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SPOTLIGHT: Tennessee Schools End Censorship of Gay Educational Web Sites After ACLU Lawsuit

Andrew Emitt, a 17-year-old senior at Central High School in Knoxville, was at the school library searching for scholarships for LGBT students when he discovered he couldn’t access websites for non-profit advocacy and educational organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign, Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. Instead of the websites, a message appeared on his screen stating that the filtering software his school used blocked gay websites. Frustrated in his attempts to resolve the issue on his own, Andrew contacted ACLU-TN.

On May 19, the ACLU filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee against Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools and Knox County Schools on behalf of two high school students in Nashville, one student in Knoxville and a high school librarian in Knoxville who is also the advisor of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA). A timeline of ACLU's efforts to resolve this issue before filing suit is available here.

About 80 percent of Tennessee public schools, including those in the two districts being sued, use filtering software provided by Education Networks of America (ENA). Until early June, the software's default setting blocked sites categorized as LGBT, including the sites of many well-known LGBT organizations. Internet filtering software is mandated in public schools by Tennessee law, which requires schools to implement software to restrict information that 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.

Furthermore, the filter did not block access to Web sites that urge LGBT persons to change their sexual orientation or gender identity through so-called "reparative therapy" or "ex-gay" ministries – a practice denounced as dangerous and harmful to young people by such groups as the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association.

On June 3, Knox County Schools Superintendent Jim McIntyre released a statement saying that ENA was no longer blocking the LGBT category. The ACLU believes this change is in effect in all Tennessee districts that use the ENA software. Additionally, ENA's Web site shows that it has made a similar change for schools throughout the state of Indiana.

"Schools that censor educational information out of some misguided assumption that anything about LGBT people is automatically sexual or inappropriate are doing a disservice to their students," said Tricia Herzfeld, staff attorney with the ACLU of Tennessee. "We aren't dropping the lawsuit right away, but we certainly look forward to getting assurances from both school boards in this case that they will respect students' rights and refrain from this sort of censorship in the future."

The timeline of ACLU's efforts to resolve this issue before filing suit is available here.

The ACLU’s complaint is available online here.

A copy of ACLU’s press release on this issue is available here.