Administrators Are Accused of Blocking Emails Sent to Students if the Words “Gay” or “Lesbian” Are in Them
The ACLU says administrators at a Minnesota high school block emails sent to students if the words “gay” or “lesbian” appear in them. The civil rights organizations says this is a First Amendment violation of free speech and sent a letter to Greenway High School in Coleraine, Minnesota notifying them of the violation.
The group says it discovered the illegal censorship after a student contacted the ACLU via an email form on the group’s website, but when they tried to respond all their emails were bounced back. It was only when they removed the words “gay” and “lesbian” from emails did they go through.
“Your email was rejected because it may have contained content that violates school policies,” the returned emails to the ACLU read. “A record has been kept and logged.”
“Greenway High School blocked an email to a student because it had the word Gay in it,” the ACLU contends.
Using “filtering software to block pro-LGBT content while still allowing access to anti-LGBT sites… violates the constitution and is harmful to LGBT youth,” the ACLU notes.
“Beyond being illegal, when schools block access to positive LGBT information, they block information that could be vital for troubled LGBT youth who either don’t have access to the Internet at home or don’t feel safe accessing such information on their home computers.”
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Image by The New Civil Rights Movement