News & Commentary

The ACLU of Rhode Island today announced the favorable settlement of the case on behalf of Julia Schultz, a house cleaner who was terminated by a professional cleaning service immediately after they learned she was pregnant.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge John McConnell, Jr. approved a stipulated order today in Cohen v. Brown University, the landmark Title IX case, requiring Brown University to pay attorneys’ fees and the litigation expenses incurred by the class of women student-athletes.

In a case that highlights the difficulties and discrimination that women continue to face in the workplace, the ACLU of Rhode Island charged today that a professional cleaning service terminated an employee who had just been hired immediately after learning she was pregnant.

Today’s court decision is an unprecedented attack on women’s rights and reproductive freedom.

Today’s decision from the Rhode Island Supreme Court upholding the General Assembly’s authority to enact the Reproductive Privacy Act could not be more timely.

In an important victory for female student athletes, a federal appeals court today unanimously affirmed approval of a settlement agreement between Brown University and a class of women student-athletes at Brown which resolved a class-action court challenge to Brown’s decision in June 2020 to cut women’s teams from its varsity athletics program.  The court action, filed last June by cooperating attorneys from Public Justice and the ACLU of Rhode Island and two private law firms, alleged that the cuts violated a 1998 consent agreement that the University entered to comply with Title IX, the federal law that guarantees equal access to athletic programs for female athletes.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed a court brief seeking to beat back an effort to overturn a state law that protects an individual’s right to an abortion.

A federal court gave final approval to a settlement agreement between Brown University and athletes resolving the class-action legal challenge to the school's decision to cut women’s teams from its varsity athletics program.

The ACLU has issued a report calling for the decriminalization of sex work, relying in part on evidence from a period of time in RI when indoor sex work was technically legal in the state.