KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — The University of Kansas Health System has received a $66 million donation to be used for an inpatient care unit.

Health System officials said Thursday the donation from the Sunderland Foundation is the largest gift ever received by the system. The gift completes a $100 million fundraising campaign for the new unit, which will allow its Blood and Marrow Transplant Program and its Divison of Hematologic Malignancies and Cellular Therapy to come together for patient care and research.

The Sutherland Foundation helped start the campaign in 2014 with a $2 million gift.

Charlie Sunderland has served on the Hospital Authority Board for many years and also chairs the Quality and Safety Committee.

HARPER COUNTY — A small earthquake shook Kansas early Thursday. The quake at 2:43a..m. measured a magnitude 3.1 and was centered approximately 5 miles northwest of Harper, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

A series of earthquakes shook the same area September 7 and 8. The quake measured from 2.3- a magnitude 3.4, according to the USGS.

There are no reports of damage or injury, according to the Harper County Sheriff’s Department.

By DAN MARGOLIES

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has defended the state’s decision to weigh in on a case that could limit transgender rights.

Asked by reporters about Kansas’ decision to join 15 other states in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that it’s legal to fire people for being transgender, Schmidt noted that the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Kansas, has taken that position.

“Almost certainly at some point, some plaintiff or group of plaintiffs is going to file a lawsuit to test the continued validity of the 2007 decision that binds Kansas today,” Schmidt said. “Or we can say, ‘Let’s do our part to try to get this in front of the Supreme Court as quickly as possible.’ That adds certainty, it reduces litigation risk and cost.”

Schmidt was referring to the 10th Circuit’s decision that federal laws prohibiting sex discrimination do not protect transgender people.

That decision runs contrary to the majority of courts that have addressed the issue. And although Schmidt said the ruling was binding on Kansas, the state is free to adopt a broader interpretation of the law if it wishes, a legal expert said.

“They can always extend broader protections at the state than what the law requires,” said Kim Jones, an employment lawyer at Seyferth Blumenthal & Harris in Kansas City. “So even if the 10th Circuit took that position, as an employer, as an enforcement agency, they (Kansas) could take the position that, no, we are going to treat people better  than the law would require.”

Schmidt made his remarks after Kansas joined a friend-of-the-court brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn another federal appeals court’s decision that it was illegal for a Michigan funeral home to fire an employee who was transitioning from male to female.

The employee, Aimee Stephens, had told the funeral home’s owner that she was a transgender woman and planned to dress as a woman. The owner, a devout Baptist who believed that God created males and females in the traditional biological sense, said that was unacceptable and terminated her.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued on Stephens’ behalf but the case was dismissed. On appeal, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding that gender identity discrimination is a form of sex discrimination prohibited under Title VII.

Kansas and the other states argue in their brief that the Sixth Circuit decision “erases all common, ordinary understandings of the term ‘sex’ in Title VII and expands it to include ‘gender identity’ and ‘transgender’ status.”

“In doing so,” says the brief, “the lower court rewrites Title VII in a way never intended or implemented by Congress” when it passed Title VII as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Jones said that while the 10th Circuit found that Title VII’s protection against sex discrimination does not extend to transgender individuals, many lawyers have managed to get around that by arguing that their transgender clients were discriminated against because they did not conform to gender stereotypes.

“And that is a form of sex discrimination that has been recognized by virtually all of the circuits, including the 10th. So nothing about that (2007) opinion would have necessitated Schmidt to do what he did,” Jones said.

“And, in fact, even in enforcing the laws for which his office is responsible, he could take the position that this is about sex stereotyping and that a transgender person should be protected because this is a form of sex discrimination.”

Schmidt told reporters that even if the Supreme Court finds that the firing of Stephens was illegal, “that still saves the state money because we don’t have, potentially, years of litigation sorting it out in the appeals courts.”

“Obviously, I’m going to advocate on the side of both federal and state as it’s applied in Kansas,” Schmidt said. “I’m not going to arbitrarily choose a different position, but I think as the state’s lawyer, the interest I’m trying to protect is in minimizing the state’s litigation risk, getting an answer, moving on with the least amount of hassle.”

“At the end of the day,” he added, “I’ve got to do my job.”

Dan Margolies is a senior reporter and editor in conjunction with the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @DanMargolies

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — State welfare officials say police should have considered taking 2-month-old twins into protective custody before one of them died at a west Wichita motel.

In the Wichita area, when police put children into protective custody, it often means taking them initially to a facility that offers emergency, temporary care. From there, they can go to a foster home or relative while the child protection system determines an eventual placement.

Instead, police put the infants with a relative on Aug. 28 after finding that their parents 34-year-old Kyle Lloyd Kempton and 39-year-old Christy Rollings were intoxicated at the motel where the family stayed.

The next afternoon, the relative returned the babies to the parents. One of the twins was found dead at the motel Thursday morning. Police arrested Kempton and Rollings.

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SEWARD COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect following the search for a wanted suspect in southwest Kansas.

Just before 6p.m. Friday, police received information that a subject wanted by Garden City authorities may be at a residence in the 100 block of W. Pine Street in Liberal, according to Captain Robert Rogers.

Once on scene, they contacted a 41- year-old female and two children.  While attempting to gain information about the wanted person, the woman became uncooperative and attempted to prevent others from assisting officers.

Police arrested her for aggravated intimidation of a witness.  Officers surrounded the house until it was determined that the wanted subject would not be located there.

Rogers did not released the suspect’s name. Formal charges have not been filed but she remained in custody Tuesday.

RENO COUNTY— A Kansas man convicted of child sex crimes in Reno County will serve six years and six months in prison.

A Reno County judge sentenced Dakota Heaton, 18, as part of a plea agreement between the state and the defense.

He was originally arrested on a warrant for the Reno County case and charged with two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. The crimes occurred in Reno County in December of 2017.

However, Heaton entered a plea in July for two counts of aggravated indecent solicitation of a child because of the symptoms he suffers from Asperger’s syndrome.

The two 34-month sentences were the aggravated time he could receive under sentencing guidelines.

The father of the victim spoke before sentencing and told the defendant that he stole their 6-year-old daughter’s innocence.

Once Heaton is released from prison, he’ll be on lifetime post-release supervision.