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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.

We released a report which highlights the alarming lack of privacy protections afforded students who use school-loaned laptops. Our report calls for the adoption of laws and policies at the state and local level to address this concerning violation of student privacy rights.

A report issued by the ACLU of Rhode Island today shows that Rhode Island’s public schools last year disproportionately suspended black students at the highest rates in nine years, while white students were suspended at record low rates. Like black children, Hispanic students remained severely over-suspended, with these disparities reaching all the way to the lowest grades. In addition, students generally – including elementary school children – were given out-of-school suspensions at alarming rates for minor disciplinary infractions.

According to a report released today by the ACLU, blacks in Rhode Island were arrested for marijuana possession at 2.6 times the rate of whites in 2010, and were seven times more likely to be arrested for this offense in the counties with the smallest minority populations. The report also shows that racially disparate arrest rates for marijuana possession have existed in Rhode Island throughout the ten-year period studied (2001-2010). These major disparities exist even though national studies show that blacks and whites use marijuana at roughly similar rates. ACLU of Rhode Island executive director Steven Brown said today: “Enforcement of marijuana laws adversely impacts the lives of too many Rhode Islanders in too many ways. Even more disturbing is the racial impact of the enf

Widespread racial profiling by law enforcement agents remains a pervasive problem in Rhode Island and throughout the United States, according to a report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Rights Working Group (RWG). Government policies are a major cause of the disproportionate stopping and searching of racial minorities by law enforcement agencies, according to the report, which was submitted to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).