Tennessee schools block gay issues sites
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- A school librarian and two Tennessee high school students have told the American Civil Liberties Union their school district has, “blocked access to online information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues,” says the School Library Journal.
“As many as 107 Tennessee public school districts could be illegally preventing students from accessing online information about LGBT issues by activating the Internet filtering category designated ‘LGBT’,” says a letter from the ACLU to school officials at Knox County Schools, Metro Nashville Public Schools, and the Tennessee Schools Cooperative, according to the story.
“As a result of using the Educational Networks of America (ENA) filtering software students using school computers cannot view political and educational information about LGBT issues and well-known nationals organizations such as the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), and the Human Rights Campaign,” it says.
But it, “lets students access sites that encourage ‘reparative therapy’ for changing sexual orientation,” denounced as dangerous by the American Medical & Psychiatric Associations.
Together with Karyn Storts-Brinks, a librarian at Fulton High School in Knoxville, Andrew Emitt, 17, of Knoxville Central High School, and Eric Austin, a senior at Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville, all separately contacted the ACLU, says the story, quoting Emitt as saying:
“When I found out about this web filtering software, I wasn’t looking for anything sexual or inappropriate – I was looking for information about scholarships for LGBT students, and I couldn’t get to it because of this software.
“Our schools shouldn’t be keeping students in the dark about LGBT organizations and resources.”
Now the ACLU of Tennessee, the national ACLU LGBT Project and national ACLU First Amendment Project are asking the school districts to end the “unlawful censorship” by April 29, says School Library Journal.
Otherwise, says the ACLU, “we will have no choice but to seek other remedies, including filing a lawsuit”.
According to an Educational Networks of America (ENA) document, “The database of ENA’s content filtering solution, Blue Coat, contains fifteen million website ratings representing billions of web pages, published in more than 50 languages, and organized into 61 useful categories”.
Censorship categories chosen by the the Tennessee Schools Cooperative include »»»
Adult/Mature Content, Alcohol/Tobacco, Alternative Spirituality/Occult, Chat/Instant Messaging, Gambling, Hacking, Illegal Drugs, Illegal/Questionable, Intimate Apparel/Swimsui, Nudity, Open Image/Media Search, Personals/Dating, Phishing. Pornography, Proxy Avoidance, Sexuality/Alternative Lifestyles, and Social Networking
And of course, “Peer-to-Peer (P2P)”.
“Certainly varying discrimination and filtering is going on all over the country, but the difference is those incidents aren’t getting press,” says MomLogic, going on »»»
Call it Tennessee’s lucky day. The world is watching as the school administrators blame their Internet filter service. And they might’ve gotten away with that humdinger if it weren’t for those delightful gay-reparative websites the “filters” accidentally allow.
Oh, and then there’s the black-and-white English clearly stating in the schools’ contracts that the schools decide what to filter, not the Internet Service, which in this case is Education Networks of America. An attorney for ENA already handed both districts their asses in an immediate public response.
Amazon recently hurriedly removed its ban on gay books says in it was all a big mistake.
Tennessee students, teachers, or school librarians whose schools use the ENA Web filtering software and find that their access to LGBT sites are restricted are encouraged to contact the ACLU of Tennessee calling 615-320-7142 or emailing the at aclutn@aclu-tn.org, says School Library Journal, adding:
“Schools in other states that are being denied access to these sites should contact the LGBT Project at the ACLU or call 212-549-2673.”
School Library Journal – ACLU Asks Tennessee Schools to Stop Banning Gay Educational Sites, April 19, 2009
MomLogic – Gay Issues Websites Blocked at Schools, April 20, 2009
big mistake – Sorry for gay books ban, says Amazon, April 14, 2009
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April 21st, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Why are so many wowsers in USA?
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:31 pm
And of course if you do not embrace the gay lifestyle with joyous enthusiasim, you are a hateful homophobe and bigot.
May 15th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
If you would like the perspective of a developer of a filtering product, who if given the chance to do it over again, here goes…
Having an intimate knowledge of the Internet, I recognize that there is exponentially more harmful content than educationally beneficial content available on the Internet. I now realize that trying to block out the harmful content while still allowing access to the beneficial content is a completely foolhardy goal that simply cannot be accomplished. A considerably more realizable goal would be to identify quality, relevant educational material available on the Internet and provide access to that using a white-list at the exclusion of everything else. This is exactly the approach schools take when choosing textbooks and I believe the same approach would work well with the Internet. I should point out that this is the polar opposite of the message I was preaching several years ago, but having spent 11 years playing Don Quixote, I have finally come to this new conclusion.
I know a lot of people would be outraged at my opinion, but I have seen more than anyone’s fair share of the garbage available on the Internet. By virtue of being a developer of an Internet filtering product, I have acquired an intimate knowledge of things I wish I had never seen or heard of. I thought by developing a filtering product I would somehow be protecting others from this stuff, but after 11 years of watching how the peddlers of the filth sneak and weasel their way past the filters, I now realize I have spent countless thousands of hours trying to stop a giant snowball from rolling down a very steep hill.
I am not suggesting that the material referenced in the ACLU letter should or should not be allowed, I am simply saying the schools shouldn’t be obligated to provide access to anything not specifically related to the education they should be providing our children.