Bill Donohue comments on a letter released by the School Board for District 14 in Connecticut about the decision to block student access to the Vatican’s website, as well as those deemed to be conservative:
This situation has gone from bad to worse. Now the Board of Ed is telling 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 High School] 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, and the others, was the result of a conscious effort to censor the First Amendment rights of students. The person, or persons, responsible should be fired.
Contact the Connecticut Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor: stefan.pryor@ct.gov
