Today, higher education and
library organizations representing thousands of colleges, universities, and
libraries nationwide released a joint set of Net Neutrality Principles they
recommend form the basis of an upcoming Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
decision to protect the openness of the Internet. The groups believe network
neutrality protections are essential to protecting freedom of speech,
educational achievement, and economic growth.
The organizations endorsing
these principles are:
American Association of
Community Colleges (AACC)
American Association of State
Colleges and Universities (AASCU)
American Council on Education
(ACE)
American Library Association
(ALA)
Association of American
Universities (AAU)
Association of Public and Land-grant
Universities (APLU)
Association of Research
Libraries (ARL)
Chief Officers of State Library
Agencies (COSLA)
EDUCAUSE
Modern Language Association
(MLA)
National Association of
Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU)
Libraries and institutions of
higher education are leaders in creating, fostering, using, extending, and
maximizing the potential of the Internet for research, education, and the
public good. These groups are
extremely concerned that the recent court decision vacating two of the key
“open Internet” rules creates an opportunity for Internet providers to block or
degrade (e.g., arbitrarily slow) certain Internet traffic, or prioritize
certain services, while relegating public interest services to the “slow lane.”
At its best, the Internet is a
platform for learning, collaboration, and interaction among students, faculty,
library patrons, local communities, and the world. Libraries and institutions of higher education make an
enormous amount of Internet content available to the general public—from basic
distance learning classes to multimedia instruction, cloud computing, digitized
historical databases, research around “big data,” and many other educational
and civic resources—all of which require an open Internet. Institutions of higher education and
libraries do not object to paying for the high-capacity Internet connections
that they need to support their students, faculty, administrators, and library
patrons; but once connected, they should not have to pay additional fees to
receive prioritized transmission of their content, services, or applications.
These groups support strong,
enforceable rules to ensure that higher education and libraries can continue to
deliver online educational and public interest content at a level of speed and
quality on par with commercial providers.
The proposed principles call upon the FCC to ban blocking, degradation,
and “paid prioritization”; ensure that the same rules apply to fixed and mobile
broadband providers; promote greater transparency of broadband services; and
prevent providers from treating similar customers in significantly different
ways.
The full text of the principles
is attached to this press release.
“Colleges and universities depend on broadband Internet
access to support high-quality, media-rich teaching, learning, and research,”
said Diana G. Oblinger, President and CEO of EDUCAUSE. “At a time when the
country views higher education and its use of technology as central to social
and economic progress, we cannot make the quality and effectiveness of learning
and research dependent on the capacity of institutions—and ultimately students
and their families—to pay additional fees on top of the costs they already bear
for broadband access. The FCC must ensure an open Internet, which is essential
to higher education’s ability to fulfill its mission in the digital age.”
“America’s libraries collect,
create, and disseminate essential information to the public over the Internet,
and enable our users to create and distribute their own digital content and
applications,” said American Library Association President Courtney Young.
“Network neutrality is essential to ensuring open and nondiscriminatory access
to Internet content and services for all.
The American Library Association is proud to stand with other education
and learning organizations in outlining core principles for preserving the open
Internet as a vital platform for free speech, innovation, and civic
engagement.”
“The FCC should use the joint
principles submitted by higher education and library groups as a framework for
creating rules to protect an open Internet that has fostered equitable access
to information and sparked new innovations, including distance learning such as
MOOCs,” said Carol Pitts Diedrichs, President of the Association of Research
Libraries (ARL). “Without rules governing net neutrality to ensure that
blocking and discrimination do not occur, the Internet could be available only
to those with the greatest financial resources to pay to have their content
prioritized.”
“The Modern Language
Association is committed to the principles of net neutrality that have long
protected the fundamental character of the Internet as a space for open,
nondiscriminatory, and creative communication,” said Rosemary Feal, Executive
Director of the Modern Language Association.
“An open Internet is critical to the continued success of
American higher education,” said Muriel A. Howard, President of the American
Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU). “If the FCC were to abandon net
neutrality in favor of a toll superhighway, colleges and universities would be
stuck in the slow lane. This would undermine much of the promise of the
Internet for research and teaching, and exclude the very entities that
contributed so significantly to the development of the Internet.”
“The Internet has helped serve as a
great equalizer for society—providing information on virtually everything to
anyone with a connection. The enormous societal advancements over the
past two decades have been made possible in large part because of students,
researchers, and educators’ ability to create, discover, and improve upon
research and content posted on the web,” APLU President Peter McPherson said.
“APLU opposes efforts to degrade Internet service, which could create a slow
lane for some while prioritizing Internet access to others. Certainly
Internet service providers should continue to deliver innovative services, but
those services must come in the form of optional upgrades, not automatic
downgrades.”
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AASCU is a Washington, DC–based
higher education association of more than 400 public colleges, universities,
and systems whose members share a learning- and teaching-centered culture, a
historic commitment to underserved student populations, and a dedication to
research and creativity that advances their regions’ economic progress and
cultural development.