Cases
San Francisco Case | New York Case
Here are two law cases that involve the Internet.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- In a case with important implications for free speech on the Internet, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California has asked a Superior Court to dismiss a lawsuit aimed at shutting down a website that provides student reviews of the teachers at San Francisco City College.
The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco Superior Court City College by professor Daniel Curzon Brown, who objects to what students had to say about his teaching.
The ACLU, on behalf of Ryan Lathouwers, the creator of the Teacher Review website, says that the speech is protected under the First Amendment. Other defendants in the suit, the San Francisco Community College District, which is the governing body of City College, and the Associated Students of City College, agree.
"The Teacher Review website is a perfect example of how the Internet functions as a unique and valuable information source," said ACLU of Northern California staff attorney Ann Brick. "If permitted to proceed, this case would sound the death knell for any website or bulletin board allowing members of the public to exchange opinions."
A City College student himself at the time he created Teacher Review, Lathouwers said he wanted to provide an online resource for students trying to decide which teachers and courses to select. At the time, there was no systematic way for students to find out just what other students who had taken a class from any particular instructor had to say about the experience.
The website, with its student-authored reviews, was launched in September 1997. Since that time, more than 5,000 individual reviews of nearly 600 City College instructors have been posted. The site, which has proved very popular with students, has been visited over 100,000 times.
Curzon Brown, a tenured English professor, was rated on the website as one of the ten worst teachers at City College. Student reviews of Curzon Brown include comments like "pompous," "the most egotistical extremist there is" and "the worst teacher I have ever had the opportunity of knowing."
"Imagine a liberal arts professor unable to tolerate his students expressing their own opinions, and unwilling to allow students to draw their own conclusions from what others have to say," said Bernard Burk of Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin, who is representing Lathouwers as a cooperating attorney with the ACLU of Northern California. "Fortunately, the First Amendment prevents people like Professor Curzon Brown from using lawsuits to silence their critics."
Last October, Curzon Brown filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of himself and all other City College employees "who have been or will be defamed by the content of Teacher Review." His suit seeks monetary damages, and an injunction prohibiting the posting of "defamatory" reviews on the website and prohibiting either City College or the Associated Students from linking to Teacher Review.
A hearing is scheduled for March 29th in San Francisco Superior Court.
NEW YORK -- The New York Civil Liberties Union today criticized the New York City Board of Education for its failure to remove Internet filters that limit city high school students to a level of Internet access fit for kindergardeners.
On November 12, 1999, the Board of Education promised that school personnel would be trained to modify the filter within 30 to 60 days. Even though two months have passed since that promise, the NYCLU said, students trying to do research on the web continue to be frustrated by the recurring message: "Access Denied."
Although Operation Rescue's anti-abortion web site remains available to students, the web sites of Planned Parenthood and the New York Times, among many others, are still inaccessible. "Students continue to be the ones who are suffering from the Board's inaction," said Norman Siegel, Director of the NYCLU.
Donna Lieberman, Director of the NYCLU's Reproductive Rights Project, added: "Although the Board is able to modify the I-Gear filter centrally so teachers can decide what is educationally appropriate for their students, it continues to impose an arbitrary one size fits all standard on Internet access for their students."
Siegel urged the Board of Education to "modify the blocking programs so that separate standards apply for elementary, junior high and high school students." Lieberman added that "regardless of which generic filters are developed by the Board on a system-wide basis, the Board should make it clear that teachers should have the authority to make judgments about what sites are educationally appropriate."
e-mail me at