Censoring the Department of Education Website

The Department of Education has asked employees to censor the Department’s web site based on the political priorities of the Bush Administration.

In May 2002, the Department of Education circulated an internal memo entitled “Criteria & Process for Removing Old Content from www.ed.gov.”[1] The memo explains that the www.ed.gov portal, the largest of the Department’s sites, lacks common design themes and navigational systems. Furthermore, it states that “[m]uch of the content on these pages is either outdated or runs counter to current Administration priorities.”[2] The memo instructs employees to remove all items dated earlier than February 2001 unless the item:

Is needed for a legal reason;
Supports No Child Left Behind or other Administration priorities and initiatives;
Is important for historical perspective (ie: statistical trends, the Nation at Risk report);
Is important for policy reasons identified by an Assistant Secretary; or
Is useful or valuable to parents, students, or educators and is consistent with the Administration’s philosophy.[3]

The American Educational Research Association and 12 additional national educational organizations wrote a letter to Education Secretary Rod Paige expressing concern about the suppression of information.[4] Executive Director Dr. Felice J. Levine commented, “Sound policy depends on solid science . . . . We need to ensure that research materials remain accessible so that analysts can interrogate them further and compare new results with prior data. We need to resist policies or procedures that remove such information or make it difficult to find.”[5]

[1] Department of Education, Criteria and Process for Removing Old Content from www.ed.gov (May 31, 2002).

[2] Id. (emphasis added).

[3] Id. (emphasis added).

[4] Letter from American Educational Research Association et al. to Secretary of Education Rod Paige (Oct. 25, 2002).

[5] American Educational Research Association, AERA NEWS: Societies Raise Concerns About Document Removal from U.S. Department of Education Web Site (Nov. 21, 2002) (online at http://www.aera.net/communications/news/021121.htm).