News & Commentary

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed an open meetings lawsuit against the R.I. Board of Education over its plans later this month to meet in a private retreat, closed to the public and the media, in order to hear from invited “experts” on the issue of its “high stakes testing” requirement for high school seniors. The ACLU argues that allowing such a private meeting would significantly undermine the open meetings law’s purpose.

The ACLU of Rhode Island has today filed a lawsuit in R.I. Superior Court over the R.I. Board of Education’s (BOE) failure to consider a petition filed last month by seventeen organizations to do away with the Board’s “high stakes testing” graduation requirement. The lawsuit, filed by ACLU volunteer attorneys Marc Gursky and Elizabeth Wiens, argues that the Board had an obligation under state law, which it ignored, to consider the proposal and either reject it or initiate a formal rule-making process to consider its adoption.

The Women’s Fund of Rhode Island, RI NOW, and the ACLU of Rhode Island issued the following statement in response to Governor Lincoln Chafee’s decision today not to veto a bill that authorizes public school districts to provide sex-segregated extracurricular activities of any kind:

Thirteen national organizations promoting equality of rights have called on Governor Lincoln Chafee to veto a bill that they say would be a clear violation of federal anti-discrimination laws, “diminish educational opportunities for boys and girls alike,” and expose “school districts to the risk of costly litigation.” Among the groups signing the letter were the National Coalition of Women and Girls in Education, National Women’s Law Center, American Association of University Women, ACLU Women’s Rights Project, Women’s Sports Foundation, and the National Council of Jewish Women. That request follows a separate veto letter submitted by three local organizations: the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island, the RI National Organization for Women, and the ACLU of Rhode Island.

A coalition of 17 organizations representing youth, parents, the disability community, civil rights activists, college access organizations and other constituencies have filed a formal petition with the state Board of Education to initiate a public rule-making process over a proposal to rescind Rhode Island’s controversial new high-stakes testing graduation requirement.

In 2011, the General Assembly passed a controversial voter ID law, over the objections of many civil rights, community, labor and open government groups concerned about its impact on voting rights for the poor, the elderly, racial minorities and other vulnerable groups. In seeking to mitigate the potential harm of this law, a House committee yesterday passed a “reform” bill, H-5776A, that could potentially leave even more Rhode Islanders unable to vote in the next election.

As outrage mounts over the disclosure that the federal government obtained millions of phone call information records from Verizon as a routine matter, the Rhode Island General Assembly is poised to pass a bill that would specifically allow both federal and state officials to similarly obtain the location tracking information of any cell phone subscriber for any reason and at any time.

The ACLU of Rhode Island issued a statement today in response to the breaking news story that the U.S. government is secretly collecting records of calls made by Verizon customers. 

The ACLU of Rhode Island issued a report today, analyzing eight years of data, showing that in all school districts across Rhode Island, black and Hispanic students are suspended at rates substantially higher than their representation in the student population, while white students are suspended much less often than their representation predicts. Worse, the disproportionate suspensions are often for minor behavioral infractions and begin in elementary school. The ACLU’s examination of school discipline data collected by the Rhode Island Department of Education between 2004 and 2012 also concluded that suspensions are routinely overused as punishment against students statewide.