Even after Katelyn Campbell’s principal allegedly threatened her for speaking out against a “slut-shaming” abstinence assembly recently held at her public high school, the West Virginia teen refused to back down. Her brave stance against the dangerous misinformation perpetrated by abstinence-only education, as well as her perseverance in the face of opposition from the school’s officials, has inspired thousands of people across the country to stand behind the high school senior in support.

After George Washington High School hosted conservative religious speaker Pam Stenzel to advocate for “God’s plan for sexual purity” at a mandatory assembly, Campbell notified the ACLU. Once the press began taking interest in the situation, Campbell’s principal wasn’t pleased — in fact, she says he threatened to call Wellesley College, where she has been accepted to study in the fall, to tell them that Campbell is a “backstabber” who has “bad character.” That threat ended up badly backfiring. Here’s what has unfolded over the past several days:

Wellesley College released public statements welcoming Campbell to campus in the fall. After news broke that Katelyn’s principal allegedly suggested he planned to call Wellesley to complain about Katelyn, a spokesperson for the college provided the following statement to ThinkProgress: “Wellesley College is delighted to welcome Katelyn Campbell as a member of the Class of 2017 this fall. The Wellesley community fosters a living and learning environment where diverse opinions, ideas, and perspectives are not only welcomed, they are encouraged.” The academic institution also welcomed Katelyn with supportive messages on Twitter and Facebook.

A Wellesley College alumni group started a petition to applaud Campbell. A group called the Wellesley Sisters began a petition on Change.org to let Campbell know she’ll fit right on in campus in the fall. “In reality, your actions prove that the College couldn’t be a better fit,” the petition reads. “At Wellesley you will find students just like you: strong, independent, intelligent women who speak their minds and work to make the world a more just and equitable place.” It currently has over 1,200 signatures.

Fellow students formed a Facebook page called “Friends of Katelyn Campbell.” The Facebook page has been verifying some of the complaints that Campbell took to the ACLU, including an image of the religious flyer used to promote the event at the public high school. It has since extended beyond West Virginia, as people across the country have flooded the page with messages of solidarity. “Katelyn is an inspiration to anyone who treasures the First Amendment and values honor and courage,” reads one recent post from an ally in Indiana.

Students attended a local school board meeting this week to advocate on behalf of Campbell. On Thursday night, students took up the issue with the school board. Campbell’s lawyer advised her not to attend, but other advocates represented her point of view on her behalf. According to an update on the “Friends of Katelyn Campbell” page, the meeting was not necessarily productive. “Unfortunately, as was to be expected, Katelyn’s message continued to be chastised this evening,” the update stated. “Speakers on her behalf were berated to the point of tears, and one board member broke protocol to burst out that there needed to be more god in school and that Pam Stenzel ‘should speak in all schools.’ ”

Strangers submitted letters of support after reading Campbell’s story. After publishing a story about Campbell earlier this week, ThinkProgress has been contacted by numerous people commending the teen’s actions and requesting her contact information to share letters of support. One reader was inspired to write an open letter that he intends to deliver to Campbell’s principal. “I wanted to congratulate you and your institution for producing such an accomplished student,” the letter reads. “Surely you must feel privileged to know that you have presided over the education and awakening of such an student as accomplished as Campbell.”

A West Virginia high school student is filing an injunction against her principal, who she claims is threatening to punish her for speaking out against a factually inaccurate abstinence assembly at her school. Katelyn Campbell, who is the student body vice president at George Washington High School, alleges her principal threatened to call the college where she’s been accepted to report that she has “bad character.”

George Washington High School recently hosted a conservative speaker, Pam Stenzel, who travels around the country to advocate an abstinence-only approach to teen sexuality. Stenzel has a long history of using inflammatory rhetoric to convince young people that they will face dire consequences for becoming sexually active. At GW’s assembly, Stenzel allegedly told students that “if you take birth control, your mother probably hates you” and “I could look at any one of you in the eyes right now and tell if you’re going to be promiscuous.” She also asserted that condoms aren’t safe, and every instance of sexual contact will lead to a sexually transmitted infection.

Campbell refused to attend the assembly, which was funded by a conservative religious organization called “Believe in West Virginia” and advertised with fliers that proclaimed “God’s plan for sexual purity.” Instead, she filed a complaint with the ACLU and began to speak out about her objections to this type of school-sponsored event. Campbell called Stenzel’s presentation “slut shaming” and said that it made many students uncomfortable.

GW Principal George Aulenbacher, on the other hand, didn’t see anything wrong with hosting Stenzel. “The only way to guarantee safety is abstinence. Sometimes, that can be a touchy topic, but I was not offended by her,” he told the West Virginia Gazette last week.

But it didn’t end with a simple difference of opinion among Campbell and her principal. The high school senior alleges that Aulenbacher threatened to call Wellesley College, where Campbell has been accepted to study in the fall, after she spoke to the press about her objections to the assembly. According to Campbell, her principal said, “How would you feel if I called your college and told them what bad character you have and what a backstabber you are?” Campbell alleges that Aulenbacher continued to berate her in his office, eventually driving her to tears. “He threatened me and my future in order to put forth his own personal agenda and make teachers and students feel they cant speak up because of fear of retaliation,” she said of the incident.

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During a debate over Ohio’s budget on Tuesday afternoon, Republicans in the House tacked on an amendment that would prohibit health classes in public schools from including any instruction on “gateway sexual activity,” which encompasses all sexual contact. The budget bill relies on the same definition of “sexual contact” that also appears in the state’s criminal code: “any touching of an erogenous zone of another, including without limitation the thigh, genitals, buttock, pubic region, or, if the person is a female, a breast.”

Under the amendment, sex ed classes wouldn’t be permitted to provide students with any information that might “condone” that type of gateway activity. That includes dispensing contraception. The legislation would also empower parents to sue if their children end up receiving this type of sexual instruction, and sex ed teachers could be subject to thousands of dollars in fines:

The sex education addition says that any instruction conducted under the state’s model health education program must not promote “any gateway sexual activity or health message that encourages students to experiment with sexual activity.”

It goes on to prohibit distributing certain materials, conducting demonstrations with “sexual stimulation” devices, or distributing contraception.

If a student receives such instruction, a parent or guardian can sue for damages, and a court may impose a civil fine of up to $5,000.

Ohio isn’t the first state to worry about students being corrupted by learning about “gateway sexual activity.” Almost exactly one year ago, Tennessee Republicans pushed to strengthen their state’s abstinence-only law by defining kissing and hand-holding as gateway activities that could lead teens to engage in sexual intercourse. Of course, whether or not U.S. teenagers are taught abstinence in their health classes, most of them still become sexually active. By their 19th birthday, seven in ten American teens will have had sex.

The “gateway” provision isn’t the only amendment Republicans have added to the budget bill that focuses more on sexual health resources than on the state’s finances. Abortion opponents also successfully pushed for an amendment to the legislation that would defund the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics, and reallocate those family planning dollars to right-wing “crisis pregnancy centers” that don’t actually provide the same kind of health services. This represents the third time in just one year that Ohio Republicans have attempted to strip funding from the national women’s health organization.

Now that Ohio’s House Finance Committee has approved the revisions to the budget bill, it will head to a full House vote later this week, likely on Thursday.

In the first quarter of 2013, states have proposed 694 provisions related to a woman’s body, how she gets pregnant, or how she chooses to end that pregnancy.

A new report released on Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute takes a comprehensive look at how the War on Women has continued past the election cycle and into 2013. It shows that the new legislatures across the country are still very much dedicated to restricting sex education, availability of medication, and abortion access for women. Indeed, 47 percent of the 694 provisions were directly related to abortion:

During the first three months of 2013, legislators in 14 states introduced provisions seeking to ban abortion prior to viability. These bans fall into three categories: measures that would prohibit all abortions, those that would ban abortions after a specified point during the first trimester of pregnancy and those that would block abortions at 20 weeks after fertilization (the equivalent of 22 weeks after the woman’s last menstrual period, the conventional method physicians use to measure pregnancy). All of these proposals are in direct violation of U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

Legislators in 10 states have introduced proposals that would ban all, or nearly all, abortions. In eight states (AL, IA, MS, ND, OK, SC, VA and WA), legislators have proposed defining “personhood” as beginning at conception; if adopted, these measures would ban most, if not all, abortions.

Seven states are edging closer to achieving full approval for laws that would reduce or essentially eliminate abortion access.

Enforcing unconstitutional abortion laws isn’t just a threat to women’s rights — it’s also costly to the states caught up in legal battles. Last year, Kansas spent $628,000 defending its unconstitutional abortion restrictions. North Dakota is in the middle of spending $400,000 to defend its ban, and Arkansas is set to do the same.

But if the number of proposed abortion restrictions is discouraging, the upside of the Guttmacher report is that states are moving toward the prevention of unintended pregnancy through sex education: It finds that two states — Montana and North Dakota — are pushing for more restrictive, less informative sex education laws, but that both Colorado and Hawaii are pushing for more comprehensive, inclusive, and scientific sex education for students. Colorado’s would even prohibit abstinence-only instruction, which has been proven to be more harmful than effective. ThinkProgress’s own survey of state legislation has found a total of five states that, like Colorado, are pushing for better sex ed. These findings track with popular opinion that increasingly recognizes the value of sex education.

In New York City, the public school students who attend classes in a building owned by the Catholic Church can’t actually attend all of their classes there. As the New York Daily News reports, students need to leave campus in order to receive state-mandated instruction on sexual health, as part of a long-standing agreement between Church officials and the city’s public school district that has recently come to light.

New York state law requires sex ed classes to include information about condoms, birth control, and HIV and STD transmission, and those standards were strengthened specifically for New York City’s public school district under a new citywide standard enacted in 2011. So far, those initiatives have been wildly successful, and New York City’s teen pregnancy rate has plummeted by more than 25 percent over the past decade.

But Church officials say that type of comprehensive sex ed instruction violates Catholic doctrine. In Catholic-affiliated schools, students are taught abstinence-only education with no mention of contraceptive methods — and at least in New York City, the Church’s influence can even impact public schools’ ability to teach sex ed.

The Catholic Church is one of the biggest landowners in New York City, and leases about 40 buildings to the city’s Department of Education. That financial arrangement is attractive to the Church at a time when enrollment in private Catholic schools is declining, and Church officials see no reason to change their sex ed policy. “It is an arrangement that has been working well for both sides for years, and one we intend to continue,” Diocese of Brooklyn spokeswoman Stefanie Gutierrez told the New York Daily News.

Some public school students disagree. Tayshawn Edmonds, a 15-year-old who attends El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice in Williamsburg, has to walk 15 minutes off campus to attend his sex ed classes. “The church owns the building, so they call the shots,” he explained. “But I don’t see why they get to control what we’re doing at our school.”

The Catholic Church’s opposition to contraception persists into the realm of higher education, too. Across the country, Catholic-affiliated colleges are still fighting against an Obamacare provision that requires insurance plans to cover the full cost of birth control, even though there’s already an exception for the religious institutions who object to covering contraceptives. And at Boston College — which is a Jesuit institution — school officials are threatening disciplinary action against students who distributed condoms as part of a safe sex campaign.

In an attempt to illustrate the negligible impact of the recent across-the-board spending cuts resulting from sequestration, several Fox News anchors spent Friday morning bemoaning the amount of federal funding designated for comprehensive sex education. According to Fox’s Gretchen Carlson and her two co-hosts, the sequester must not have had a serious impact on the federal government since it’s still able to find $350 million to fund “Planned Parenthood-style” sex ed classes in public school — an amount that Fox suggests would be better served by funding White House tours for the next 100 years:

CARLSON: Here is a story you may scratch your head over, because it’s our daily edition of “what sequester?” The federal government is spending apparently $350 million for Planned Parenthood-style sex education programs in western states, including Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Alaska, for sex education programs starting now in kindergarten. [...]

STEVE DOOCY: It’s so shocking because we remember the sequester, it was all about it’s going to end everything, we’ll have to close the White House tours, we’ll have to close some small airport towers and things like that. So they did that, and a whole other list of things. Yet, they’re still able to find $350 million for this program that is comprehensive and graphic. And essentially what it does is it talks about how no sex is unsafe unless it causes pregnancy. [...]

ERIC BOLLING: Now we find another $350 million is going to this program for kids as low as five years old. It’s absolutely insane. $350 million, do you know how long that would keep the white house tours going? 100 years! The White House could be open for as long as us and our grandchildren would be around. Instead, they’re going to learn — I don’t even want to know what they’re teaching them.

STEVE DOOCY: Well, no type of sex is wrong. The only unsafe behavior is getting pregnant. That’s what it’s all about. $350 million!

Watch it:

Cable news has been obsessed with the sequester’s impact on White House tours. But it’s unclear where the Fox hosts’ $350 million number is coming from. Federal funding to support comprehensive, evidence-based sexual education programs comes from several different sources: discretionary funding awarded to President Obama’s Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative, grants under Obamacare’s Personal Responsibility Education Program, and funding for the Centers for Disease Control to continue its HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns.

Planned Parenthood affiliates may apply for those federal grants to implement voluntary sexual education programs in public schools, which typically include resources to encourage at-risk youth to use contraception, maintain healthy relationships, and lower their risk of STDs and pregnancy. But the federal government does not actually have any requirements that sex ed classes must operate in a “Planned Parenthood style.” In fact, there are no federal guidelines whatsoever requiring school districts to teach evidence-based sex ed courses — and the states that choose not to do so are the same states that have high rates of teenage pregnancies and STDs.

A 10th grade science teacher in Idaho is being investigated by his school after parents complained that he included the word “vagina” in his lessons, taught the class about the female orgasm, and showed Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Some of the allegations are more serious, including that “he shared confidential student files with an individual other than their parents,” and “told inappropriate jokes in class,” but science teacher Tim McDaniel suspects that the complaints originated because of his discussions about issues considered controversial in the largely Mormon community where he teaches:

“I teach straight out of the textbook, I don’t include anything that the textbook doesn’t mention,” McDaniel said. “But I give every student the option not attend this class when I teach on the reproductive system if they don’t feel comfortable with the material.”

The science teacher said he has taught Dietrich’s science classes for the past 18 years without receiving a complaint from parents or students.

According to McDaniel, the commission is also investigating a complaint that accuses him of using school property to promote a political candidate. The complaint was because he showed the climate change film “An Inconvenient Truth,” also in his science class.

McDaniel said he includes the film to spark a discussion on climate change among the students. After watching the film, he asks students to write a response paper explaining their thoughts on climate change.

Idaho is a state that has no requirement for sex education and no mandated HIV education. It does have a requirement that students be allowed to opt out of sex ed classes, to which McDaniel says he adhered.

(HT: Raw Story )

The University of Tennessee (UT) is pulling state funding from a week-long sexual education event for its undergraduate students, caving to mounting right-wing pressure after Fox News suggested the funds were being used inappropriately to fund a “lesbian bondage expert” and hold a drag show on campus.

UT’s six-day “Sex Week” will include free STD screenings for students and panel discussions on topics ranging from sexual health, sexual identity, gender roles, and ways that UT can better address issues of sexual assault on campus. But Fox News radio host Todd Starnes recently raised the alarm about the university using student fees to “host a lesbian bondage expert” — referring to one of the presenters, erotica author Sinclair Sexsmith, who was invited to conduct a poetry workshop. Even though the students who helped plan the Sex Week event confirmed Sexsmith would simply discuss poetry related to sexuality and gender roles in society, and would not include anything related to lesbian bondage, the Fox News host became fixated on the fact that Sexsmith is “an expert in sexuality and leather.”

As Raw Story reports, the right-wing media attention eventually made its way to state Sen. Stacey Campfield (TN-R), who threatened to reconsider the university’s budget unless it made some changes to Sex Week. “We are not talking about health and safety to do a drag show. What are these issues so important for?” Campfield told a local news affiliate. “This is not something that the parents sent their kids to school to learn, this is not even close, we have some serious issues going on at the University of Tennessee.”

The state senator’s loud opposition to the university event perhaps comes as no surprise. Campfield has a long history of being hostile to issues of human sexuality, particularly when it comes to the LGBT community. He’s repeatedly introduced “Don’t Say Gay” bills to prevent teachers from discussing any aspects of “non-heterosexual” sexuality with public school students, and the most recent iteration includes a clause requiring teachers to inform parents if their child is gay. He’s also compared homosexuality to injecting heroin. Unfortunately, he’s hardly the first far-right Republican to attempt to block sexual education programs on college campuses.

Sex Week will still go on as planned. “This whole thing makes it more important to do this,” Brianna Rader, the UT student who led organizing efforts for Sex Week, said of the controversy. But she’s frustrated that university officials reversed their decision on Thursday about allocating state funding for the event. “People are getting upset about college kids talking about sex education? This sounds made up. This sounds like we’re in a movie,” Rader pointed out. “It was a cowardly move, and I’m disappointed in them.”

On Election Day 2012, Los Angeles County voters approved Measure B, an ordinance “requiring producers of adult films to obtain a County public health permit” and for “adult film performers to use condoms while engaged in sex acts.” Porn producers, who have consistently opposed the measure, vowed to fight it tooth and nail. But as it turns out, one group is ready to fight back.

On Monday, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) — an advocacy and lobbying outfit that has pushed for cheaper HIV medications and greater public health protections for HIV-positive Americans — became the first group to call out the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health over its allegedly lax enforcement of Measure B since its passage. The foundation lodged an official complaint with the County “after receiving an anonymous letter with an accompanying videotape filmed by someone on an Immoral Productions set” depicting unsafe sex practices and reviewing material on the production company’s website that also depicted intercourse without a condom.

For the well-funded advocacy group, this is just the latest skirmish in a decade-long battle. AHF president Michael Weinstein has spearheaded efforts to instill the same workplace safety and public health standards on straight porn sets as are already enforced in most gay pornography productions. Under his leadership, the AHF filed suit — to no avail — to make Los Angeles-produced pornography a “condom-only” enterprise; pushed for a citywide L.A. ordinance to the same effect; and spent over $1.6 million in its ultimately successful 2012 campaign to pass the more expansive, countywide Measure B. As he told L.A. Weekly in 2010, “AHF doesn’t give up on an issue, and we’re not going to give up on this.”

It appears that Weinstein and his group plan to follow through on that promise in the face of a combative Los Angeles adult entertainment industry and concerns over the Public Health Department’s enforcement prowess. “We’re putting them to the test,” Weinstein told the Los Angeles Times. “If democracy means something in L.A. County — if porn producers and county supervisors are not above the law — then they will enforce it.”

AHF and fellow public health advocacy organizations certainly have their work cut out for them. Trade groups associated with the multibillion dollar L.A. porn industry have promised to litigate the measure, citing freedom of speech concerns. This argument could potentially stand up in court — but only if the industry’s claims that it sufficiently tests all of its performers for sexually transmitted infections are true. An independent study by AHF that was published in the December Journal of Sexually Transmitted Diseases presents plenty of evidence to suggest that they are not, as “roughly a third of the 168 adult film actors who participated in the research project were found to have a previously undiagnosed STD.”

The North Dakota legislature recently passed the harshest abortion ban in the nation, and is also considering two “personhood” measures that would outlaw abortion altogether. But state lawmakers also want to target abortion by going after Planned Parenthood — even when it comes to the organization’s preventative sexual health resources for youth. Republicans are now attempting to block a comprehensive sex ed program that North Dakota State University (NDSU) was planning to launch in partnership with Planned Parenthood.

NDSU won a three-year federal grant to partner with Planned Parenthood to provide sexual education resources to at-risk youth. The voluntary sex ed program is designed to offer family planning resources and life coaching for teenagers at high risk for unintended pregnancy, and would take place outside of school hours. However, the grant was frozen earlier this year after abortion opponents attempted to derail the initiative because Planned Parenthood was participating — even though the state’s affiliates don’t perform any abortion services. North Dakota’s Attorney General gave NDSU permission to proceed with the sex ed program last month. Unfortunately, the fight over sex ed isn’t over yet.

Now, state legislators are joining the crusade against Planned Parenthood. On Monday, the House Human Services Committee approved an amendment to a Senate bill that would prohibit the use of government funds to “contract with, or provide financial or other support to individuals, organizations, or entities performing, inducing, referring for, or counseling in favor of, abortions.” The amendment notes that this ban would apply to any “institution under the control of the State Board of Higher Education” — and would sure that NDSU’s sex ed grant won’t move forward with Planned Parenthood’s participation.

The president of the Planned Parenthood affiliate for Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota points out that blocking comprehensive sex ed resources actually undermines anti-choice politicians’ goal of preventing abortions. “Politicians in North Dakota who are opposed to abortion are blindly taking aim at the very agencies that can prevent them,” she explained in a statement. “If you want to reduce the number of abortions, the last thing you should do is take away programs that help young people prevent pregnancy before they are ready to have a family.”
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