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iarkas’s challenge has prompted her to wonder whether the library community could preempt such complaints with workshops “about connecting to and talking with their teens” and using the library safely. She also noted that the era of librarian-authored content makes it advisable to devise a reconsideration procedure for challenges to homegrown web pages.
Schools unblock gay sites
Meanwhile, gay-themed reading continued to raise objections in other parts of the country. Just two weeks after the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee filed suit in May against the Knox County and Metro Nashville school districts for filtering access to digital information about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered issues, the schools
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stopped blocking the websites of gay-friendly advocacy groups such as Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. Because the two school systems share the filter with 80% of the other districts in Tennessee, the action has resulted in providing access to gay-interest information for more than 100 school systems throughout the state. “I’m really happy that the schools are finally making our web access fair and balanced,” said plaintiff Bryanna Shelton, a student at Knoxville’s Fulton High School, alluding to the fact that schools had already permitted access to sites about ex-gays that promote reparative therapy. “We’re pleased that these schools are finally living up to their legal obligation to allow the free and open exchange of ideas and information,” 8/6/2009
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The action provides access to gay-interest information for more than 100 school systems throughout Tennessee.
said Tricia Herzfeld, staff attorney with the ACLU of Tennessee. “Schools that censor educational information out of some misguided assumption that anything about LGBT people is automatically sexual or inappropriate are doing a disservice to their students,” she noted on the organization’s website. The ACLU website also notes that if the school departments break the agreement to cease filtering LGBT sites, the case will return to court.” “We are pleased that both school boards in this case have agreed to respect students’ rights and refrain from this sort of censorship in the future,” Herzfeld said. —B. G.
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