Thread: With Groups like the ACLU, who needs ALIPAC

ACLU demands schools allow access to gay Websites
Schools face suit if blocks to Web access aren't lifted
By Chris Echegaray • THE TENNESSEAN • April 16, 2009


Students and parents are demanding Metro Nashville's public schools stop blocking access to Web sites about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.

They complained to the American Civil Liberties Union, which on Wednesday gave Metro and Knox County schools an April 29 deadline to announce plans to open access to the non-sexual sites. A letter to the districts threatened lawsuits if they don't comply.

Metro parents previously complained to the school district about the lack of support for gay and lesbian students, the teasing and the fatal results.

Clare Sullivan, a parent of a lesbian daughter who attended Metro schools, cited recent news reports of students who committed suicide after constant harassment for being gay.

"You have students struggling with these issues," she said. "If you cut off avenues for discussion, and it's taboo in schools, where else can they go?"

Sullivan is a member of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, one of the groups whose Web site Metro blocks. Others include the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

Metro uses an outside company that filters Internet access, district spokeswoman Noelle Mashburn said.

"Honestly, all I know is that we have a Web site security service and don't know why some are blocked," Mashburn said. "We are not commenting yet on the ACLU letter."

The letter said Metro uses software by Education Networks of America, and the software's default setting blocks sites the company categorizes as "LGBT."

The company's CEO, David Pierce, issued a statement in response late Wednesday.

"ENA's role is to provide Internet services to our customers, which are school districts across Tennessee and other states," it read. "While our service includes filtering functionality, it is our customers who make the decisions about which categories are blocked or unblocked."

Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the ACLU of Tennessee, said more than 100 other Tennessee districts use the software through a cooperative contract. "We're eager to find out whether any of those systems are also violating students' constitutional rights by restricting access to LGBT sites," she said.

Metro's Support Student Safety Coalition lobbied the school board for an all-inclusive policy that affirms the rights and opportunities available to all students in the school system, regardless of gender identity, appearance or sexual orientation. The board adopted it in June.

Not having access to some of the Web sites at issue is similar to not allowing access to the NAACP's site, said Eric Austin, a senior at Hume-Fogg Magnet School and member of the Support Student Safety Coalition.

"You are blocking the human rights of LGBT people," he said.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090 ... /904160367

Schools should not be teaching sexual oriention and CW TV shouldn't be teaching sex ed. Their evening lineup is all geared towards teens and it's all about bed hopping.

Dixie

I agree Dixie !!

I say that because I saw some kids that were teen mothers and they all said they got the idea to have sex from the TV shows they watched.

"Out of the mouths of babes comes the truth."

Dixie

Reading, writing, and arithmetic should be the objective in school. Some learning about history would be nice too.

That group, ACLU, likes to stir things up and create controversy.

Luke 24