News & Commentary

In a letter to the state Board of Elections, the ACLU of RI has called on the Board to revise its planned procedures for handling certain provisional ballots that will be cast in Tuesday’s election, because the Board’s policy “has the potential to unfairly disenfranchise hundreds, if not thousands, of legitimate voters – especially voters in poorer districts.”

The ACLU of Rhode Island today called on RI State Board of Elections Chair Roger Begin and Secretary of State Matt Brown to retract advice given yesterday by the U.S. Attorney’s office to election officials, encouraging them to consider conducting searches of voters’ belongings at polling places on election day.  In a letter faxed today to the two officials, RI ACLU executive director Steven Brown said the search recommendation was “extraordinarily troubling on a number of levels, and raises fundamental constitutional problems.”

The ACLU of Rhode Island has called on local hospitals to reject anticipated earmarked federal funding for immigrant health care that could have a serious and negative health impact on undocumented immigrants in the state.

A consent judgment was entered in Rhode Island Superior Court today, formally declaring null and void the “preliminary” election held on Tuesday for two non-partisan at-large school committee seats in Lincoln. The consent judgment follows a temporary restraining order issued on Tuesday by Judge Daniel Procaccini against certification of those election results in an ACLU lawsuit challenging the legality of the election.

The Rhode Island ACLU is asking a R.I. Superior Court judge to enjoin certification of the results of a “preliminary election” being held today to winnow down the list of candidates to appear on the November ballot for non-partisan at-large school committee seats in Lincoln. In a lawsuit filed yesterday on behalf of town residents John Cullen and Edward Slattery, ACLU volunteer attorney Annie Goldberg argues that the Town had no authority to hold such an election, and that all the qualified candidates should be eligible for the November ballot.

In response to the recently-publicized “discrimination” complaint filed against Rhode Island College Professor Lisa Church, the ACLU has called on RIC President John Nazarian to immediately address the “broader issues and concerns that her case has raised” by revising the college’s policies that prohibit “hate speech.” Professor Church had an administrative hearing last week on charges that she violated a college provision requiring personnel to “create, promote and ensure a positive climate where individuals may learn, teach and work free from discrimination.” The charge arose when she refused to intervene in a private dispute in which racist comments were allegedly made by one parent of a child to another at the college’s Cooperative Preschool, which Church helps to coordinate.

The Rhode Island ACLU is urging police departments across the state not to purchase Taser “stun guns,” a controversial weapon that many U.S. law enforcement agencies, including four in Rhode Island, have begun adding to their arsenal.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Lincoln resident Karen Elias Clavet, who was not hired for an art teaching position in the Lincoln public schools this summer despite the recommendation of an independent hiring committee and the school district superintendent. The lawsuit, filed by ACLU volunteer attorney Jennifer Azevedo, claims that the school committee took no action on her appointment because she has been a sometimes-vocal critic of some school district practices. The suit seeks a court order appointing her to the teaching position and barring the school committee from otherwise retaliating against her for her political activities.

A federal judge has rejected efforts by the Scituate Police Department to dismiss a racial profiling lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Rhode Island on behalf of Pawtucket resident Jean Philippe Barros, a person of Cape Verdean descent. As a result, the case can proceed to trial.