News & Commentary

Following a closed-chambers conference with U.S. District Judge William Smith today, the State has acknowledged that a new law which caps the occupancy of registered sex offenders at Harrington Hall homeless shelter in Cranston at 10%, will be on hold until the court reaches a final decision in the pending ACLU challenge to the law. In a letter that was sent today to Crossroads Rhode Island, the organization which oversees the Harrington Hall shelter, and submitted to the court, Michael Tondra, Chief of the state’s Office of Housing and Community Development, wrote that: “during the pendency of the lawsuit that there will be no adverse consequences to Crossroads Rhode Island by the State regarding the operation of Harrington Hall should the nightly occupancy exceed that set forth in [the statute] while the State, Crossroads and other stakeholders continue the ongoing work toward reaching the goals set for sex offenders in the statute.” As a result of the letter, it was agreed that the ACLU’s request for a temporary restraining order against enforcement of the law was no longer necessary.  ACLU of RI volunteer attorney Lynette Labinger said: “Our goal in seeking a restraining order was to ensure that anyone needing shelter at Harrington Hall would not be turned away. We are quite pleased that this goal has been voluntarily achieved by agreement of all the parties while the case proceeds.” A briefing schedule is expected to be set in the near future. The letter from the State can be found here. More information on the lawsuit can be found here.  

The ACLU of RI has a long history defending the rights of racial and ethnic minorities.  We’ve got a long way to go, but in the spirit of celebrating the progress we’ve made – thanks in no small part to visionaries like MLK – here’s a look at six cases from more than a decade ago in which we challenged laws and practices that harmed people of color in our state:

If we’ve learned anything over the years it should be that bills cobbled together and rushed through for passage NEVER seem to have anything good come of them.  But alas, this scenario played out yesterday when the House of Representatives voted – with bipartisan support no less, including Rhode Island’s own Congressman Jim Langevin – to potentially expand the government’s ability to spy on us. 

Imagine a school administrator telling a high school political science teacher that a whole range of timely topics – for example, medical marijuana, terrorism in the Middle East, gun control, or even politics in general – was off-limits for class discussion. The pedagogical absurdity of it – not to mention the upending of academic freedom it embodies – would seem obvious to most. In school districts across the country, however, a similar type of censorship takes place in the classroom every day, with little dissent.

Below is a summary - prepared by ACLU volunteer attorney Lynette Labinger - of today’s court conference before Judge William Smith in the ACLU’s challenge to the State law which caps the number of registered sex offenders (RSOs) that can stay at Harrington Hall at 10% of the shelter’s population. “Counsel for the parties met with Judge Smith today.  After a lengthy discussion, the Court acknowledged that there are significant legal and factual issues which the State has not yet had an opportunity to address.  It was also acknowledged that Crossroads has not been turning anyone away since the law took effect and the parties agreed that while they are developing the legal issues, no one would be turned away and that we could publicly communicate that understanding.  We are next scheduled to meet with the court on January 16, in order to give the State time to prepare its legal arguments, and in the meantime the State understands that Crossroads will not turn anyone away on the basis of the 10% cap and that there will be no repercussions for doing so.” For more information on the lawsuit, click here.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed a class-action lawsuit claiming that participants in a Medicaid program run by the state are not being given proper notice before being kicked off the program, leading to a loss of income that the suit says puts low-income residents “at risk of losing their homes and their utilities and deprives them of funds needed for their daily living expenses, including food.” The suit, against the state Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS), ties the improper notice to the state’s infamous UHIP computer system, the subject of another pending ACLU suit regarding food stamp benefit delays.

As emergency workers and homeless rights’ advocates work feverishly to help move vulnerable homeless Rhode Islanders out of the frigid weather, the ACLU of RI has filed an emergency lawsuit to halt enforcement of a new state law taking effect tomorrow that, as those advocates had earlier warned public officials would happen, will evict some homeless people out into the bitter cold. 

Here’s a look at the top issues – including some big victories and losses – of 2017:

In a ruling that the ACLU of Rhode Island called a blow to an open judicial process, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit today held, by a 2-1 vote, that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) can keep secret thousands of pages of documents it had submitted in a major prescription drug-dealing criminal trial. At the same time, the plaintiff in the case, local journalist Philip Eil, said the suit still had a positive effect, prompting the DEA to release thousands of other documents it would not have otherwise disclosed in the absence of the lawsuit.