News & Commentary

The ACLU of Rhode Island today announced the settlement of a lawsuit it filed against the Tiverton School Committee in 2002, challenging on free speech grounds a policy that barred members of the general public from orally initiating “charges” or “complaints” against school employees during the public comment portion of School Committee meetings. Under the settlement agreement dismissing the suit in light of revisions made to the policy, the school district agreed to pay $7,500 in attorneys fees to the ACLU lawyers in the case.

The ACLU of Rhode Island has today filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the environmental group Clean Water Action, challenging a Johnston Town Council directive barring the group from engaging in political door-to-door canvassing between 7 and 9 PM. The lawsuit, filed by ACLU volunteer attorney Carolyn Mannis, argues that the restriction, imposed at a Town Council meeting last month, violates the group’s First Amendment rights.

In response to Governor Carcieri’s recent unsuccessful attempt, as part of a “homeland security” bill, to resurrect World War I statutes banning such things as advocacy of anarchy, the ACLU today announced that legislation is being introduced by Rep. Fausto Anguilla to repeal more than a dozen archaic and unconstitutional, but still active, state laws that infringe upon free speech.

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.”

The ACLU of Rhode Island today called “homeland security” legislation being proposed by Governor Carcieri “extraordinarily dangerous” with “alarming ramifications for political and labor protest, freedom of association, academic freedom and the public’s right to know.” That is the conclusion reached in a 13-page analysis of the bill prepared by the ACLU and sent out today to various political, labor and academic organizations.

The ACLU of R.I. today filed a federal lawsuit challenging the life-sized nativity scene  and menorah in front of Cranston City Hall, as well as the policy that Mayor Stephen Laffey recently implemented to authorize those displays. The suit, filed by ACLU volunteer attorneys Miriam Weizenbaum and Amato DeLuca on behalf of life-long Cranston resident Grace C. Osediacz, argues that both the display and the policy violate the First Amendment.

In a case that raised potentially far-reaching free speech issues for state residents, the ACLU hailed the dismissal today of criminal charges against Little Compton resident William Bullivant at a hearing before R.I. Superior Court Judge Melanie Wilk Thunberg. ACLU volunteer attorneys Charles Levesque and Nicholas Trott Long represented Bullivant at the hearing.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today released a report that both shows that most public libraries in the state oppose the use of censoring software for their computers with Internet access, and that calls upon libraries to take steps to minimize the impact of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision which will now require most of them to nonetheless install so-called “blocking software.”

The ACLU of R.I. has today filed a “friend of the court” brief in the R.I. Supreme Court in support of the free speech rights of West Warwick resident and Republican Town Committee member Alan Palazzo, who was sued for defamation by state Senator Stephen Alves for his newspaper letter-writing activities. The court brief, filed by ACLU volunteer attorneys Joseph Cavanagh, Jr. and Staci Kolb, argues that the lower court correctly dismissed Alves’ lawsuit as a “SLAPP suit” designed to intimidate Palazzo for exercising his First Amendment rights.