News & Commentary

An unfavorable ruling in the case could “give police free rein to enter the home without probable cause or a warrant, whenever they think it is ‘reasonable’ to do so.”

RI Commissioner of Education Angélica Infante-Green has ruled that the N. Kingstown school district could not ban students from in-school learning because their parents had let them attend school while their father was waiting for his COVID test results.

Our lawsuit has led to the conditional release of more ICE detainees than are currently being held at the facility.

In a letter to Police Chief Hugh Clements, Jr., the ACLU of RI sharply criticized the Providence Police for filing felony charges against three Rhode Islanders who allegedly threw white paint at a boarded-up statue in the Elmwood section of the city.

The state Department of Labor and Training has agreed to take a series of interim steps to begin rectifying the situation faced by thousands of residents whose unemployment insurance benefit payments were frozen without notice or explanation as part of a fraud investigation. The agreement came at a court hearing late yesterday before U.S. District Judge William Smith on a request by ACLU of Rhode Island attorneys for a temporary restraining order against the state.

ACLU of Rhode Island cooperating attorneys Ellen Saideman and Lynette Labinger today filed a class-action lawsuit challenging the state Department of Labor and Training’s (DLT) actions in summarily freezing weekly unemployment insurance benefit payments to hundreds of Rhode Islanders without any notice or explanation.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today announced a favorable settlement in its third, and latest, class-action lawsuit against the R.I. Department of Human Services related to the state’s UHIP computer system. This suit, filed last December in U.S. District Court by ACLU cooperating attorneys Ellen Saideman and Lynette Labinger, had challenged the adequacy of notices sent by the DHS to some SNAP recipients, demanding that they reimburse the state for benefits overpayments that they purportedly received years earlier.

An ACLU of Rhode Island cooperating attorney has filed a charge of race discrimination against the Providence Police Department on behalf of an African-American recruit who was involuntarily dismissed last year from the Police Academy just a few weeks before graduation and after enduring months of harassment from trainers at the Academy. ACLU cooperating attorney Laura Harrington has today also filed a formal claim for damages with the City as a legal prerequisite to the filing of a lawsuit on behalf of the recruit, Michael Clark.

Bolstered by similar national trends, Rhode Island has enacted several positive and significant criminal justice reform measures over the past few years. Unfortunately, every step forward by the General Assembly seems to be accompanied by a step back.