Free-Speech
20 law professors back ACLU in suit
Twenty professors of legal ethics from law schools around the country are named in a brief filed in Superior Court Monday which accuses former Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah S. Jeremiah Jr. and the magistrates who run the state's Truancy Court program of attempting to stifle the free-speech rights of two lawyers representing the American Civil Liberties Union and its Rhode Island affiliate.
Lawyers representing Jeremiah and the magistrates have asked a Rhode Island Superior Court judge to bar the ACLU's New York lawyers from participating in a class-action lawsuit the ACLU filed for their clients because the ACLU lawyers made public statements against the Truancy Court during a news conference last March.
The event was to publicize the ACLU's class-action lawsuit against Jeremiah and the magistrates who run the Truancy Court program for allegedly violating the civil rights of the students and their families.
The ACLU lawyers' comments were printed in The Providence Journal and posted on ACLU's blog.
On Monday, 20 professors from law schools — Yale Law School, New York University School of Law and Georgetown Law School among them — joined in support of the ACLU’s free-speech argument in a 16-page "friend of the court" brief arguing in support of the free-speech rights of the ACLU lawyers.
"Providing information to the citizenry about the operation of the judicial system is essential," the memorandum reads, and the lawyers were attempting to "educate the public about an important but often overlooked role of government: the exercise of legal authority over juveniles … "
The comments included one from Robin Dahlberg, a lawyer representing the ACLU, who said that "pushing kids into the juvenile justice system is not the way to help at-risk youth graduate from high school, and, in fact, only increases the likelihood that they will ultimately end up in the criminal justice system.” The other ACLU lawyer, Yelena Konanova, posted entries to the ACLU's blog describing the experiences of two of the plaintiffs in the Truancy Court.
The blog post also stated that the lawsuit is part of the ACLU's Racial Justice Program's efforts to "end the school-to-prison pipeline — a national trend wherein children, and disproportionately children of color, are funneled out of the public school system and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems."
Lawyers for both sides are scheduled to appear Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. at a hearing before Superior Court Judge William Carnes on a separate motion by the magistrates seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed.
(Published by The Providence Journal - August 3, 2010)