KNOXVILLE — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against the public school systems in Knoxville and Nashville over access to gay Web sites after a settlement was reached.

The ACLU filed suit over Internet blocking that denied access by students to educational sites about gay, lesbian and transgender issues.

The ACLU said Tennessee law required schools to filter Internet sites to block those which are obscene or harmful to minors, but said the sites being filtered out were educational sites which are not sexually gratuitous.

The group filed the federal lawsuit in Nashville on May 19 on behalf of three high school students in Nashville and one student and a high school librarian in Knoxville.

The ACLU said the two school systems have agreed to stop using filtering software that blocks those sites.

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