The American Civil Liberties Union and Yale Law School’s LGBT Litigation Clinic are teaming up to confront the unconstitutional filtering of the Internet at public high schools around the country. The groups have launched a new campaign called “Don’t Filter Me” that asks high schools students to log on to certain Web sites with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender-related content to see if those sites are blocked by their schools. Joshua Block, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s LGBT Project, said it’s not uncommon for school districts to filter LGBT Web sites, while allowing access to sites that condemn homosexuality. Selectively filtering LGBT Web sites violates both the First Amendment and the Equal Access Act — a 1984 federal law that requires public schools to provide equal access and resources to all extracurricular clubs, according to the ACLU. “We think it’s extremely common. We’ve received reports from school districts around the country in the past year,” Block said. “It’s like whack-a-mole, in that we address one school district and the problem pops up at another one.” The ACLU sued two school districts in Tennessee in 2009 for blocking access to LGBT-related Web sites, and the two parties quickly settled with the district agreeing to stop blocking those sites. Block said addressing the filter problem is simple for school districts: They simply need to change the settings on their filtering software — which most districts elect to do once contacted by the ACLU. Yale law students are working with the ACLU to help the organization respond to reports of censorship. Don’t Filter Me asks high school students to visit a variety of GLBT-related sites from school computers, including the sites for the National Day Of Silence, the It Gets Better campaign, the Gay-Straight Alliance Network and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. The ACLU is also asking students to visit sites that condemn homosexuality or advocate for LGBT people to try to change their sexuality such as People Can Change and the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality. The ACLU is asking students to report any censorship of these sites. “Schools not only have a legal duty to allow students access to these sites, it is also imperative that LGBT youth who are experiencing discrimination and bullying to be able to access this information for their own safety,” Block said. Karen Sloan can be contacted at [email protected]