Senior Andrew Lampart was prepping for a gun control debate at his Connecticut high school when he uncovered a halting bias—he could only access websites from one side of the debate. Nonnewaug High School’s firewall protection blocked the National Rifle Association from his computer. At the same time, it allowed access to gun control advocacy sites such as Moms Demand Action and Newtown Action Alliance.
Further browsing revealed the firewall barred an entire slew of political sites including the state's GOP website. The state Democrat party's website, however, remained conspicuously accessible.
Lampart found that banned websites included: Townhall.com, TheBlaze.com, Christianity.com, CTGOP.com, ProtectMarriage.com, NRLC.org (National Right to Life), Vatican.va, and CTMirror.org.
Yet while Christian and pro-life sites were off-limits, Nonnewaug students had direct access to Islam-guide.com and Planned Parenthood. Lampart claimed the firewall was very deliberate in what it block and left unblocked:
“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. 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.”
Lampart informed the Superintendent, Jody Goeler, of the system's bigotry and spoke before the Board of Education Monday.
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The school is against blocking any internet site from a student or teacher, Debra Carlton, Goeler's assistant, told Townhall. The filter was entirely due to and created by the school’s firewall protection system: Dell SonicWALL.
“[We] don’t select which websites are blocked and which are not,” Carlton stated. She added that, aside from pornographic, Nonnewaug High School would never attempt to block their students from any website.
The Board of Education has acknowledged the gravity of the situation and has vowed to begin an investigation.
Watch Lampart tell the story here.
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