Internet porn filters - another take

[Julia Schult]

No flame wars, here.  A family member just forwarded to me a blurb pointing
out that we have opposing court rulings on the subject of filtering in
libraries:

http://www.overlawyered.com/archives/01/june1.html#0604c

According to this, a district court in Virginia ruled in 1998 that filtering
in a public library was unconstitutional.  However, the Minneapolis case
said lack of filtering created a hostile work environment, which is also
against the law.

This sets us up for a Supreme Court challenge, because the rulings are in
different federal districts.  They are also based on different points of
law.  If it came to a head on the basis outlined here, I believe (and I am
not a lawyer, nor do I play one on tv) the unconstitutional argument, if
sound, should trump the "hostile work environment" violation, also if sound.
This is because I believe the free speech claim is based on the constitution
while (I think) the harassment claim is based merely on legislated law.  Any
lawyers care to comment?

<Did I say no flame wars?  Then ignore the next paragraph... more of a rant
than a flame>

My personal take is that it is only a hostile work environment if people
were complaining and nothing was done, which is quite likely to be what won
the case in court.  If patrons (plural) were trying to bug the librarians by
exposing them to pornography, especially offensive and (if minors are
involved, which a lot of online pornography is) even illegal pornography,
and those librarians complained and asked for policy changes that would
prevent them from being exposed to this, and the library did nothing (which
in the Mpls case I thought they did make some changes) then that would be a
hostile work environment.  It is always a hostile work environment when
management does not listen to deeply considered policy advice from a group
of front-line workers, but it is not always illegal.  When issues of gender
arise, it can legally be considered harassment.  In this case, it is because
women feel intimidated by pornography and men don't (generalization, of
course, and we could discuss that whole topic, but not on this list) it
becomes harassment instead of just management being inconsiderate and
unresponsive.  Now, if the librarians and/or other staff complained, and the
management took steps such as putting in those screens that don't allow
anyone to see what is on a users screen, with a policy that patrons must
clear the screen before they leave the workstation, then I don't think the
management was unresponsive.  I don't think patrons should be allowed to
intimidate staff whether with a knife or with a degrading picture.  (And
furthermore, I like and enjoy erotica, but when I see some of the stuff
that's out there I do feel strongly intimidated and abused.  If someone left
images of castration around on purpose for the library staff to find... or
holocaust pictures... I'd feel the same way.)  And yes, I have dealt with
violent and threatening patrons, and the library has policies on how to deal
with them.  Why not the same with patrons who deliberately harass library
staff without guns or knives.  We have policies against that, too!

<end of rant>

---Julia E. Schult
Access/Electronic Services Librarian
Elmira College
Jschult at elmira.edu

p.s. rhetorical question: why do they call them "porn filters" when one of
their main functions is to block violence?  As my husband says, "More Sex!
Less Violence!"