News & Commentary

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MAJOR UPDATE 9/24: N. Smithfield Town Council has rescinded the anti-Nike resolution.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

The ACLU of RI today filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Woonsocket for unlawfully withholding critically needed grant funds from Sojourner House, a social service agency that helps victims of domestic violence. Filed by ACLU of RI volunteer attorneys Matthew Oliverio and Stephen Prignano, the lawsuit alleges that the City withheld the funds without cause or due process, and retaliated against the agency after it petitioned other government agencies for help in resolving the dispute over the funds.

It was no coincidence when undocumented immigrants like Rhode Island resident Lilian Calderon were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials immediately after showing up for interviews at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices (CIS) to legalize their status. Instead, documents released yesterday reveal that CIS officials informed Boston ICE agents of the interviews, scheduled them at a convenient time for ICE, and sometimes even notified ICE when an individual arrived for his or her interview and how the interview was progressing. The disclosures came in a request for a preliminary injunction against the practice made by ACLU of Massachusetts attorneys in a class-action lawsuit filed in April on behalf of Ms. Calderon.

UPDATE: 8/10/18 Within a day after the ACLU's lawsuit was filed, the school provided the ACLU the requested documents that formed the basis for the complaint. As a result, the ACLU has dismissed the lawsuit.