The state of Kansas, along with 25 other states with similar laws concerning Internet protection in schools, requires the enforcement and implementation of ‘internet protection measures’ such as a firewall or an Internet filter. With its primary purpose listed as to ‘ensure that no minor has access to visual depictions that are of child pornography, harmful to minors or obscene’, Kansas’ 75-2589 bill went into effect in 2013, obligating public schools and public libraries to implement the security measures necessary to carry out its purpose.     

At Manhattan High School bypassing the internet firewall has become a communal act from the student body: a norm that, after a large number of students gained access to firewall passwords, caused every teacher to change their passwords earlier this year. Accomplished by obtaining a teacher’s username and password, then sharing it between peers or posting it online, the student body abused a system working to protect it. In doing so they pushed to the front argumentation against the firewall and its purpose.       

The Mentor editorial board, while aware of the firewall’s annoyances, agreed in the necessity for a firewall for the purpose of avoiding distractions for students in their place of education.

A school’s primary responsibility should be to grant a child a place to learn regardless of outside distractions. Attempting to exclude external factors for the benefit of learning correlates with the goal of creating an environment where students can integrate and apply themselves to best of their abilities. Though contemporarily we ‘millennials’ live wirelessly entangled in the Internet, social media and other vices of our time period, the firewall still, at this point, serves a purpose in trying to provide a pure educational experience.

Though MHS is a public school, payed for by citizen taxpayers, minors should still be managed with the services provided by the school. Free internet is not an absolute necessity right now, and while keeping in mind that progressively there will be a time where schools will have to integrate more access and freedom to their services, for the time being, the firewall remains with good reason. Not for its moral censorship, but for its use to block out distractions from the heads of young students.