News & Commentary

Shortly after Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin announced plans to register the state and local law enforcement agencies into the federal Secure Communities program, the ACLU and other organizations wrote a letter to Providence city officials urging them to opt out of the program. Yesterday, Providence Commissioner of Public Safety Steven Pare told a City Council committee that he was seeking to do just that. The ACLU applauded city officials for their efforts.

With the support of more than two dozen community and civil rights organizations, three teenage victims of racial profiling spoke today at a news conference to stress the urgent need to pass legislation designed to strengthen state laws against racial profiling. The victims described how this practice erodes trust between police and the minority community.

Responding to a complaint filed by the Rhode Island ACLU at the end of 2009, the R.I. Commission for Human Rights has issued a finding that there is “probable cause” to believe that a job application form used by CVS Pharmacy, Inc. for various customer service positions violates state anti-discrimination laws that bar employers from eliciting information that pertain to job applicants’ mental or physical disabilities.

State education Commissioner Deborah Gist has decided to push back the timeline for proposed high school graduation requirements that the ACLU had argued would stigmatize 90% of at-risk students and essentially create a caste system in Rhode Island’s schools.  The decision is an important victory for the ACLU and numerous civil rights, community and advocacy groups which had been extremely critical of the proposal ever since it was raised last fall.

The Rhode Island ACLU has asked a federal court to rule unconstitutional, without the need for a trial, the City of Pawtucket’s long-standing practice of giving preferential treatment to parochial schools over public schools in granting permits for the use of city athletics fields. The ACLU’s motion for summary judgment follows months of discovery in the lawsuit, which was filed in October 2009 on behalf of seven Pawtucket parents and their children.

On the eve of a final public hearing on proposed new high school graduation requirements for students in Rhode Island, a diverse group of organizations has highlighted startling statistics documenting the devastating impact that the requirements would have on at-risk students in the state. The groups – the RI ACLU, RI Disability Law Center, the Autism Project of RI, RI Legal Services, Urban League of RI, Progreso Latino, Parent Support Network of RI, the Center for Hispanic Policy and Advocacy, Young Voices and the George Wiley Center – claim that the new policy would essentially institutionalize a caste system in Rhode Island’s public schools.

A number of open government groups expressed deep concern today over regulations adopted by the Rhode Island Department of Public Safety (DPS) that would significantly restrict the information publicly available from state police agencies under DPS’s jurisdiction, including the State Police. The objections, from the Rhode Island ACLU, Common Cause Rhode Island and ACCESS/RI, also targeted the questionable process by which the regulations were adopted.

In response to a civil rights complaint filed by the Rhode Island ACLU against the state’s Department of Human Services (DHS) for violating laws requiring the agency to provide appropriate language interpreter services, a detailed 24-page resolution agreement has been entered this week between DHS and the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The agreement establishes detailed timeframes for DHS to follow in order to ensure that clients who have limited English proficiency (LEP) have access to the services and programs provided by the agency.

Rejecting the ACLU’s legal arguments, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit yesterday upheld the constitutionality of the Town of Narragansett’s highly-publicized “orange sticker” ordinance. However, in upholding the ordinance on its face, the court acknowledged that it could still be subject to constitutional challenge in its application to particular cases, and the ACLU plans to go back to court to pursue those challenges.