http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-960063.mp3
KANSAS CITY, MO. – American Civil Liberties Union has told the North Kansas City School District to stop blocking educational websites dealing with gay, lesbian and transgender topics. It has given the district until April 4th to respond.
The school district stand this afternoon is, there is no intentional blocking.
At start of a national campaign to learn the scope of the web filtering practice, ACLU acted on a student complaint from Oak Park High School.
In a prepared statement, the school district says there is no reason for blocking and there may be a technical problem. The statement says there was a similar experience recently with another website for federal student aid.
Union legal director for Western Missouri, Doug Bonney cites the first amendment and, in a school context, the Equal Access Act--"so no matter what kind of a school group it is, everyone has to have equal access to school facilities, including the internet."
Two years ago ACLU sued districts in Tennessee over blocking LGBT websites. Those schools in Nashville and Knoxville ultimately agreed to stop using filtering software to block those sites.