News & Commentary

The ACLU today filed a lawsuit in federal district court on behalf of a North Providence resident who has twice been detained as a deportable “alien” even though she is a U.S. citizen. The lawsuit alleges that federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and Rhode Island officials often bypass Constitutional requirements and safeguards when they detain individuals on immigration grounds.

The RI ACLU today filed a lawsuit against the Town of Narragansett in what the ACLU calls “the latest attempt by the town to unnecessarily harass and intimidate URI students living there.” The suit, filed in RI Superior Court by ACLU volunteer attorney H. Jefferson Melish, is on behalf of three URI pharmacy graduate students who have received tickets for parking their cars overnight on their street even though they have a permit to do so.

The RI ACLU has today filed a lawsuit against Central Falls Receiver Robert Flanders, Jr., charging that he has unlawfully delegated to an appointed hearing officer powers that are afforded only to him under the state law authorizing his appointment. The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court by RI ACLU volunteer attorney Jennifer Azevedo, argues that the receiver’s actions are a violation of the open meetings law, the Financial Stability Act, and residents’ rights to due to process and to petition their government. The suit is on behalf of Central Falls resident Shaunne Thomas.  The issue was first brought to the ACLU’s attention in January when residents complained about the receiver’s enactment (subsequently suspended) of an ordinance restricting on-street parking in the city. In investigating the complaints, the ACLU was surprised to learn that the receiver was not even present at the “council” meetings where the ordinance was approved. Rather, meeting minutes showed that his “hearing officer,” Gayle Corrigan, presided at those meetings and made the motions to approve the parking ordinance. The ACLU wrote a letter to the receiver, arguing that he had no authority to delegate this sort of responsibility to a third party, but the receiver disagreed, prompting today’s lawsuit. Last year, in upholding the constitutionality of the statute creating the Receiver mechanism, the RI Supreme Court did so by noting that “the receiver may exercise the powers of an authority or office to the limits of that authority or office, and no further.” The lawsuit argues that actions such as those described above exceed the powers of the City Council, whose members have no authority to pick surrogates to act and vote in their place at council meetings, and thus exceed the power of the receiver. Among other things, the lawsuit specifically alleges that, as a result of the receiver’s conduct, residents “have been denied their right to due process and their right to petition the government for the redress of grievances, as the ‘hearing officer’ is neither their elected official nor is she the receiver duly appointed by the State to act in place of elected officials, pursuant to the Financial Stability Act.” The suit also claims the receiver has violated the Open Meetings Act by “failing to convene and preside over public meetings or take official actions at those public meetings, and instead sending an unelected substitute to whom the State has not delegated the power and authority of elected officials.” The suit seeks a court order declaring that the receiver has unlawfully delegated his powers to the “hearing officer,” and preventing him from continuing to do so. ACLU attorney Azevedo said today: “It is dubious enough that the receivership law disenfranchises the entire electorate of Central Falls, replacing the Mayor and City Council with a Receiver, but to then have that Receiver delegate the duties of those elected officers to a third party is utterly unacceptable.”  Plaintiff Thomas added: “As an African American woman, I especially cherish my First Amendment rights, my right to due process, and my right to vote for my leaders. After hundreds of years of my people being denied these rights, I cannot sit by quietly and watch an appointed receiver abuse my rights.” The RI ACLU testified against passage of the receivership statute in 2010 on the grounds that it disenfranchised an entire electorate, and has objected to the broad powers assumed by the receiver in Central Falls.

The Rhode Island ACLU has today taken legal action against the Pawtucket and Little Compton school districts for violating the state’s open records law. The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court by ACLU volunteer attorney Karen Davidson, charges that district officials in each of these districts unlawfully failed to respond to two requests from the ACLU for public documents.

The attorneys for the RI ACLU and the Cranston School Committee have today submitted a formal judgment in the lawsuit filed by the ACLU last year challenging the presence of a school prayer mural in Cranston High School West’s auditorium. The case will be officially concluded when the judgment is signed by U.S. District Judge Ronald R. Lagueux. The terms of the judgment are provided below:

RI ACLU Executive Director Steven Brown: “The latest statistics should serve as wake-up call to all parents and policy-makers.  Rhode Island is on the verge of creating a huge and permanent underclass of teenagers based solely on the arbitrary scores of a standardized test that national studies show serves no meaningful purpose when used for high stakes purposes.”

Few people are aware of the devastating consequences that will follow from the Department of Education’s planned implementation in 2014 of a flawed “high stakes testing” requirement. That was the message today from community and civil rights groups which examined in thorough detail the statistics from the latest standardized test results (known as the “NECAP tests”) for Rhode Island students. Charts and graphs presented by the groups at a news conference today showed that the testing requirement will have a “stunning and severe” adverse impact on every community in the state.  Among the findings the groups released today, based on the 11th Grade NECAP math scores released two weeks ago:

Although a new redistricting plan for the state House and Senate was signed into law two weeks ago, the public remains in the dark as to whether the lines that were drawn ensure fair representation for racial minorities. That is the gist of a detailed four-page letter sent by six community organizations to the state’s redistricting consultant, Kimball Brace, seeking an explanation for his failure to use or release any racial bloc voting analysis despite being required to do so under his contract with the state.

The RI ACLU reported today that, after six months, “an embarrassingly small number of couples” – only forty-six – have taken advantage of Rhode Island’s civil union law, which was enacted over the strong protests of the state’s gay and lesbian community. Those figures contrast sharply with newly-released data from Delaware and Hawaii, states with similar populations to Rhode Island, and which implemented their own civil union laws last month. In the first month of those laws, Hawaii reported the issuance of at least 106 civil union licenses, and Delaware reported more than 85. Meanwhile, in Rhode Island, only seven couples obtained civil union licenses in November and December, including just one for the entire month of December. Those numbers remain far behind any other state with civil union, marriage or domestic partnership laws.