Two steps forward, one step back

Proponents of intellectual freedom are mourning the loss of Judith Krug, who died April 11 after a lengthy illness. For more than 40 years, Krug was the director of the American Library Association Office of Intellectual Freedom and the Executive Director of the Freedom to Read Foundation. She was the founder of Banned Books Week and helped countless librarians as they faced challenges to books in their collections. Here's a lovely tidbit about her from the New York Times obituary:

Ms. Krug credited her parents as inspiring her passion for free expression. In 2002, she told The Chicago Tribune about reading a sex-education book under the covers with a flashlight when she was 12. "It was a hot book; I was just panting," she said, when her mother suddenly threw back the bed covers and asked what she was doing. Judith timidly held up the book. "She said, 'For God's sake, turn on your bedroom light so you don’t hurt your eyes.' And that was that."

Krug was also a proponent of access to online information and was one of the first to raise objections to the USA Patriot Act's threat to reader privacy. So, I wonder what she would think of the tussle currently taking place in Tennessee's Knox County Schools and Metro Nashville Public Schools. The American Civil Liberties Union has charged that "public schools in Tennessee are filtering access to online websites discussing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, but are not blocking sites advocating 'reparative' therapy to change their lifestyle." The schools are blaming this case of "viewpoint discrimination" on their Internet service, Education Networks of America, while ENA claims decisions on whether to block certain websites are made solely by the school districts. In the meantime, the sites are still blocked, as far as I know. I would like to think there's another explanation for this scenario, or at least more to the story. In the meantime, we'll all have to pick up where Krug left off. One way to do that is to send memorial contributions to The Freedom to Read Foundation, 50 East Huron, Chicago Illinois 60611.