Permanent Injustice: Rawls' Theory of Justice and the Digital Divide

There are more than 700 million current Internet users, but the world population is approximately 6 billion (Trend 2001), indicating that computer technology is used by less than one-eighth of the population. Computers are becoming common tools in schools, often viewed as a democratic panacea despite the costs involved and despite the fact that the majority does not have access to computers and/or the Internet; this creates a digital divide for students, in which some are “more equal” than others. Educators, thinking they have solved the digital divide issue, create a placebo effect because most do not consider students' issues of transportation to the library, lack of funds for a home computer, or the time it takes to navigate an available public computer and Internet connection. In this paper, the author argues that Rawls’ theory of justice does not work in practice with regard to technology, or as a way to solve the digital divide and the inequalities in school funding. She argues that another ethical theory should guide technological funding and policies in schools, embracing theories by Levinas, Noddings, Davis, Freire, Nkrumah, and Buber, in order to open scholarly discussion on the issues of injustice and technological funding inequities.