Steven Brown has dedicated more than three decades to serving as the executive director of the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Prior to his long tenure in Rhode Island, Brown led the Iowa Civil Liberties Union for three years and gained additional experience advocating for civil rights at both the Philadelphia ACLU and a chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union. In today’s political climate, one in which new legal challenges constantly emerge, Brown works to ensure that the promises of civil rights are not just theoretical ideals, but lived realities for the people of Rhode Island.
Ciara Leonard: The ACLU of RI has about 5,000 members across the state and performs its work in three major ways: litigation, legislation, and public education. Going beyond these terms, could you expand on how exactly the ACLU functions in Rhode Island?
Steven Brown: The first, and the one we’re probably most known for, is our litigation activities. We file a lot of lawsuits in order to try to vindicate constitutional rights. Here in Rhode Island, at any given time, we have about 30 lawsuits that cover a wide array of issues. Freedom of speech, equal protection of the laws, privacy, open government—you name it. They’re all being litigated in one way or another. A second area that’s very important is our lobbying activities, and these take place at both the state and local level. We spend time just about every day up at the State House lobbying on bills, trying to get good ones—from a civil liberties perspective—passed and preventing bad ones from getting passed. It takes a lot of time, but it’s an absolutely critical aspect of our work. The third area is public education. The most important thing about exercising your rights is knowing that you have them in the first place—and many people are not aware of the rights they have. So, we have a lot of “Know Your Rights” brochures and pamphlets on our website. We also do in-depth reports on particular civil liberties issues as a way of trying to both educate the public and advocate for changes in policy to promote civil liberties.
CL: You touched on the variety of issues the ACLU’s litigation work covers, and I am curious about how exactly these cases end up being litigated by the ACLU. The ACLU is generally confined to handling cases not that are factually complex, but raise clear civil liberties issues. Now that there is a new understanding of the Civil Rights Act being pushed and enforced under the new administration, when deciding which cases to defend, do you think the ACLU’s priorities will shift moving forward? Do you think new priorities will emerge?
SB: I don’t think it’s so much a shifting of priorities as much as it is focusing on issues now arising under the Trump administration that we haven’t had to deal with before, but certainly fall within the general scope of what the ACLU fights for. A good example is a lawsuit that we filed here in Rhode Island against the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The Trump administration issued an executive order requiring all federal agencies to not fund any projects or get involved with anything that “promotes gender ideology.” We’re not quite sure what that means, but every agency, including the NEA, has been tasked with implementing that order. We then heard from a number of local arts groups who wanted to apply for grants, but were afraid that what they were applying for might run afoul of this executive order. In order to even apply for a grant, the artists and the arts organizations had to certify that they did not “promote gender ideology,” so we filed a lawsuit on their behalf. The NEA quickly got rid of the certification requirement, but are still not saying that they won’t judge applications on this gender ideology scale.
That’s just one example, but there are dozens of lawsuits across the country addressing various other aspects of the many executive orders issued by the Trump administration. Here in Rhode Island, we’re still looking into a few to possibly challenge. There’s really no limit right now on how many civil liberties battles we are going to face from the Trump administration, but the issues themselves are not new. It’s just applying basic civil liberties principles to these attempts to roll back civil rights.
CL: I can only imagine that, with so many organizations now falling under scrutiny and questions of their funding being cut, there will be a lot more lawsuits and a lot more waiting on decisions to be made. You describe this period as a “censorial limbo” in an ACLU article. Could you speak more on the consequences of being in this limbo state?
SB: In the NEA case, the arts organizations are in this limbo. They’ve had to apply for grants without knowing what the actual criteria are that are going to be considered. This is an issue that cuts across all of Trump’s executive orders. A goal of many of these orders is really just to confuse people, to put people in this state of limbo not knowing what’s happening. And that’s true of these diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) orders eliminating funding for projects that involve DEI without ever really explaining what is covered. We also have this confusion in terms of immigrants—not just undocumented immigrants, but seeing the Trump administration take action against people who are lawfully in this country. It’s to some extent a scare tactic and an intimidation attempt. And unfortunately, I think it’s working to a large extent. When you don’t know what’s happening, what the rules are, or even whether the administration itself may break the rules, it puts people in a lot of fear and uncertainty. That’s one of the most troubling aspects of what’s going on right now.
CL: I definitely sensed that when reading about the legal troubles with “promoting gender ideology.” The term just feels so open and subject to interpretation—how would you even go about litigating something like that?
SB: That’s one of our major legal arguments. We’re raising that it doesn’t provide any real guidance to applicants and gives the NEA extraordinarily broad discretion to decide what gets grant money and what doesn’t. There is a statute establishing the NEA and the grant process that specifically says the only criteria they’re supposed to use are artistic merit and excellence. The incorporation of this very vague, open ended criterion of “promoting gender ideology” clearly conflicts with what the statute says. And as you noted, something that nobody really understands what it actually means.
CL: I am curious about this uncertainty, especially how it pertains to immigration. Since Trump has taken office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Department of Homeland Security agents have been active in several cities across Rhode Island. With this in mind, could you give an overview of the current state of immigration protections in Rhode Island?
SB: There are a lot of things going on in Rhode Island to attempt to try to stave off at least some of the things that we’re seeing happening across the country with immigration enforcement. Started during the first Trump administration and continued by the ACLU today is the encouragement of local cities and towns to adopt what we call immigrant protection ordinances. Such ordinances protect immigrants at the local level without conflicting with federal immigration law. For example, one of the provisions in the model ordinance that we’ve asked municipalities to adopt would prevent their local police departments from entering into agreements with ICE. Known as 287(g) agreements, they specifically authorize collaboration between police departments and ICE for immigration raids. We’re encouraging people at the local level to urge their municipalities to adopt protective ordinances against actions such as 287(g) agreements.
There are also a number of bills pending in the state legislature designed to provide some protections to immigrants in a variety of ways. But again, what actually happens remains to be seen. One of the outstanding requests comes from the Immigrant Coalition of Rhode Island, who sent a letter to the Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court asking him to take some administrative action to prevent ICE agents from arresting people at courthouses. This has happened before, and we know it has an incredibly chilling effect on immigrants wanting to make use of the judicial system, whether they’re parties to a lawsuit or witnesses. There’s a very real sense of danger in making use of the court system if people think ICE agents may be prowling the halls looking for individuals to pick up. So, there are local people and organizations trying to counter what’s going on at the federal level, but it remains to be known how much will actually get enacted.
CL: In a similar vein to ACLU’s letter to municipal leaders, back in January, Providence officials moved to add language to a pre-existing ordinance on Providence status as a sanctuary city. The update would codify protections for immigrants who lack legal status to be in the US by disallowing local law enforcement from “proactively collaborating” with federal law enforcement agents. It was then reported that the passing of the ordinance was delayed by Providence officials to consider whether the amendments could have the opposite effect of what supporters initially intended. That is, ICE possibly doubling down on Providence if they sought to strengthen an ordinance already making them a sanctuary city. Do you think that is a true unintended consequence or risk?
SB: I understand the concern, but I think it would be a mistake to give in to it. The Trump administration is targeting anybody and everybody they can, and it would be a mistake to think that if you just lie low, nothing will happen. The most important thing that municipalities and public officials can do is indicate they’re not going to back down, that they’re going to provide protections to immigrants to the extent that it’s allowable. I mean, states can’t do anything and everything. There are federal laws. ICE has certain powers that no state or municipality can reject. So it’s important that cities and towns and states toe the line where appropriate to make sure that they aren’t doing things that the federal law does not allow. But to the extent that the federal law does not prohibit various steps to protect immigrants, they need to fully move forward. The immigrant community needs that sort of support.
CL: The ACLU’s letter to municipal leaders seeks to address how many officials are unaware that they have no legal obligation to honor immigration civil detainer requests. It is interesting to think about how not only are citizens unsure of their position to the federal government, but even local leaders are as well.
SB: ICE deliberately does that. They try to intimidate people into complying with their requests despite not having the legal authority to do so. So it is important to educate not just the public, but public officials, because it’s understandably confusing. Education has to occur at all levels.
CL: I saw one particularly interesting bill for immigrant protections that the ACLU is currently pushing for at the Rhode Island State House—the 364-day misdemeanor bill. It aims to address how a one-year sentence can trigger deportation and other severe immigration consequences for noncitizens. This bill is now in its fifth year of being proposed. I am curious about such a bill—what would its passing mean for immigrants in Rhode Island?
SB: The 364 day bill, as you noted, has been around for a few years now. It has passed the Senate every year, but died in the House as a result of opposition from the attorney general. And it’s a bill of great concern to the ACLU because it could have enormous ramifications for immigrants in the state. To provide some background, it deals with a loophole or a gap in the way state law connects with federal law. In Rhode Island, like many other states, a misdemeanor is a crime that carries a sentence of up to one year. Federal immigration law says that if you commit certain crimes, like felonies, that carry a potential sentence of one year or more, you can be subject to automatic deportation. Because federal immigration law talks about one year or more, it captures minor offenses in Rhode Island.
This bill is a very simple fix. It changes the definition of misdemeanor in Rhode Island from a year to 364 days. By making that one day change, you can protect immigrants from this automatic deportation law under the federal immigration statute. That’s something we and immigrant rights advocates have been pushing for a number of years now, and it’s become so much more important this year in light of what the Trump administration is doing. We’re hopeful that we can convince The House of Representatives—notwithstanding the attorney general’s opposition—to pass the bill this year, because it will really be an enormous help to immigrants in this state.
CL: Zooming out a bit, these are most definitely trying times, and the ACLU undoubtedly have to face case after case and issue after issue. How do you not give into discouragement, and how are you able to keep sustaining a fight for fundamental rights?
SB: It can be discouraging. You know, this is an administration that is throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks. And one of their goals is to try to wear the opposition out. I don’t think there’s any question about that based on what they’ve been doing, and we just can’t let that get to us. It is draining and exhausting, but there needs to be a consistent and constant response to these really extraordinary efforts to take away civil liberties from a wide variety of individuals and organizations in ways that we think are deeply anathematic to what the Constitution and Bill of Rights are all about.
CL: You said earlier that you’ve been at the Rhode Island ACLU for decades. To sum up, what would you say is your favorite part of your job? I am uncertain about my own career path, but all I hope for in the future is to have done something that makes me think “This was the right thing to do, this was the right choice, I am glad I am here.” Do any particular, rewarding moments like that come to mind for you from your time at the ACLU?
SB: It’s really just being part of this effort to make the Bill of Rights a reality. You know, it’s words on a piece of paper. It doesn’t mean anything unless people actually fight to make sure that it becomes a reality. That’s the constant activity at the ACLU. Being part of that effort in and of itself is the rewarding thing. It’s knowing that the work we’re doing here is ensuring that the principles that this country was supposedly founded upon are actually put into effect and do what they’re supposed to do in terms of making this a truly free country. It’s a battle that never ends. One of Roger Baldwin’s, the ACLU’s founder, most famous quotes is “No battle for civil liberties ever stays won.” We’re seeing a constant reinvigoration of the same issues over and over. It will never end. But it’s important that there are organizations like the ACLU fighting day in and day out to try its best to make it a reality every day.
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.