News & Commentary

The ACLU of Rhode Island, along with two other civil rights organizations, has today taken three separate legal steps with the R.I. Department of Education (RIDE) on behalf of students with disabilities who are caught up in the ongoing Providence school bus strike. The complaints allege that the failure of the school district to honor its responsibility under the students’ Individual Education Plans (IEPs) to provide transportation to and from school violates federal and state laws protecting the students’ rights.

In a letter recently sent to the state R.I. Department of Transportation, the ACLU of RI called on the agency to “immediately unblock any individuals who are currently being blocked from the @RIDOTNews Twitter account.” The ACLU sent the letter after receiving a complaint from a Twitter user who was blocked from the account after posting tweets that were critical of work being done on a RIDOT project near his residence. In response, DOT officials have indicated plans to unblock all blocked accounts, but the ACLU said it would sue if the unblocking did not occur promptly.

The ACLU of Rhode Island, R.I. Legal Services, and the R.I. Disability Law Center issued the following statement in response to the Providence School District’s reply to the organizations’ October 1 letter calling on the District to make alternative transportation arrangements available to special education students for the duration of the school bus strike:

The ACLU of Rhode Island today issued a critical analysis of the Attorney General’s (AG) response to State Representative Patricia Morgan’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA) request for documents pertaining to the AG’s expenditure of more than $50M in funds from the settlement of a recent Google lawsuit with the State. Representative Morgan has thus far been charged more than $3,700 for partial release of the records, some of which are heavily redacted. The ACLU’s analysis highlights “the clear need for legislation to strengthen the law.”

Three organizations that support the rights of students with disabilities have sent a letter to Providence school superintendent Christopher Maher, emphasizing the school district’s legal obligation to provide transportation to special education students during the city-wide school bus strike. The school district has claimed it has been unable to find alternative transportation, but will reimburse parents for the costs they incur in getting their children to school themselves.

With legal assistance from the ACLU of Rhode Island, SouthCoast Fair Housing (SCFH) today filed a federal lawsuit against the RI Supreme Court over a court rule that is preventing the organization from providing legal help to victims of housing discrimination in RI. As the rule is currently written, non-profit organizations cannot obtain a license to practice law in the state unless they serve only “indigent” clients. This is despite the fact that the Court’s own rules recognize that it is not just the poor, but “sometimes persons who are not poor” who are unable to afford adequate legal assistance.

MAJOR UPDATE 9/24: N. Smithfield Town Council has rescinded the anti-Nike resolution.

It has been more than 72 hours since DaShawn Cole was killed by Pawtucket police, yet very basic information about this tragic incident remains undisclosed.   The names of the officers, how many shots were fired, the threat faced by the police at the time, even whether the victim fired any shots himself -- all of this remains unknown.  We assume – we hope – that this and related information will be released shortly, but the contrast between the belated sharing of information by police during officer-involved shootings and the much more free-flowing disclosure of information when serious civilian-upon-civilian crimes occur remains striking and totally unacceptable. In fact, similar secrecy disconcertingly shrouded the last fatal police shooting in Pawtucket in 2016.(1)

Citing concerns about the impact on veterans participating in Rhode Island’s medical marijuana program, three advocacy organizations have submitted testimony expressing strong opposition to a Department of Human Services proposal that would ban the use of “narcotics prohibited by federal law” at the Veterans’ Home in Bristol.  The organizations are the ACLU of RI, the RI Patient Advocacy Coalition and Protect Families First. The group testimony notes that, as currently worded, DHS’ proposal would prevent resident veterans from using medical marijuana that state law explicitly allows them to use for their medical condition.