Following a series of complaints from New York City parents and teachers about students receiving access-denied messages during their Internet sessions, school officials admitted on November 9 that they had ordered the installation of I-Gear filtering software on the Board of Education’s centralized server.
According to the November 10 New York Times, humanities teacher Jan Shakofsky of Benjamin Cardozo High School in Queens became suspicious when her students received an “access denied” message after trying to research whose congressional performance had been rated by the National Rifle Association. Other blocked sites dealt with subjects such as breast cancer, eating disorders, and child labor. Also, students could reach pro-life sites but not abortion-rights URLs until Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union brought the matter to the school board’s attention in early November.
Chad Vignola, counsel to school-system Chancellor Rudy Crew, said at a November 10 press conference that although the board wouldn’t remove the software it would afford teachers training opportunities over the next 60 days on modifying URL-block settings.
Posted November 15, 1999.