News & Commentary

Interceding in a case raising significant issues involving government transparency in environmental disputes, several organizations filed a “friend of the court” brief in the RI Supreme Court in a long-standing controversy involving the proposed expansion of Champlin’s Marina on Block Island.

In a victory for voting rights R.I. Superior Court Judge Sarah Taft-Carter today ruled unconstitutional a policy of the Bonnet Shores Fire District (BSFD) in Narragansett that bars residents from voting if they own less than $400 of property in the district.

ACLU of Rhode Island cooperating attorneys filed two petitions in R.I. Superior Court today, claiming that the R.I. Department of Corrections (DOC) is unlawfully keeping in prison individuals who were convicted of crimes committed when they were juveniles or very young adults. The legal action claims that the DOC is violating a law enacted by the General Assembly last year that targeted lengthy sentences meted out to young offenders and explicitly sought to help them get early release from those sentences.

The ACLU of RI has sent a letter today to RIPTA demanding answers regarding an August 2021 data breach at the agency that compromised the Social Security numbers and private health care information of thousands of individuals who have no apparent connection to the agency.

A coalition of open government organizations has called on Governor McKee to reinstate an executive order allowing remote meetings of public bodies while requiring livestreaming and remote public participation.

The settlement comes four years after R.I. Superior Court ruled that a Westerly fabrics company discriminated against Christine Callaghan when consideration of a paid internship was rescinded because of her participation in the state’s medical marijuana program.

Is the R.I. Department of Labor and Training (DLT) planning to use facial recognition technology to process unemployment claims? The agency doesn’t want the public to know, so the ACLU of Rhode Island today filed an open records lawsuit to find out. The suit is in response to the DLT’s refusal to provide the ACLU any documents in response to an Access to Public Records Act (APRA) request that sought records related to the agency’s “actual or considered usage of facial recognition and identify verification software … in the course of processing unemployment claims.”

Attorneys for the R.I. Center for Justice and the ACLU have filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a man who spent almost eight months in solitary confinement at the ACI in retaliation for exercising his First Amendment rights.

The ACLU of Rhode Island and Disability Rights Rhode Island today applauded CVS for withdrawing its petition in a pending U.S. Supreme Court case that the groups said could have turned back decades of national progress promoting the cause of disability rights.