WOODBURY, CT — A senior at Nonnewaug High School in Woodbury, Connecticut is accusing school administrators of bias after discovering that the campus internet filter blocks Christian, conservative, and pro-life websites, but not websites belonging to their counterparts on the left.
“Mr. Goegler informed me that all politically oriented websites were to be blocked to prevent hate-speech from leeching into the school.”
Andrew Lampart, 18, was doing research for a school report on gun control when he discovered access to the National Rifle Association’s website was blocked. When he checked to see if anti-Second Amendment sites like Moms Demand Action and Newtown Action Alliance were also blocked, he found he could easily access them.
Curious, Lampart began trying to access other politically- and socially-polarized sites. He found that while he could freely access the state Democratic Party’s website, Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, LGBTQNation.com, and Islam-Guide.com, the school filter blocked the state GOP website, National Right to Life, Christianity.com and even the Vatican website.
Lampart says that when he challenged school superintendent Jody Ian Goeler about the double standard, he told him it was necessary to block certain websites in order to “prevent hate-speech from leeching into the school.”
Lampart filed a complaint with the school board, which is now under investigation. “They're trying to, in my opinion, shelter us from what's actually going on around the country and around the world by blocking these web sites,” the teen told WTIC. “It should be the other way around. The web sites should be unblocked so that students can get different viewpoints from different sides of each argument.”
Meanwhile, some Christians are taking issue with the public high school’s apparent designation of their faith as “hateful.”
In a letter sent to Superintendent Goeler on Wednesday, Catholic League president Bill Donohue challenged him to “please identify examples of ‘hate speech’ found on the Vatican's website.”
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In response, Goeler denied that he “stated or implied anywhere that the Vatican website promotes or has examples of hate speech.”
In a letter released to the public Thursday, Goeler deflected responsibility for the bias onto a third-party web filtering contractor, Dell SonicWall.
“[Internet] filtering is in place to protect minors from potentially harmful or inappropriate content,” Goeler explained. “Items fitting this description include pornography, illegal drugs, gambling, violence/hate/racism, cults/the occult, to name a few.”
Goeler blamed Dell SonicWall for the bias against conservative websites. He said that “political/advocacy group” websites were supposed to be banned across the board for students, but that Dell SonicWall had filed conservative and Christian groups under the banned category while leaving left-leaning sites uncategorized.
“The district is trying to determine the reason for the inconsistency and if the bias is pervasive enough to justify switching to another content filtering provider,” Goeler wrote.
But Donohue says Goeler’s response is insufficient.
“I spent 20 years in education, 16 as a professor, and I cannot believe that any seasoned educator would make such a remarkable comment,” Donohue said in a statement.
“Goeler would have us believe that before he can rule on this matter, he needs to know if the ‘bias is pervasive enough to justify switching.’ Just how many websites of a ‘conservative’—or for that matter a ‘liberal’—nature have to be blocked to merit a change? And how many Catholic websites have to be censored before action is taken? The man is not suitable to work in education.”
Donohue vowed to take the issue to the head of Connecticut’s Department of Education, Stefan Pryor. “This is a serious matter,” Donohue said. “Abridging the First Amendment can only be allowed when there is some competing interest of overriding importance. Stopping students from accessing the Vatican's website is not one of them.”
Contact:
Commissioner Stefan Pryor, Connecticut Department of Education: [email protected]
Superintendent Jody Ian Goeler, Regional School District 14: [email protected]