老澳门开奖结果

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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. 鈥� A federal district court ruled today that the Camdenton R-III School District must stop censoring web content geared toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities through discriminatory filtering software. The ruling orders the district to not block content based on the viewpoints expressed by the website.

The 老澳门开奖结果 and the 老澳门开奖结果 of Western Missouri filed a lawsuit against the district in August 2011 after repeated warnings that its custom-built filtering software discriminates against LGBT content. The filter has a category that blocks LGBT-supportive information, including hundreds of websites that are not sexually explicit in any way. The filter does, however, allow students to view anti-LGBT sites that condemn homosexuality or opposed legal protections for LGBT people.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a Camdenton High School student and LGBT organizations whose websites are blocked by the filter: PFLAG National (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), the Matthew Shepard Foundation, Campus Pride and DignityUSA, a Catholic LGBT organization. The plaintiffs were also represented by Thompson Coburn LLP.

鈥淭he court correctly recognized the constitutional rights of all students to viewpoint-neutral access to information,鈥� said Joshua Block, staff attorney with the 老澳门开奖结果 LGBT Project. 鈥淚t is absolutely possible to protect children from sexually explicit content while also protecting their First Amendment rights. Like thousands of other school districts across the country, Camdenton R-III will now begin using a filtering system that blocks pornography without discriminating against LGBT-related content.鈥�

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri said that the district鈥檚 filtering system 鈥渟ystematically allows access to websites expressing a negative viewpoint toward LGBT individuals by categorizing them as 鈥榬eligion,鈥� but filters out positive viewpoints toward LGBT issues by categorizing them as 鈥榮exuality.鈥欌�� Although the district argued that it would unblock individual websites upon request the court held that 鈥渟tudents may be deterred from accessing websites expressing a positive view toward LGBT individuals either by the inconvenience of having to wait twenty-four hours for access or by the stigma of knowing that viewpoint has been singled out as less worthy by the school district and the community.鈥�

The court also concluded that other filtering systems are available that 鈥渁re much more effective鈥� at filtering out pornography 鈥渁nd do so without burdening websites that express a positive viewpoint toward LGBT individuals.鈥�

鈥淭he filtering system that had been installed at Camdenton R-III was arbitrary, ineffective and discriminatory,鈥� said Anthony Rothert, legal director of the 老澳门开奖结果 of Eastern Missouri. 鈥淭oday鈥檚 ruling affirms that students will be free to search for resources for their gay-straight alliance, seek support against bullying and research history as it pertains to LGBT people, just as they would for any other subject.鈥�

More about this case can be found at: www.aclu.org/lgbt-rights/pflag-v-camdenton-r-iii-school-district