PGN April 1-7, 2011 by The Philadelphia Gay News

PGN NATIONAL

Philadelphia Gay News www.epgn.com Apr. 1-7, 2011

ACLU to schools: Stop web filtering LGBT content By Heather Hollingsworth The Associated Press KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The American Civil Liberties Union sent letters Monday to schools in Missouri and Michigan telling them to stop blocking students’ access to educational websites about gay, lesbian and transgender issues. Besides the letters to the North Kansas City School District and Rochester Community Schools, the ACLU also is sending requests for information about web-filtering programs to school districts in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin and Washington. The Missouri district blamed a technical problem for sites being blocked, and the Michigan district said it’s looking into it. Meanwhile, the North Kansas City School District’s filtering provider Lightspeed Systems reclassified one LGBT website Monday so it would be less likely to be blocked. The ACLU first addressed the issue in 2009 when it filed a lawsuit over access

to LGBT websites in the Knoxville and Nashville school districts in Tennessee. The districts ultimately agreed to stop using filtering software to block those sites. Since then, the organization has received numerous complaints that schools are continuing to block LGBT sites, prompting the national campaign. “Before it was a game of whack-a-mole,” said Joshua Block, staff attorney for ACLU’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & AIDS Project. “You would fix it in one school district, and it would pop up in another.” The ACLU identified the schools it is contacting by working with the Yale Law School on a campaign called “Don’t Filter Me,” which asked students to check if their schools are blocking content by having them look up eight LGBT sites. Five provide educational and support while the ACLU characterizes the other three as antigay for encouraging gays and lesbians to change their sexual orientation. Block said filtering systems are set up to block out a range of content, from Internet gambling and shopping sites to social media and sports sites. The ACLU had no prob-

lems blocking out sexually explicit content, but Block said that’s not the aim of the filters blocking out LGBT content. One filter provider has a warning that pops up on students’ screens when they go to off-limits websites, telling them their search is being blocked because it’s LGBT and that their Internet use is being monitored. Block said that for an LGBT student without a supportive home environment, “that’s not very helpful, to say the least.” He said that while it’s legal for parents and private schools to block LGBT material, it’s another thing when public schools do it. Schools aren’t allowed to limit access just because they disagree with a group’s viewpoint, he said. He also said the ACLU is looking into whether the web-filtering vendors know their public-school customers are using their software to block material that students should be able to access. The record requests that the ACLU is sending to schools are seeking a range of details, including the types of content blocked under filtering software’s default settings. He said getting companies to address the

issue could prove easier than approaching thousands of schools. “At a minimum, the companies should warn public schools that some of the filter categories aren’t appropriate,” Block said. Rochester Community Schools said in a statement that it is in the process of “reviewing the filtering rules in the software” it uses from DeepNines Technologies and said this was the first time this issue had come up. Scott O’Neill, a spokesperson for Netsweeper Inc., which acquired DeepNines earlier this year, said he couldn’t discuss the Rochester situation specifically, but that if a school is inappropriately blocking content, that’s an issue the school should resolve internally. North Kansas City Schools said in a news release that two LGBT websites that the ACLU said were closed are now open and accessible. Amy Bennett, a spokesperson for Lightspeed Systems, North Kansas City Schools’ filtering provider, said the company’s default settings should have allowed students to view the two sites that the ACLU said were blocked. ■

LEGAL & PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY SERVICES & HOME IMPROVEMENT DIRECTORY AMY F. STEERMAN Attorney at Law

��

215-735-1006

��

Concentrating in Planning for Lesbian and Gay Couples • Probate • Wills • Living Wills • Powers of Attorney 1900 Spruce Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 www.amysteerman.com

��

�� WWW.HOLTESQ.COM New Jersey 856-599-5555

“We are a debt relief agency”

��

Philadelphia 215-545-7789

��

Thomas E. Hora Attorney-at-Law ��

��

Reach Over 40,000 Readers Weekly For As Little As $25.00 A Week. Call 215-625-8501 Today!