News & Commentary

The Rhode Island ACLU has today appealed the recent court decision upholding the constitutionality of the Town of Narragansett’s highly-publicized “orange sticker” ordinance.

The Rhode Island ACLU today expressed deep disappointment today at a decision by U.S. District Judge William Smith, upholding the constitutionality of the Town of Narragansett’s highly-publicized “orange sticker” ordinance.

R.I. Superior Court Judge Brian Stern today denied the Barrington School Committee’s motion to dismiss an open meetings lawsuit filed against it by the RI ACLU and the Barrington Times.

The Rhode Island ACLU has filed an administrative complaint against the North Smithfield School Committee for its adoption earlier this year of a “pay to play” policy, charging an “athletic management fee” of $150 for students wishing to participate in interscholastic sports. The complaint, filed before the R.I. Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DOE) by RI ACLU volunteer attorney Merlyn O’Keefe, argues that the policy violates state law and is in direct conflict with a number of opinions issued by the DOE on this issue over the years.

The RI ACLU has sharply criticized a proposal from Barrington police chief John LaCross to require all students attending high school dances to take a breathalyzer test.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today released a report sharply critical of Governor Donald Carcieri’s civil rights record during the first year of his second term in office. The 50-page report “The Politics of Division,” focuses on five major issues the Governor has dealt with this year, and argues that “in a period of just a few months and in a wide variety of contexts, he has shown a virtually complete lack of interest in recognizing, much less protecting, the civil rights of individuals and groups that have been long-standing victims of discriminatory treatment.”

The ACLU of Rhode Island today announced a favorable settlement in its lawsuit against Rhode Island College for censoring a sign display supporting reproductive freedom that was sponsored by a student women’s rights group on campus. The signs were taken down after administrators received objections about them from a priest. The ACLU lawsuit, filed by volunteer attorney Jennifer Azevedo, had argued that the college violated the First Amendment rights of the student group, the Women’s Studies Organization (WSO) of RIC, and its three student officers. The highlight of the settlement is an award by RIC of $5,000 to the student group.

The Rhode Island ACLU has called on the Board of Governors for Higher Education to amend its financial aid policies to prevent harm to students adversely affected by the General Assembly’s adoption of a new law in June (known as “Article 22”) that treats all 17-year-olds as adults for criminal justice purposes. In a letter to the Board, the ACLU pointed out that “little attention has been paid to the direct impact that Article 22 may have on the educational rights of some students.”

Arguing that it promotes “dangerous medical inaccuracies about pregnancy prevention and sexually transmitted diseases” and “sends an inappropriate message to students from non-traditional households,” thirteen organizations today called on public high school principals and superintendents in the state to reject use of a questionable federally-funded “abstinence only until marriage” sex education program recently approved by the RI Department of Education. The private program at issue is run by Heritage Rhode Island (HRI). Among the diverse groups signing the letter to school officials were the RI Medical Society, the RI Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the RI Academy of Family Physicians, AIDS Project Rhode Island and Youth Pride.