwatosa’s handling of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, while leaving in place other claims, including those relating to the collection by law enforcement officers of personal information about people present during the demonstrations. On Monday, U.S. Magistrate […]

The Milwaukee County Sheriff Offices drone in flight. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

Milwaukee sheriff drone flights dropped in 2022

BY: - March 13, 2023

Drone flights carried out by the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) dropped significantly in 2022. According to a log of drone flights obtained by the Wisconsin Examiner through open records requests, the office flew drones twice last year. That’s a sharp decline from 2021, which saw over 20 drone flight days. The updated flight log […]

National ban on transgender athletes in girls’ sports passed by U.S. House panel

BY: - March 9, 2023

WASHINGTON – The U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee early Thursday passed a bill on a party-line vote that would block transgender girls from competing in school sports consistent with their gender identity, a reflection of a broader push in multiple states to curb the rights of transgender student athletes. The bill, H.R. 734, introduced […]

Parent's guide to sex education and a Holy Bible on a copy of Preamble to the US constitution.

GOP bill mandating federal Parents Bill of Rights passed by U.S. House committee

BY: - March 9, 2023

WASHINGTON — A national “Parents Bill of Rights” is headed for a full U.S. House vote after the House Committee on Education and the Workforce early Thursday approved the measure designed to empower parents to inspect books and other teaching materials in schools. Lawmakers on the committee debated the GOP-backed bill that would federally mandate […]

Nearly 22 million women, girls and gender-nonconforming persons of reproductive age are now living in states where abortion has been banned or is in other ways inaccessible, a contingent of U.S. and global human rights groups noted in a letter to the U.N. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt, States Newsroom)

This International Women’s Day, U.S. anti-abortion laws violate human rights, groups say

BY: - March 8, 2023

Ahead of International Women’s Day, hundreds of U.S. and global human rights groups, doctors, and attorneys have asked the United Nations to intervene on behalf of the millions of women in the U.S. who have been left without access to legal abortion and vital forms of reproductive health care in the wake of last summer’s […]

COMMENTARY
Essential immigrant workers and their families gather in front of the Federal Building in Milwaukee for the Day Without Immigrants call to action. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

Proclaiming March 31 César Chavez Day in Wisconsin

BY: - March 3, 2023

State representatives from the Latino Caucus are collecting co-sponsors to proclaim March 31 as César Chavez Day. This commemorative holiday would be an uplift of the countless migrant workers who serve Wisconsin’s dairy industry, and it would honor the valiant history of migrant labor movements in Wisconsin. In the 1960s, Wisconsin was a home for […]

COMMENTARY
Standing child holding a sign, anti-trafficking, stopping violent acts against children, stopping child labor.|

Enslaved workers are making your breakfast: Wisconsin confronts labor trafficking 

BY: - February 28, 2023

On Friday, a coalition of advocates for migrant workers and state officials announced a $5.1 million grant to fight labor trafficking in Wisconsin. Milwaukee, where the coalition made the announcement, from the headquarters of United Migrant Opportunity Services (UMOS), was identified not long ago as a center for human trafficking in the U.S. “We have […]

Suburban Development Survey Map

Lawmakers weigh in as Wauwatosa asks state to undo racial covenants

BY: - February 28, 2023

The fate of decades-old racially restrictive housing covenants in parts of Wisconsin is now up to the state. Earlier this month, the city of Wauwatosa’s common council unanimously voted to move towards dissolving the restrictions against selling properties to nonwhites or non-Christians that still remain on some property deeds. A resolution passed by the council […]

The dairy farm in Dane County, Wisconsin, where an 8-year-old Nicaraguan boy died in 2019. (Jesus J Montero for ProPublica)

Death on a dairy farm

BY: and - February 23, 2023

This story was originally published by ProPublica. The call to 911 came in a little after 11 p.m. A man said a small boy on his dairy farm had severe head injuries. He said he thought the boy had been trampled by a cow. Ann Ingolia, a deputy for the Dane County Sheriff’s Office, was […]

COMMENTARY
Local officials, immigrant rights advocates and business leaders at the Wisconsin Safe Roads Coalition press conference in the Capitol on Feb. 21, 2023 endorsed Gov. Tony Evers' proposal to restore driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants | Wisconsin Examiner photo

Wisconsin should restore driver’s licenses for immigrant workers

BY: - February 23, 2023

No one could possibly favor putting thousands of unlicensed and uninsured drivers on the road. Yet the Wisconsin Legislature did just that back in 2007 when it passed a law taking away driver’s licenses from people who don’t have valid Social Security numbers. The result is that undocumented immigrant workers, people we rely on to […]