Catherine Nygren
Opinions Writer
Chances are some of us remember being blocked from certain sites like Facebook and Hotmail during high school.Â
In the U.S., the Indianapolis Public School system, or IPS, has similar policies to ban particular websites from being viewed from school computers. All the typical categories are present: social networking, pornography, email, games, etc. However, if you’re one of the 34,000 students in the IPS system, don’t expect to access any sites that mention atheism or Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender rights.
That’s right, under the filtering policy, “access to web sites that have been identified as providing inappropriate content will be blocked.” Apparently this includes sites that promote and provide information on atheistic views (which, by the way, are included right between occult practices and voodoo rituals and in the same category as Satanism).
Also, any sites that provide information regarding, supporting, promoting, or catering to one’s sexual orientation or gender identity including but not limited to lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender sites are also banned. Ironically, later in the document there is a ban on sites that “depict hostility or aggression toward, or denigrate an individual or group on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality, ethnic origin, or other involuntary characteristics.” Apparently the IPS mission statement that “Diversity is valued as demonstrated by culturally competent practices” is based on a very narrow definition of what is “culturally competent.”
The policy has, not very surprisingly, raised a lot of criticism on various atheist and free-thought blogs on the Internet. The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a non-profit organization which educates and promotes free thought and non-theism, has sent a letter of strong objection to the IPS for its policy of censorship, which FFRF claims is violating constitutional rights and discriminating against the 15 per cent of the population that statistics say is non-religious. Â
This is not something to take lightly. Considering the power that the education system holds over students, the IPS is essentially deciding what is and is not appropriate. Banning information on atheism and LGBT rights is basically saying to students that said topics are “bad.” They are limiting the students’ capacity to expand their knowledge and acceptance of all individuals and beliefs, not to mention promoting certain religious views and heterosexuality while deliberately censoring information about all other perspectives.Â
Issues such as this have come up in the States lately as school boards deal with increasing pressure over which perspectives to present and promote in the classroom. For the sake of the students in the IPS system, one can only hope that such a discriminatory policy ends sooner rather than later.
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photo: Flickr / Philippe Leroyer