News & Commentary

A recently-filed ACLU class-action lawsuit challenging the government’s practice of denying due process to detained immigrants could directly affect the continued jailing of some of the immigrant detainees now being held at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls.

The ACLU has asked the R.I. Supreme Court to overturn a Superior Court ruling that upheld the constitutionality of a problematic Providence housing ordinance that prohibits more than three “college students” from living together in certain housing in some areas of the city.  In her February 2018 decision, Superior Court Judge Maureen Keough acknowledged “strong reservations concerning the effectiveness” of the ordinance and agreed it “seems nonsensical,” but ultimately ruled against the students and found the ordinance constitutional. However, in a brief filed with the Supreme Court this week, ACLU attorneys argue that the ordinance unconstitutionally “relegates anyone enrolled in college or graduate school to the status of second-class citizen within the City of Providence.”

As the legislative session approaches its final month, the number of bills being voted out of committee, onto the floor, and recommended to the opposite chamber has grown exponentially. Unfortunately, some of these bills contain provisions which violate civil liberties principles.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today announced a major development in its R.I. Supreme Court appeal on behalf of former House Minority Leader Patricia Morgan, whose access to documents pertaining to former Attorney General (AG) Peter Kilmartin’s expenditure of more than $50M in funds from the “Google settlement” was stymied by thousands of questionable redactions that he made in response to her Access to Public Records Act request.

In a case with major implications for the medical privacy rights of Rhode Islanders, the ACLU of Rhode Island has today joined with the National ACLU, four other ACLU Affiliates, and the New Hampshire Medical Society in filing a “friend of the court” brief arguing that law enforcement agents need a judicial warrant in order to obtain information from state prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) databases.

The passage of out of committee this week of a bill (S 138) which would reinstate a previously repealed statute governing the licensing of medical lab professionals highlighted the way that discriminatory employment patterns are reinforced by actions from the General Assembly. Oftentimes, seemingly innocuous occupational licensing bills have provisions that include expansive and vague language which could render individuals with a criminal background – no matter what crimes they have been convicted of or how long ago their conviction was – unable to procure a license, and hence employment. Such is the case with S 138, which (along with its companion bill H 5367) would resurrect a provision allowing for the denial or suspension of a laboratory professional license for a conviction of any felony or of any misdemeanor for which an “essential element is dishonesty.”

In the debates over making our public schools safer, inclusive, and more academically enriching, it’s critical to consider how measures which appear to be innocuous can significantly impact civil liberties. Many times, proposed solutions can actually widen disparities and inflict harm on students and schools that are already marginalized.

The American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project and the ACLU of Rhode Island have today filed a “friend of the court” brief in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island in an important immigration case in which the federal government is claiming that a person who will likely be tortured if he is extradited back to his home country cannot rely on that fact to prevent his return to that country. The ACLU brief calls that position “incorrect.”

Although some of the bills that we comment on affect civil liberties at their face value – either positively or negatively – the reason that we read every single proposed bill, and comment on 300+ pieces of legislation every year, is because the devil is in the details.