THE BIG PICTURE
: The Star spoke with Kearney, MO residents this week about a recently filed lawsuit against the Kearney School District that details a series of incidents racially targeting a Black student. Some residents spoke about their experiences, but many others wouldn’t speak out of fear of retaliation or that it would ostracize them from the community.
: After the Kansas Supreme Court upheld a Republican-drawn congressional map that divides Wyandotte County, county leaders slammed the decision, vowing a long-term struggle for better maps. The upheld map is also the culmination of a yearlong GOP strategy to challenge Rep. Sharice Davids that fell into place Wednesday.
: Meanwhile in Missouri, Gov. Mike Parsons signed a new congressional map that likely maintains the state’s current mix of Republican and Democratic districts and protects U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s seat in Congress.
: Six teenagers have been taken into custody in connection to the weekend shooting death of a 19-year-old found in an Olathe park. Prosecutors have filed motions to charge four of the teens as adults.
HERE’S WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW:
Tiffaney Whitt, the mother of two former students at Kearney School District, wasn’t surprised when she heard about a lawsuit accusing the district in a series of racist incidents targeting a Black student.
The lawsuit, filed in Clay County Circuit Court this month, brought back the trauma Whitt’s kids faced while attending school in the community.
Last year, Whitt filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights after her family faced death threats and racist harassment both at school and at home, including one incident in which one of her sons received a threat referencing the lynching of Emmett Till.
She ultimately pulled her children out of the district and moved to south Kansas City after administrators refused to step in. According to Whitt, the discrimination leveled at her children and the Black student in the lawsuit does not stop at the school district.
“This is a community issue and a school district issue,” she said.
On Tuesday, at least a dozen Kearney residents interviewed by The Star refused to comment on the lawsuit publicly out of fear that it would hurt their small business or ostracize them from their community. Some said the community needs to change while others voiced that it’s not an issue and said the lawsuit is an exaggeration.
Read more of this story from The Star’s Matti Gellman and Maia Bond.
WYANDOTTE LEADERS, REP. SHARICE DAVIDS REACT TO NEW KANSAS MAP
Wyandotte County leaders reacted angrily to a Kansas Supreme Court decision upholding a new congressional map that divides the solidly liberal, racially diverse community for the first time in 40 years, The Star’s Jonathan Shorman and Natalie Wallington report.
The opinion, rejecting a legal challenge to the Republican-drawn boundary lines, stung activists, legislators and others who had fought the map for months, first in the Legislature, then in the courts. They had hoped the state’s high court would, for the first time, place limits on how far GOP lawmakers could go in gerrymandering districts.
Instead, they are now vowing a long-term struggle for better maps that will last a decade or more.
Wyandotte County had previously been entirely within the 3rd District, held by Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids. Under the new map, the county is split roughly along I-70, with the southern half remaining in the 3rd. The northern half will move into the 2nd District, held by Republican Rep. Jake LaTurner.
Davids now faces a tougher path to re-election in the new 3rd District, which includes additional conservative-leaning counties. She is expected to face Amanda Adkins, the former Kansas Republican Party chair, in the general election.
At the Capitol on Wednesday, Davids appeared unfazed. But her seat is now considered a toss-up. Is her campaign for re-election doomed? Star reporters Katie Bernard and Daniel Desrochers take a closer look.
THE STAR’S PICKS
: Two Missouri women accused of breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6 — one of whom allegedly bragged on Facebook that they stole House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s beer — each pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to one misdemeanor.
: If you’re trying to see all of the hearts in the Parade of Hearts, there’s one more to add to the list. The newest heart, titled “National Champs,” honors KU’s NCAA Basketball Championship earlier this year.
: Area franchisees for Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken are expanding in the metro. Here’s where the new locations are planned.
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