News & Commentary

The following statement was issued today by the ACLU of RI in response to the Cranston sex discrimination controversy. The issue arose when a local parent-teacher organization, with initial support from the school, organized a “father-daughter dance” for girls attending the school, and a “mother-son” outing to a Pawtucket Red Sox baseball game for the boys:

The Rhode Island ACLU has called on police departments in the state to adopt clear policies recognizing the First Amendment right of members of the public to video and tape record police activity. In a letter sent to police chiefs in Rhode Island, the ACLU noted recent developments in the law that made adoption of such a policy an important way to ensure that police officers are aware of, and do not violate, the free speech rights of residents.

The Rhode Island ACLU has called on the South Kingstown Town Council to revise various informal policies and procedures that impose unconstitutional restrictions on the free speech rights of citizens at town council meetings. Among the provisions the ACLU is asking to be repealed are a ban on texting by audience members at town council meetings and a prohibition on the mentioning of names of council members when residents address the Town Council during public comment periods.

In response to a lawsuit the ACLU filed in January, the General Assembly has favorably amended a state law that had been interpreted to bar the media from running advertisements containing the names and photographs of public officials without their permission. As a result, the ACLU is voluntarily dismissing the lawsuit as moot.

In a decision issued late this afternoon, U.S. District Judge Mary Lisi has rejected claims that the City of Pawtucket has engaged in an unconstitutional practice of giving preferential treatment to parochial schools over public schools in granting permits for the use of city athletics fields. In 2009, the ACLU filed suit on behalf of seven Pawtucket parents and their children, who had complained to the City for years that one public field had been reserved almost exclusively for use by Saint Raphael Academy, a Catholic school, and that public junior high school teams were denied the use of other fields which had often been reserved for the use of private sectarian schools.

The Rhode Island ACLU has today taken legal action against the Pawtucket and Little Compton school districts for violating the state’s open records law. The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court by ACLU volunteer attorney Karen Davidson, charges that district officials in each of these districts unlawfully failed to respond to two requests from the ACLU for public documents.

The attorneys for the RI ACLU and the Cranston School Committee have today submitted a formal judgment in the lawsuit filed by the ACLU last year challenging the presence of a school prayer mural in Cranston High School West’s auditorium. The case will be officially concluded when the judgment is signed by U.S. District Judge Ronald R. Lagueux. The terms of the judgment are provided below:

Following up a federal court’s decision earlier this month finding unconstitutional the display of a prayer mural in Cranston High School West’s auditorium, Rhode Island ACLU attorneys have today asked the court to award $173,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs for their successful work on the case. Federal law gives prevailing plaintiffs in constitutional cases like this the right to recover their attorneys’ fees from the defendants, in this instance the City of Cranston and school committee.

On Jessica’s standing to bring the lawsuit: “Like the student in Lee v. Weisman [the RI ACLU’s successful lawsuit against public school graduation prayers], she is a captive audience. Beyond that, Plaintiff has stated that the presence of a Christian prayer on the wall of her school has made her feel ostracized and out of place. She has also stated that she doesn’t find the text of the Prayer to be offensive. The Court fails to find these statements inconsistent. It is possible to object to the presence of the Prayer Mural without having to find its goals of academic achievement and good sportsmanship offensive. While her injuries might be characterized as abstract, those injuries are consistent with the injuries complained of by other plaintiffs in Establishment Clause litigation.”