News & Commentary

On this page, you’ll soon find posts from all our staff members discussing some of the most important civil liberties issues in the state. Whether we’re exploring the unintended consequences of a proposed law, discussing how a policy can be improved, highlighting old cases that are still relevant today, or commenting on recent articles that are worth the read, our goal is to provide new insight and keep you informed.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island has requested the “gag order” issued for the settlement discussions in the pension case be lifted now that plaintiffs are voting on a possible settlement agreement. In a letter delivered Friday to R.I. Superior Court Judge Sarah Taft-Carter, the ACLU said that since the “broadly written” gag order was issued to protect the confidentiality of the mediation process, it is “counter-productive and unduly intrusive on basic First Amendment values to allow it to remain in effect” now that that task is completed. In the letter, ACLU of Rhode Island executive director Steven Brown noted that, as plaintiffs began an expedited process of considering and voting on a settlement agreement, various explanations of the agreement have circulated with no public details coming from those who know what it contains.

The ACLU of Rhode Island filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit today on behalf of local journalist, Philip Eil, who has been stymied for more than three years in his effort to obtain access to thousands of pages of public evidence from a major prescription drug-dealing trial. The lawsuit, against the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), seeks a court order to release the documents, a declaration that the DEA has wrongfully withheld and redacted documents, and an award of attorney fees. Filing the suit were ACLU volunteer attorneys Neal McNamara and Jessica Jewell, from the law firm of Nixon Peabody.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island has raised deep concerns about the hiring practices of the City of East Providence and the East Providence School Department’s failure to address allegations of discrimination against minority employees and applicants.

Despite decades of progress toward gender equality, in Rhode Island today gender-exclusive student events that are specifically held for girls or boys with the active support of elementary schools help to perpetuate blatant gender stereotypes. Almost invariably, the girls’ events, organized by parent-teacher groups and publicized by the schools, are dances, with another gender-stereotyped event, like a pajama party, occasionally taking their place. By contrast, and just as invariably, the events arranged for boys involve almost anything but dancing, are wide-ranging, and focus on purportedly male-friendly activities like sports and arcade games.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island today issued a report calling on state and municipal leaders to examine policies, practices and procedures that lead to discriminatory treatment of black Rhode Islanders, from elementary school through adulthood. The ACLU report, titled “The School-to-Prison Pipeline in Black and White,” offers a brief but systematic examination of racial disparities in Rhode Island, and how those interconnected disparities can lead to a lifetime of unequal treatment. The report, presented in a series of twelve charts, comes as the nation celebrates Black History Month, and grapples with recent events that have pushed racial disparity issues back into the forefront.