Speak Up Project

Here’s a story that you might not have heard about. A Connecticut substitute teacher was “convicted of four counts of risk of injury to a minor for having exposed her middle school class to pornography in October 2004.” Convicted of FOUR counts of risk of injury. The conviction is up to 40 years in jail. The teacher made claims that she was getting uncontrollable pop-ups on the computer in the classroom. However, despite better judgment she allowed to leave the screen on to expose her students to the filthy material. The article I read basically called out the teacher to learn how to control her computer, and if not then to shut it off.

Now, I can picture in my mind the image of a classroom full of uncomfortable and confused children being exposed to this stuff. Well, maybe some of them weren’t confused and had bumped into pornography before. We all know it’s not uncommon.  What gets me is that this image is offensive enough to the legal boundaries of the harms of pornography, that it warrants a serious prison sentence. The question is this: Why are we so up in arms about children being exposed to pornography publicly, but are not willing to take more serious measures to restrict its exposure at the source a bit more?

The two major cases we face in this instance are that one side believes that restricting, not eliminating, pornography on the web is an infraction on freedom of information and speech. By placing any limits on the Internet, we effectually deny certain individuals the right to get what we want, when they want it. Surely, there is a case here, and people should be able to at least be given options. I would never argue against these rights.

However, there’s a small crack in the foundation, and I’ll ask a few questions to try to illustrate it.

Thinking about the story of the Substitute teacher, should it have been okay for those kids to have seen porn? Is it wrong for them to be exposed publicly to lewd material? Is it harmful? Would you want your kids to see it in their classroom?

When not even considering the issues of free speech, or access to information, or even Internet restriction most people find that situation plain wrong. So, then is it okay for the safety of children to be compromised at the hand of this essential freedom?

I leave this one open. I am in no way a legal scholar, but I am an individual with a voice. I’m a person who has to make more effort to simply avoid pornography than those who enjoy it have to make to access it. For whatever reason, we’re ready to deliver explicit pornographic material on a silver platter to those who want it, but we’re not willing to give those who despise it more tools to avoid it. I can’t find the logic.