News & Commentary

Within hours of learning that the ACLU had agreed to represent Newport blogger Christian Winthrop, the Japan-America Society dropped him from a lawsuit it had filed alleging that he had engaged in trademark infringement -- based solely on articles he had posted on his website.  ACLU executive director Steven Brown hailed the Society's about-face, saying that the suit against Winthrop, who runs the Newport Buzz, was “a blatant violation of his First Amendment rights.”  The suit, which remains pending in federal court against some City of Newport officials, has its origins in a dispute between the Society and the City of Newport over the running of the Black Ships Festival, which the City had helped fund in the past. Last month, the Society decided to move the festival to Bristol, and when the City decided to go ahead with its own celebration, the Society demanded that the City stop referring to it as the Black Ships Festival.  In response, the City renamed its competing festival the “Newport-Shimoda Sister City Celebration.” But the Society sued Newport officials for having initially used the term “Black Ships Festival” to refer to its event.

The ACLU of RI today filed a sex and age discrimination lawsuit against the Newport Grand Casino on behalf of a female employee who claims that, for a decade, she has been paid significantly less than a younger male employee performing the same duties in the same position. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court by ACLU of RI cooperating attorney Lynette Labinger, is on behalf of Paula Borrelli, who has worked at Newport Grand since 2007 and as a “night manager on duty” (MOD) there since 2008. 

If General Assembly leaders thought paying lip service to women’s rights would satisfy Rhode Islanders, the past two weeks have proven them sorely mistaken. In the short time since legislators concluded their business, their failure to act on separate bills addressing sexual harassment in the workplace and reproductive rights – along with the Democratic Party’s refusal to endorse three progressive women incumbents for office – has generated enormous political controversy. 

The 2018 Legislative Session seemed like it should be the year of #MeToo, but when the General Assembly adjourned at the end of June with an exhausting Saturday session (that almost went into Sunday) they failed to approve legislation ensuring equal pay for equal work, or any of the bills that emerged from a commission tasked with helping address sex harassment in the workplace.

Reverting to a practice it had forsworn after the ACLU sued on behalf of Rhode Island resident Lilian Calderon, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials have said they may once again snatch and detain undocumented immigrants who show up for interviews with federal immigration officials to legalize their status. The revelation was made last week in a filing in Ms. Calderon’s lawsuit by a new ICE Interim Field Office Director in Boston, Rebecca Adducci.

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court today upheld President Trump’s third “Muslim Ban,” overturning previous court rulings against it.  All versions of this “Ban” block immigrants and temporary visitors from several Muslim-majority countries. Steven Brown, ACLU of RI executive director, issued the following statement in response:

The ACLU of Rhode Island issued the following statement regarding the House passage this evening of H 7715A:

We are in the eye of the storm at the State House. While many more bills may be added in the coming day or two, the calendars are not extremely busy thus far for the week. Click here for our civil liberties Advocacy Toolkit. But they nonetheless include a number of bills affecting civil liberties. Here is a summary of some of them:

With only one month remaining for RI school districts to implement comprehensive policies protecting transgender and gender non-conforming students, a recent public records inquiry by the ACLU of RI has found a handful of districts still have no policies in place or have implemented policies that miss the mark entirely.