Constitutional Law

Missouri's Approved Gun Bills: Concealed-Carry Permits Easier to Get, Record-Keeping Banned

The legislative session in Missouri is finally over. And after months of heated debates on guns, lawmakers have sent controversial bills to the governor that would dramatically change the concealed-carry permit application process -- and increase protections for gun owners. That is, these bills ma ... More >>

Contraception: Tim Jones Still Fighting Birth Control Mandate After Ruling, Cites Free Speech

Should employers and insurers in Missouri be allowed to deny coverage of birth control if it violates their religious beliefs? A federal judge, as we reported earlier this week, ruled that they cannot be exempt -- in a decision overturning a Missouri law that directly contradicted President Barack O ... More >>

Sue Gibson, HIV Patient in Castlewood Case: Other Patients May Have Been Denied Care

The Department of Justice agreed last week that a St. Louis eating disorder clinic discriminated against an HIV-positive woman by intentionally delaying her admittance and denying her treatment. Castlewood Treatment Center for Eating Disorders has been ordered to pay a $140,000 settlement, the secon ... More >>

Castlewood Eating Disorder Clinic: Sue Gibson Denied Treatment Because of HIV Status

In a statement released late yesterday afternoon, the Department of Justice announced it reached a settlement with Castlewood Treatment Center for Eating Disorders over its refusal to treat an HIV-positive woman suffering from anorexia. Susan Gibson, a mid-Missouri resident, tried to gain acceptanc ... More >>

The Ladue List: Senior Girls Were Not the Only Target

On Friday, Daily RFT explored a phenomena at Ladue Horton Watkins High School known as the "Senior List" -- a tradition where junior boys humiliate senior girls on the last day of class by passing out a sexually explicit list of insults and gossip. However, Susan Dielmann, the Ladue District's dire ... More >>

Canadian Chippewa Indian Sues Missouri for Right of Legal Residents to Carry Concealed Gun

Quiz for conservative extremists: Which do you hate more, foreigners or gun-control? Well here's a court case that might explode your brain. On Tuesday -- with gun sales surging in the wake of the Aurora, Colorado shootings -- Edward F. Plastino filed a lawsuit in the federal courthouse downtown. He ... More >>

The Gay Selma: Schools ignore gay bullying at their own peril

School Transfer Law Ruled Unconstitutional

The law, when it was first enacted, seemed pretty unassuming: If you were a student in an unaccredited school district, you (and your parents) had the right to transfer to an accredited school, and your home district would pay for your transportation and tuition. It was intended mainly for kids in r ... More >>

Missouri State Band Reignites Debate Over "Dixie"

Image via"Dixie" came out of blackface minstrel shows in the mid-19th Century.​The song "Dixie" was born from the blackface minstrel shows of the mid-19th century. The lyrics take the perspective, and exaggerated dialect, of a free slave who aches to return to his days of plantation bondage. The f ... More >>

Missouri Supreme Court to Strip Club Owners: "Tough Titties!"

Justices uphold Missouri's nudity ban for strip clubs.​The Missouri Supreme Court yesterday handed strip club owners yet another loss in their legal fight to overturn a sweeping law regulating "adult-oriented businesses." The law passed in 2010 prohibits exotic dancers from displaying their genita ... More >>

Student Suspended Over Threats to Kill "Midgets, Fags and Negro Bitches" Loses Appeal

A sophomore in the Hannibal School District fantasized about killing classmates -- but later claimed he was just blowing off steam. ​In 2006, a sophomore in the Hannibal, Missouri, school district confided to a classmate in a series of instant messages that he was angry about (what else?) being sp ... More >>

Bring it On! Missouri Cheerleaders Sue School for Taking Away Their Pom-Poms

​"Mean Girls" has come to Missouri. In a made-for-Hollywood subplot that would make Lindsay Lohan blush, two cheerleaders from a state championship team have filed a federal lawsuit against their southwestern Missouri school district, claiming their civil rights were violated after being boot ... More >>

Is the Noose An Inherently Racist Object?

Image viaYou know what they say, no noose is good noose.​Two St. Louis sheriff's deputies say it is, and the outcome of their workplace discrimination lawsuit against their boss, Sheriff James Murphy, may hinge on convincing jurors that the iconic hangman's knot does indeed symbolize prejudice.Wal ... More >>

Mizzou Law Professor Comes to Defense of Fred Phelps, Westboro Baptist Church

Megan Phelps, grand-daughter of Fred, protesting outside a St. Louis concert last week.​University of Missouri law professor Christina Wells recently fired off a letter to the Supreme Court defending the free speech of the controversial Fred Phelps. As you'll recall, Phelps is the pastor of the We ... More >>

Suspect Swings at Cop, Lands St. Louis Police Board a Black Eye, and Taxpayers Foot the Bill

Complaint from dumb man proves justice is, indeed, blind.​There's a lot that just doesn't add up in a federal jury's decision yesterday to award $865,000 to a man who provoked cops during his arrest and then allegedly fell victim to the rough treatment he asked for. Actually, perhaps I phrased tha ... More >>

Tuesday Tussle: Part 1, Local Blogger Fired for Writing About Sex -- She Got Screwed!

The Beautiful Kind​As recounted on Daily RFT yesterday, a St. Louis sex blogger was summarily fired from her day job last week when her boss discovered her anonymous blog The Beautiful Kind (TBK). Although TBK has always been careful to hide her identity in her online writings and photos, someone ... More >>

Truman State Student Tweets About "Jew Killing Spree," Exercises First Amendment Rights

Not content with simply observing Hit a Jew Day, Truman State University sophomore Rachel Oetting Tweeted last Monday, ​ Within a few hours, Oetting had achieved Internet celebrity, of sorts, when her Tweet found its way onto the websites of various hate groups. A fellow student known by the Twitt ... More >>

St. Louis Police Apologize to "Anarchists"

Dan Green, owner of the home, called "Bolozone", where many of the protesters were rounded up by police.​The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department has reached a settlement with four would-be protesters arrested prior to the 2003 World Agriculture Forum held in St. Louis. The demonstrators -- wh ... More >>

Janet Napolitano’s Sorry Service in Arizona Makes Her a Terrible Choice for Homeland Security Secretary

Crystal Method

9 p.m. Saturday, November 22. Dante's, 3221 Olive Street.

Learn from the Past

Life in St. Louis

Red Alert: Everything they really don't want you to know about those pesky traffic-light cameras

The legendary Mavis Staples looks ahead with a Turn Back

Charles Lee "Cookie" Thornton: Meacham Park Boils Over

Justice Denied

Jellyman asks for an update on the pension Prince Joe never got.

Back to the Bolozone

The "anarchists" finally get their day in court.

Do you think it's wrong for Chevy to use icons like Martin Luther King to sell pickup trucks?

Week of November 2, 2006

Happy Hour, Engaged

Ask a Negro Leaguer Column

Week of February 9, 2006

Best Citizen

Micheal Ocello

Blowing a Fuse

A black-owned St. Louis advertising firm is stirring the political pot

Confession Transcript

Read George Allen's complete 1982 police interrogation

Rebel With a Cause

A new biography recasts Missouri's natural-born killer Jesse James as a political terrorist

Curtain Call

Week of August 7, 2002

Justice for John Ashcroft?

He deserves a taste of his own medicine in confirmation hearings

Wax Ecstatic

Lois Conley's Black World History Wax Museum brings the African-American past vividly alive in the present

He Had a Dream