NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – The American Civil Liberties Union has asked public school officials in Tennessee to stop blocking students’ access to GLBT Web sites on school computers.

The organization said in a release April 15 that as many as 80 percent of public school districts, including Knox County and Metro Nashville schools, may be restricting access to non-pornographic sites that offer educational and political information about issues such as same-sex marriage or groups such as the Human Rights Campaign.

The letter asks the districts and schools who use filtering software provided by Education Networks of America to stop blocking sites designated as “LGBT” or the ACLU will file a lawsuit.

Tennessee state law only requires schools to use filtering software to restrict information that is obscene or harmful to minors. The ACLU isn’t challenging that law.

David Pierce, president and CEO of Nashville-based Education Networks of America, said in a statement last Wednesday that his company’s service makes it possible to filter the Web but that the school districts decide which categories to block.

The ACLU is representing two students and a librarian in Tennessee who say the software blocks access to important information like scholarships for gay students or viewpoints on current events for schoolwork.

The letter also notes that the software does not restrict Web sites that counsel gays to change their sexual orientation.

“Public schools are supposed to be a place where students learn from the open exchange of ideas,” said Eric Austin, a senior at Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville, in the news release. “How are we supposed to be informed citizens and learn how to have respectful debate when our schools rule out an entire category of information for no good reason?”

The ACLU says the content in these Web sites is protected speech under the First Amendment and the Tennessee Constitution.

“When public schools only allow access to one side of an issue by blocking certain Web sites, they are engaging in illegal viewpoint discrimination,” said Hedy Weinberg, the executive director of ACLU of Tennessee.