In April, I read about a Tennessee school librarian and two Tennessee high school students who had contacted the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) for help regarding Internet filters that two Tennessee school districts were using which restricted students from accessing any website that included GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) information and resources. The ACLU wrote a letter to each school district and gave them until April 29 to reply.
Two days ago, I read that one of the school districts did not respond to the ACLU's letter, and while the other district did respond, the response did not show enough "good faith" regarding the issue. Therefore, school media specialist Karyn Stort-Brinks and two students, along with the ACLU of Tennessee, decided to sue the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools and Knox County Schools. They claim that censorship of GLBT sites infringes on the students' First Amendment rights and denies them access to vital information, resources, and organizations regarding GLBT. They also state that the filters deny students access to both sides of the issue by filtering GLBT information but not sites related to the other side of the argument.
I 100 percent agree with the lawsuit and commend the librarian and the students for standing against such practices. I cannot believe schools would even think about using this type of filtering software. The April article states that Tennessee schools must use filters to protect students from harmful and obscene sites, but this filtering software, provided by Educational Networks of America, is set to automatically filter the term GLBT. I think this is ridiculous. There is a large amount of educational information that students cannot access because of these filters. The scary thing is that 105 other districts in the state use filtering software provided by ENA. Can you imagine how many students are being restricted from accessing these sites? This seems absurd to me, and I hope this sort of discrimination is ended quickly in Tennessee and anywhere else this software or similar filtering systems are being used.
Article: http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6659561.html
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I didn't realize that the filters were that broad. From some of the information I have been reading on CIPA, this is exactly what the ALA has been hoping for, because the only way to overturn this legislation is to have patrons start to challenge it.
ReplyDeleteI see the usefulness of filters for some content on the internet, but for anything GLBT? Don't teachers and adminstrators have to, to some degree, put their professional responsibilities ahead of their personal beliefs, just like librarians do? Who decided GLBT needed to be filtered? I hope the lawsuit works out in favor of the ACLU.
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