News & Commentary

As students head back to school, the R.I. ACLU said today that a survey of school district practices across the state shows that many districts are not fully protecting the privacy rights of students in interactions with military recruiters. In a letter sent to school district superintendents across the state, the Rhode Island ACLU urged administrators to improve their procedures to inform parents and students about their right to control the release of student information to the military.

Administrators at Central High School in Providence have allowed sophomore Eliazar Velasquez to return to school after the student was suspended last week for posting photographs of the school principal on a personal website. The photographs depicted principal Elaine Almagno smoking a cigarette on school grounds, in direct violation of state law.

In a three-page letter, the ACLU of Rhode Island has called on members of the Roger Williams University Student Senate to halt continuing efforts to punish the College Republican club for its free speech activities. The ACLU was contacted by the club earlier this week in response to introduction of a Senate resolution that would revoke the club’s charter for its awarding of a $250 “whites only” scholarship as a political statement by the Club about affirmative action. The resolution was narrowly defeated on Wednesday, but the club fears the issue may be brought up again. In its letter to Student Senate President Erin Bedell, the ACLU called the Senate’s “efforts at censorship” both “counter-productive and inimical to the critical goal of any university in promoting wide-ranging, robust and uninhibited speech.”