ACLU Files Suit Against Schools System for Blocking Access to Gay Sites

School systems in Davidson and Knox counties might have to change the way they allow students to access the Internet in response to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court.

The American Civil Liberties Union says Metro and Knox County schools violate First Amendment rights of students because their internet filters block positive information from gay or lesbian sites, while allowing access to sites that give negative information.

State ACLU director Hedy Weinberg says her group filed the suit after being contacted by individuals in those communities.

“Students and a librarian, who explained that they could not access sites that they were looking for, when in one instance, a student was trying to find information about LGBT scholarships.”

“LGBT” stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. Weinberg says the filters raise a federal first amendment, freedom of speech issue.

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Weinberg says the issue is whether government – in the person of a school system – can restrict free speech.

“The First Amendment, as you know, ensures that individuals have freedom of speech, freedom of expression and part of that ensures that government not limit and restrict speech. In this situation the school systems are limiting speech, by restricting access to pro, positive, educational LGBT sites, and at the same time allowing access to sites that give negative impressions about the LGBT issue.”

The civil rights organization wants the filters removed, or re-edited.

“Why we filed the lawsuit is because it’s very clear to us that the school system is engaging in viewpoint discrimination by only allowing one side of an issue to be presented. And the use of these filters are the way that the schools are limiting access to both sides of the issue.”

THE ACLU’s press release on the lawsuit includes these paragraphs:

“Students need to be able to access information about their legal rights or what to do if they’re being harassed at school,” said Keila Franks, a 17-year-old student at Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville and a plaintiff on the case. “It’s completely unfair for schools to keep students in the dark about important issues and treat websites that just offer information like they’re something dirty.”

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Internet filtering software is mandated in public schools by Tennessee law, which requires schools to implement software to restrict information which is obscene or harmful to minors. However, the “LGBT” filter category does not include material which is sexually gratuitous and already included in the “Pornography” filtering category.

Tennessee law requires school systems to bar “inappropriate use” of school district computers, that schools “seek to prevent access…to material…harmful to juveniles,” and select a filter to block “child pornography and obscenity.”

STATE law reads in part:

49-1-221. Policy on use of Internet — Filing of policy — Contents
a) (1) Every two (2) years, each director of schools shall file with the commissioner of education an acceptable use policy, approved by the local school board, for the international network of computer systems commonly known as the Internet. At a minimum, the policy shall contain provisions that:
A) Are designed to prohibit certain inappropriate use by school district employees and students of the school district’s computers via the Internet;
(B) Seek to prevent access by students to material that the school district deems to be harmful to juveniles;
(C) Select a technology for the school district’s computers having Internet access to filter or block Internet access through the computers to child pornography and obscenity

The ACLU posted more information and a video of one of the student-plaintiffs on its website.