The Fight Over EBSCO

In September 2018, a Cherry Creek School District spokesperson told Sentinel Colorado that students would use Gale instead of EBSCO. EBSCO disputed the pornography label and said the challenged material came from mainstream magazines.

On January 23, 2019, the Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee heard the campaign and its critics. It rejected referral of bill SB19-048, 2–3, and postponed it indefinitely, 3–2.

On February 27, 2019, CLiC said the plaintiffs had dropped the case against both defendants the previous week. No court order dismissing the case has been located.

On October 14, 2018, NCOSE republished a Thomas More Society statement. The plaintiffs’ lawyers said Colorado parents had shown Utah parents their EBSCO searches, without giving a date or naming everyone involved.

On October 5, 2018, Nicholeen Peck wrote that hearing about Colorado led her to ask other parents about school computers and to search Utah's online databases.

An undated Empowered Families Coalition document, written after October 10, 2018, credits Colorado's Patersons with prompting the Utah effort and recommends using the Colorado lawsuit as a model. Its instructions include documenting searches, coordinating weekly and contacting officials.

A September 2019 presentation deck is marked "PCHC, Indianapolis 2019" and names Nicholeen Peck as presenter. PCHC is the Protect Child Health Coalition.

UETN's account says Senator Todd Weiler received an email on September 20, 2018 about an article the sender considered inappropriate for Utah students. He forwarded it, and it reached UETN staff that evening. Staff asked EBSCO to remove the article from the K–12 service. The board record does not name the email's author.

On September 21 or 22, 2018, UETN disabled its K–12 EBSCO links and left academic and public library services unchanged. UETN's account says Saturday, September 22. A librarian's contemporary account points to September 21.

On October 4, 2018, the Utah State Board of Education voted 8–6 to direct its UETN representative to request measures protecting students, followed by restoring access once that expectation was met.

On October 19, 2018, the governing board voted to restore Utah's K–12 EBSCO links with additional restrictions.

Staff did find one article containing a cartoon line drawing of breasts and genitals and asked for it to be filtered. The report says EBSCO complied immediately.

On October 17, 2018, the Utah Educational Library Media Association (UELMA) asked UETN to restore EBSCO. It argued that losing research resources hurt students' information skills and advanced coursework.

UETN's January 2019 monitoring report records zero complaints and zero outstanding tickets. EBSCO's report for October through December 2020 says all six support tickets were closed and none concerned inappropriate content. UETN's February 11, 2022 monitoring item says reports showed no issues of concern.

On October 14, 2020, EBSCO's lawyer demanded that NCOSE retract a September article. NCOSE's October 30, 2020 reply stood by its campaign, changed some wording, and described Utah access as still blocked. Utah's board restoration record and later monitoring reports show that description was out of date.

HB38, School Technology Amendments, was signed on March 16, 2021 and took effect May 5. It required digital resources bought or licensed by UETN for public school students to prevent and filter obscene or pornographic material. Providers could lose future payments after notice of noncompliance. The law set a 90-day compliance check and required annual reports of provider failures.