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The American Civil Liberties Union is suing a Missouri school district it says uses Internet filtering software to block access to educational websites about lesbian, gay, and transgender issues. The case was filed Aug. 15 in Jefferson City against Camdenton R-III School District.
Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri, said the lawsuit is an action on behalf of organizations whose websites are blocked by the filter, including the Matthew Shepherd Foundation and Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays National. Rothert said the software used by the district “illegally denies student access to important educational information and resources on discriminatory grounds.”
The filing is part of a national ACLU campaign. In 2009, the group sued the Knoxville and Nashville school districts over access to LGBT websites; leaders there eventually agreed to stop using filtering software to block those sites.
ACLU officials say they are not against preventing access to sexually explicit content but rather the use of software that blocks purely educational content. The organization is working with the Yale Law School on the “Don’t Filter Me” campaign, which asks students to check to see if their schools are blocking content by having them look up LGBT sites.
In recent comments to a local newspaper, the Lake Sun Leader, Camdenton Superintendent Tim Hadfield said the district does not believe its system of filtering websites violates students’ rights. “We do specifically block sites that are inappropriate and will continue to do so,” he said.
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