News & Commentary

As the result of a ruling issued earlier this year by Commissioner Deborah Gist, the R.I. Department of Education is on the verge next week of undermining 150 years of precedent that guarantee the availability of a free public education in the state. That is the essence of an alert that the ACLU of Rhode Island and Mental Health Association of Rhode Island sent out to groups that advocate for the rights of students and their families.

Calling it “a new low” in the state’s enforcement of the Access to Public Records Act (APRA), five open government groups today blasted an opinion issued by the Attorney General’s office which held that public bodies can charge members of the public for the time it takes to compose a letter denying an open records request.

Nine local organizations have asked police departments across the state to formally adopt policies codifying the public’s right to record, without interference, the actions of police. The request, contained in a letter sent to all municipal police departments and the State Police, was made in the backdrop of the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, where police have impeded individuals’ and credentialed journalists’ efforts to document the ongoing protests there.

Six organizations that have fought to end the use of high stakes testing in Rhode Island today commended lawmakers on the significant impact of a new law imposing a three-year delay on the use of such testing as a graduation requirement. The organizations’ response was prompted by recent comments from some Rhode Island Board of Education officials who suggested the moratorium was unnecessary.

An audit of open government practices in Rhode Island has found that six municipalities and 10 out of 24 surveyed state and quasi-public agencies are seemingly in violation of the Access to Public Records Act (APRA) by failing to certify that they have any employees trained to grant or deny public record requests.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island this week urged the Cranston City Council to look more deeply into city police department practices based on police officers' actions in a high-profile criminal case that were once described by a state judge as showing “an overall attitude of gross negligence, if not downright recklessness, in blatant disregard of the requirements of the law.”

In a letter sent to Police Chief Hugh Clements, Jr., the American Civil Liberties of Rhode Island is urging the Providence Police Department to reject immigration detainers issued without judicial oversight now that the state Department of Corrections has ended the practice of detaining individuals based solely on these requests.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today praised Governor Lincoln Chafee for adopting a policy that no longer authorizes holding individuals at the ACI on the basis of questionable immigration detainers.

Nine organizations that pushed for the new law imposing a three-year moratorium on “high stakes testing” as a condition of high school graduation have sent an “urgent request” to state Department of Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, calling on her to ensure that the law is being implemented by school departments.