News & Commentary

In response to the ongoing controversy in Cranston involving the apparent retaliation taken against two City Council members for their vote in November on a police union contract, the ACLU has written to Mayor Allan Fung, raising concerns about the investigation of the incident that is being conducted.

The City of Providence has agreed to pay $75,000 to settle an ACLU lawsuit involving the violation of the free speech rights of a local resident three years ago when she was barred from peacefully leafleting in front of a building where then-Mayor David Cicilline was speaking.

The Women’s Fund of Rhode Island, RI NOW, and the ACLU of Rhode Island issued the following statement in response to Governor Lincoln Chafee’s decision today not to veto a bill that authorizes public school districts to provide sex-segregated extracurricular activities of any kind:

Ruling in an ACLU lawsuit, U.S. District Judge William Smith has held that Providence police violated the free speech rights of a local resident when she was barred from peacefully leafleting on a public sidewalk in front of a building where then-Mayor David Cicilline was speaking. In a 35-page opinion, the judge left for further proceedings the question of whether the three named police defendants, including former police chief Dean Esserman, could be held individually liable for violating Ms. Reilly’s First Amendment rights, or whether only the City itself was liable.

The ACLU is troubled by the actions taken by Warwick school officials against students for tweets they sent to RIDE Commissioner Deborah Gist in response to the controversy surrounding RIDE’s high stakes testing requirement. Without in any way condoning the immature nature of some of the tweets, we believe Warwick school officials have intervened in this controversy in a manner much greater than is appropriate.

The websites of PBS Kids and National Stop Bullying Day, a video clip of the Nutcracker ballet, a website on global warming, and a popular book reading recommendation site are among the many online sites that students and teachers have been unable to access at public schools in Rhode Island due to the use of so-called Internet filtering software.

A federal judge yesterday refused to dismiss an ACLU lawsuit brought on behalf of an ACI inmate who was retaliated against by guards after he publicly criticized Department of Corrections’ mail policies and sought legal assistance from the ACLU (see the ruling and the report and recommendation). The pattern of harassment against inmate Jason Cook, which included strip searches, loss of his prison job, destruction of his personal property, and disciplinary time in segregation, began after Cook was quoted in a Providence Journal story criticizing a DOC policy limiting the written materials available to inmates. The policy was later rescinded.

A trial is scheduled to begin next week in the Rhode Island ACLU’s federal lawsuit challenging 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 trial will take place before U.S. District Chief Judge Mary Lisi at 10 AM on Monday.

Arguing that Providence police have “utterly and completely fail[ed] to establish any legitimate governmental interest—let alone a ‘significant’ one—to justify their conduct,” the Rhode Island ACLU has asked a federal court to rule that police engaged in a clear violation of the free speech rights of a local resident in 2010 when she was barred from peacefully leafleting on a public sidewalk in front of a building where then-Mayor David Cicilline was speaking. In a 47-page brief filed today by RI ACLU volunteer attorney Richard A. Sinapi, the ACLU also seeks a court order requiring city officials to appropriately train and supervise police officers on the First Amendment rights of individuals to peaceably distribute political flyers.