Wichita ? The city is challenging a law that prohibits police from engaging in racial profiling and allows the Kansas Human Rights Commission to investigate complaints.

The city’s challenge is part of an appeal of a commission ruling that found a black man was the victim of racial profiling when a white Wichita police officer pulled him over last year.

City Attorney Gary Rebenstorf said the law includes no way to appeal a ruling from the commission and does not state penalties for violations. The city’s challenge was filed in Shawnee County District Court.

The law, passed by the Legislature in 2005, says a victim of profiling “shall have a civil cause of action … against the law enforcement officer … and shall be entitled to recover damages if it is determined by the court that such persons or agency engaged in racial profiling.”

Otherwise, Rebenstorf said, the law does not say what should happen to officers who violate it. “It just kind of drops off the floor from there,” he said.

Kevin Myles, president of the Wichita branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the Legislature removed language from the proposed legislation that would have made profiling a misdemeanor resulting in a possible jail term to make the law more agreeable to cities and police departments.

He said before the law passed, Wichita Police Department investigations of allegations of racial profiling always ended in favor of officers.

The case in dispute was the first racial profiling complaint on which the Human Rights Commission had ruled.