Orwellian University Blocks Students’ Access to Harmful Sites, For ‘Civility’

Northern Illinois University is
restricting students’ access to certain websites. For their own
good, of course. The internet is a dangerous place, and we wouldn’t
want students inadvertently coming across something controversial,
now would we?

Students who attempt to visit an unauthorized site through the
campus network are redirected to a creepy “Web Page Access
Warning.” The “warning” is that the students are about to
go somewhere that probably violates NIU internet policy. One
student reported the policy to Reddit after he received a warning
for trying to access the Westboro Bapist Church’s Wikipedia
page. That’s right, its Wikipedia page.

NIU cites “common sense, decency, ethical use, civility, and
security,” as its various rationales for the policy. Yes, a public
institution of higher learning believes that it is just common
sense—and ethical—to dissuade students from visiting websites
deemed harmful by administrators.

Susan Kruth of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
writes that NIU’s internet policy is
laughably unconstitutional:

Whether students are prohibited from visiting a website
altogether or simply greeted by this bizarre threat of punishment,
NIU’s enforcement of its policy is an egregious act of censorship.
..

While a corporation like Ford or General Electric might have
valid reasons for limiting Internet access to some sites (for
instance, to promote employee productivity), there’s a vast—and
obvious—difference between private employees and public college
students. The fact that the Reddit user who relayed his experience
with the Internet filter was simply trying to access information
about the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) paints a disturbing picture
about the breadth of NIU’s censorship efforts. It seems that NIU
students who want to use the Internet to find out why the WBC is so
controversial are simply out of luck.

As Kruth notes, the policy instructs
students not to use the internet to visit social media sites like
Facebook and Twitter, conduct business, or participate in political
activity. Some rebellious student should try buy an advertisement
on a political candidate’s Facebook page; campus security officers
would no doubt escort the rulebreaker to Room 101 for immediate
re-education.

FIRE is “looking into the situation,” according to Kruth.