By BTL Staff
ROCHESTER-
The ACLU of Michigan has teamed up with the national ACLU and the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri to combat unfair filtering of web content on school computers. The organizations sent letters to several public high schools on March 28 demanding that they stop viewpoint-based censorship of web content geared toward the LGBT communities.
The ACLU was notified that the schools were censoring material after teaming with the Yale Law School to launch the "Don't Filter Me" campaign, which asked students to check to see if their school was blocking content.
"We're pleased that students around the country are responding to the initiative by asserting their rights and letting their schools know that censorship is unacceptable," said Joshua Block, staff attorney with the ACLU LGBT Project. "Blocking these sites not only discriminates against LGBT viewpoints, but can deny LGBT students in crisis a much-needed lifeline for support."
"I couldn't believe my school would block access to perfectly legitimate websites just because they were about LGBT issues," said Nick Rinehart, a Rochester High School student who was blocked from looking up information on gay-straight alliances with a message that said his search violated Rochester High School's "acceptable use" policy. "It's not fair for the school to try to keep students in the dark about LGBT resources."
Some schools have configured their web filters to block access to websites for LGBT rights organizations such as the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and websites pertaining to the National Day of Silence to protest anti-LGBT bullying. However, some filters also allow access to sites that condemn homosexuality or urge LGBT people to try to change their sexual orientation, such as People Can Change.
The ACLU has given the schools until April 4 to respond.
A video showing students how to test whether or not their school is illegally filtering content, and provides instructions for reporting censorship can be seen at: http://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: http://action.aclu.org/dontfilterme
