Schools

ACLU Demands GCPS Remove Gay Filters

Computer filter software keeps students from accessing websites on LGBT-related issues.

The ACLU of Georgia sent a letter to Gwinnett County Public Schools demanding that the school system remove computer filters that effectively ban sites related to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues. After receiving a number of complaints from across the country, the American Civil Liberties Union decided to press forward with a warning in May: Keep blocking these sites to students, and legal action could be next.

The letter was issued May 23 and written to Gwinnett County Public Schools Supt./CEO J. Alvin Wilbanks. The ACLU asked that the school system respond by May 30, a week later as it does with all complaints.

By June 1, the agency still had not heard anything from the school system about the filters, said Chara Jackson, legal director for the ACLU of Georgia. The agency plans to follow up with GCPS, but it wants to give GCPS the opportunity " to do the right thing."

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The following statement was issued Thursday (June 2) by Jorge Quintana, director of media relations for Gwinnett County Public Schools: "We have received the letter from the ACLU and are looking into the concerns
raised. Following guidelines from CIPA (Children's Internet Protection
Act), the school system does filter Internet content. That said, if a
student or employee needs access to a site for a legitimate instructional
or work purpose, they can make a request for that access."

As part of the ACLU's "Don't Filter Me Campaign," students across the United States have complained that the filtering software installed by the school system was "configured to improperly censor websites advocating the fair treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons or reflecting the viewpoints of LGBT people." Overall, Jackson said the agency received more than 70 complaints from across the country about what the ACLU calls "viewpoint-based censorship."

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The letter states that the Gwinnett County school system recently activated the specific Blue Coat filter, which is "designed to discriminate against LGBT viewpoints and does not serve a legitimate pedagogical purpose." Oftentimes, these filters trigger prohibition of LGBT-related content, considering them sexually explicit or pornographic, the ACLU said.

“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, who recently graduated and was the president of the Snellville high school's  “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.”

If the school system continues to use the filers, the ACLU contends that Gwinnett County Public Schools would be in violation of the First Amendment and the Equal Access Act. The act allows students seeking to form gay-straight alliances to have equal access to school resources that are generally available to other extra-curricular clubs.

"We hope that by promptly disabling the 'LGBT' filter, your school district will set a positive example and prompt other school districts to make sure that similar filters have not been activated on their own filtering software," the ACLU said in the letter.

The ACLU stated that it would look to pursue legal action if nothing is done. Already, the ACLU has sued two Tennessee school systems regarding filtering software. In the Tennessee cases, both school districts entered into a settlement agreement to stop blocking access to LGBT-related website resources. Other districts have voluntarily changed their protocols.

All it takes, Jackson said, is changing the filtering level or settings on school computer systems. "It's such an easy thing to fix," she said.


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