ACLU and Local Student Ask Gwinnett County Public Schools to Stop Censoring LGBT Websites
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 23, 2011
Software From Blue Coat Systems Exposes Public Schools Across the Country To Liability For Viewpoint-Based Censorship
Atlanta, GA – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Georgia contacted Gwinnett County Public Schools today to alert the school district that its Internet filtering software has been improperly configured to block access to web content geared toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities. The organization has sent demand letters to school districts across the country as part of the organization’s national “Don’t Filter Me” initiative, which seeks to combat illegal censorship of LGBT educational information on public school computer systems.
“The administration at Brookwood High School has always been really supportive, but a few weeks ago the web filter system at our school was changed, and suddenly websites that I’d been using all year to plan activities for our gay-straight alliance club started being blocked,” said Nowmee Shehab, a senior and the president of the GSA. “Students need to be able to find information about their rights and about suicide and bullying prevention, and now they’re not able to get to information that’s really important for them.”
“There could be school districts throughout Georgia that have activated anti-LGBT filters without realizing it,” said Chara Jackson, Legal Director for the ACLU of Georgia. “Schools need to make sure that their filtering software is properly configured to provide viewpoint-neutral access to important educational resources.”
Blue Coat’s filtering software includes a category called “LGBT” that blocked access to educational LGBT-related websites that are not sexually explicit in any way. The ACLU discovered that public schools across the country had improperly activated the “LGBT” filter and blocked access to sites such as the Gay Straight Alliance Network; the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and the It Gets Better Project, which provides resources for students who experience anti-LGBT bullying. Many schools activated the filter in the mistaken belief that it blocked sexually explicit content.
Last week, one of Blue Coat’s competitors, Lightspeed Systems, announced that it would remove a similar filter from its software, which blocked access to educational LGBT websites. Blue Coat is one of five filtering companies identified by the ACLU that continue to use a specialized filter designed to target LGBT content that is not pornographic or sexually explicit.
“We hope that Blue Coat follows Lightspeed’s lead and its ‘LGBT’ filter, which is designed to discriminate against LGBT viewpoints,” said Joshua Block, staff attorney with the ACLU LGBT Project. “The vast majority of school districts have no desire to discriminate against LGBT-related content and are simply trying to protect their students from pornographic or sexually explicit materials. Why should a software company include a feature that could be mistakenly activated and cause the school to violate the Constitution? By failing to step in to remove its ‘LGBT’ feature, Blue Coat is doing a disservice to its customers and the students they serve.”
When used by a public school, programs that block all LGBT educational content violate First Amendment rights to free speech, as well as the Equal Access Act, which requires equal access to school resources for all extracurricular clubs. This means that gay-straight alliances and LGBT support groups must have the same access to national organizational websites that help them to function, just as other groups such as the Key Club and the chess club are able to access their national websites. By blocking access to LGBT educational websites, schools deny helpful information to gay-straight alliances and other support groups that could be vital for troubled LGBT youth who either don’t have access to the Internet at home or do not feel safe accessing such information on their home computers.
A video showing students how to test whether or not their school is illegally filtering content and providing instructions for reporting censorship can be seen here: www.aclu.org/lgbt-rights/dont-filter-me
Students who want to report unconstitutional web filtering at their schools can fill out a form at: action.aclu.org/dontfilterme
More information on the ACLU’s work on LGBT school issues can be found here: www.aclu.org/safeschools
More information on the ACLU of Georgia’s work can be found here:
www.acluga.org
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