News & Commentary

The ACLU of Rhode Island has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a URI graduate student who was denied summer employment this year at a fabrics company because of her status as a registered medical marijuana user.

Tomorrow, you will choose between your constitutional rights or an expensive fantasy.

The ACLU of Rhode Island and the RI Disability Law Center today issued the following statements in response to a settlement agreement issuing a diploma to Barrington resident Molly Coffey: "The ACLU is very pleased that Molly has finally been given the diploma she rightfully earned. We commend the Coffey family for refusing to take 'no' for an answer. Thanks to their fight, thousands of students will be spared the stress, anxiety and unfairness of a high stakes testing regime," Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island said. Anne Mulready, supervising attorney at the RI Disability Law Center, said: "Students with disabilities face many obstacles in getting the public education that they deserve and that the law entitles them to. Molly's perseverance in seeking fair treatment from the school department and the state is an inspiring lesson for us all."

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island and Youth Pride Inc. today commended the RI Department of Health for adopting new “vital records” regulations this week that will make it easier for transgender people to revise the gender designation on their birth certificate.

Saying that the situation created “a troubling impression of retaliatory motivation,” the ACLU of Rhode Island and the R.I. Disability Law Center have called on the Barrington School Committee to issue a high school diploma to Molly Coffey, the Barrington High School senior whose plight led to the General Assembly’s passage of a law establishing a moratorium on the state’s “high stakes testing” requirement for graduation.

Five local organizations dedicated to open government have raised concerns that rules proposed by the Rhode Island Judiciary to implement a new electronic filing system for court documents could lead to increased secrecy and limited access to important court records by the public.

ACLU of Rhode Island executive director Steven Brown released the following the statement on the Rhode Island Traffic Stop Statistics Data Collection Study. The report includes data for all local police departments and State Police. It is available here.

Ruling in an ACLU lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge William Smith struck down a state law that makes it a crime to circulate anonymous political literature, including unsigned newspaper editorials. The ACLU of Rhode Island sued over the legality of the statute earlier this year to halt the Town of Smithfield’s stated plans to enforce it. The statute, which carries a potential one-year prison sentence, bars the distribution of any anonymous political literature that relates to ballot questions or that criticizes a political candidate’s “personal character or political action.”