Students Take the Initiative and Succeed in Getting College to Block Porn on Campus Wi-Fi

Steve Warren : May 15, 2019
CBN News

"Our students asked President Garvey to block the top 200 porn sites, and he told them that he'd be happy to do so." -Campus spokeswoman Karna Lozoya told The Fix

[CBN News] Working together, a group of students at one Catholic college in the nation's capital has succeeded in getting their school to ban pornography from the institution's wireless network. (Image: via CBN News)

The Catholic University of America's Student Government Association Senate passed a resolution last month calling for the school to "{prohibit} access to the top 200 pornography sites through the campus network," according to The College Fix.

Joseph Enzler, a senior at the Washington, DC-based school, came up with the idea after he read an article explaining how the University of Notre Dame does not ban pornography on its network. Enzler then found out that porn was also not being blocked on Catholic University's network.

He started researching systems to block pornography and also contacted different Catholic universities to find out the programs they used if any.

"I knew we could do this," he told The Fix.

After meeting with several members of the school's administration, including the university's president, John Garvey, Enzler started a petition to get other students behind the porn ban. He ended up with almost 400 signatures from students and contacted student government senator Gerard McNair-Lewis. McNair-Lewis drafted the proposed measure and introduced it to the student government early last month.

The final vote came down to a tie. The vice president then broke the tie, voting in favor of the resolution.

The administration responded favorably to the resolution. Campus spokeswoman Karna Lozoya told The Fix: "Our students asked President Garvey to block the top 200 porn sites, and he told them that he'd be happy to do so."

The ban on all porn websites at the school is not complete. The university will block only 200 of the most popular pornographic websites on the Internet, according to Lozoya.

"We are working on implementing those blocks, and should have the top sites blocked within weeks," she said.

Lozoya added that the school may pursue other options after the ban goes into effect.

Meanwhile, Enzler said the response to the resolution has been positive and has sparked discussion on campus. Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here