ACLU Sues Missouri School District Over Alleged Censorship
by Steve W., August 17, 2011
The ACLU has filed a federal lawsuit against the Camdenton School District for its using web filters to allegedly block students accessing LGBT-affirming content.
As part of its Don’t Filter Me campaign the ACLU informed the school district back in May that if it continued to block access to literally hundreds of age-appropriate LGBT websites, many of which contained anti-bullying resources and gay-straight alliance information, the district would be “subject to legal liability and the expense of litigation.” The district unblocked certain anti-bullying websites but ignored the warning about its so-called “sexuality” filter.
Good to their word, the ACLU on Tuesday filed a lawsuit on behalf of four organizations the district’s web filter blocks. They are PFLAG National (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbian and Gays, the Matthew Shepard Foundation, Campus Pride and DignityUSA, a Catholic LGBT organization. The district’s web filter, the complaint notes, does not block anti-LGBT websites that address the same topics. This, the lawsuit says, violates students’ First Amendment rights.
