Pr. William schools lift filter on LGBT Web sites

The Prince William County school system has removed a filter fromschool computers that prevented students from accessing informationabout lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.

Software on school computers screens out sexually explicit Websites in compliance with state and federal law. But the software,created by Blue Coat Systems, also included a filter that blockscontent from organizations such as the Gay, Lesbian and StraightEducation Network and the It Gets Better Project, an anti-bullyinginitiative.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia sent a letter toSuperintendent Steven L. Walts in April asking for the "LGBT filter"to be removed. The school system responded Wednesday by removingthat filter from its computers while keeping the rest of thesecurity software in place.

"Internet filtering is difficult, sometimes imprecise, andconstantly evolving. It is nearly impossible to find the perfectbalance between the protection of students, freedom of speech andequal access," said Keith Imon, the school system's associatesuperintendent for communications and technology services. "However,the decision to discontinue the use of the LGBT filter is withinthis balance."

Officials said that inappropriate content will still be caught byan "automatic filtering process." The district is also working withBlue Coat to identify sites that might need to be filtered throughother categories now that the LGBT filter is no longer being used.

"We're happy that Prince William has chosen not to discriminateagainst Web content that might be useful to lesbian and gay youth,"said Rebecca Glenberg, legal director of the ACLU of Virginia. Shesaid she was unaware of any other Northern Virginia school systemsthat use the LGBT filter.

The ACLU has contacted school systems across the country aboutWeb filtering in a national "Don't Filter Me" campaign. In 2009, twoTennessee systems removed an LGBT filter after being sued by theACLU. Schools in Maryland, New Jersey and Texas removed such filtersafter being contacted by the organization.