References to Fox News Channel were dropped from an upcoming episode of ABC's "Boston Legal," The Los Angeles Times Reported Friday.

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The episode, scheduled to air Sunday, focused on a public high school principal's decision to block access to Fox News on the school's cable system. Conservative students complain, calling it censorship.

Executives at The Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC ordered series creator-producer David E. Kelley to delete explicit mentions of Fox News. Instead, the episode will have characters referring to an unnamed cable news channel that promotes a conservative agenda.

ABC issued a statement saying the decision had nothing to do with politics.

"While real-life situations are often used as original inspiration for fictionalized programming story lines," said the statement, "it is a long-standing, industrywide practice not to use real people or actual events."

Kelley spokeswoman Stacey Luchs said dropping the Fox reference allowed the story to be told in "an even more subversive and provocative way."