The School Board for District 14 in Connecticut issued a statement explaining why student access to the Vatican’s website was blocked, as well as those deemed to be conservative.
This situation went from bad to worse. The Board of Ed told us that no one deliberately decided to block the websites. After consulting with the filtering service provider, Dell SonicWALL, the board concluded that the problem “was a function of how the parameters were set in the filtering criteria, and we are confident it has been remedied.” In other words, it was Dell’s fault.
No one with half a brain believes this to be true. Dell sure doesn’t. Here is what it said: “A school had a policy [Nonnewaug] to block a category of sites rated as Politics/Advocacy Groups at their site using our content filtering product. It’s important to note that our product does not come with that category turned on. The school actively turned it on.”
Blocking the Vatican website, as well as others that are considered to be conservative, was the result of a conscious effort to censor the First Amendment rights of students. The person, or persons, who are responsible for this should be fired.
We are happy that the national media picked up on this story and gave it the attention it deserves. Had it been gay sites and Muslim sites that were blocked, the reaction would have been even greater. This issue was all about politics, from beginning to end.
We are also happy that the father of the student who alerted us to this story was pleased with our effort.
