Two mothers in Watertown, New York, have filed suit in a federal trial court, challenging school officials for allowing the teacher to expose their children to sexually inappropriate and explicit materials.
The controversy developed after an art teacher directed about a hundred seventh-graders to view graphic, sexually explicit images, but failed to inform parents about what she was doing or to allow them to opt their children out of the assignment.
This column highlights the salient facts noted in Jessy B. & Stephanie B. Watertown City School District in some detail because they are so egregious, then reflects on how this impacts parental rights to direct the education and moral upbringing of their children.
Background and facts
On or about September 15, 2025, a seventh-grade art teacher named Bridgette Gates in Watertown, NY, assigned her seventh-grade students to use their school-issued Chromebooks to view and sketch two items on the website of Keith Haring, a New York City graffiti artist-activist who died of AIDS in 1990. The teacher did not explain why she selected Haring’s works, but warned students that although the depictions were “inappropriate,” they should “ignore them and be mature.”
The numerous images “included, but were not limited to, explicit depictions of sexual acts, genitalia, genital mutilation, and group sex.” Because the images were so graphic and explicit, local media blurred them in their reports.
Although students reportedly discussed that the images were inappropriate, Gates failed, over two weeks, to notify parents what she was doing, to seek alternative resources about Haring that did not include explicit sexual imagery, to block or filter the content, or to provide alternative assignments.
Moreover, officials refused to allow parents to meet with Gates to discuss the situation.
When parents complained, officials claimed to have been unaware of what Gates was doing. Officials finally placed Gates on paid administrative leave on September 23, 2025, pending an investigation. The Haring Foundation then blocked access to these images on school Chromebooks. Responding to parental complaints at a school board meeting, “[o]n or about October 7, 2025,” its president demeaned them as “internet warriors” in efforts to silence their objections.
Board officials subsequently ignored a parental letter dated November 21, 2025, seeking a response by December 1, 2025. Most notably, the parents asked the board to adopt a policy prohibiting teachers from exposing students to sexually explicit material without their consent, developing opt-out procedures for those who objected, and both providing and paying for counseling for students impacted psychologically by the images.
The mothers filed suit in the federal trial court for the Northern District of New York on December 8, 2025, with the assistance of the American Center for Law and Justice, a public interest firm which protect[s] religious and constitutional freedoms, challenging the board’s lack of responsiveness.
Stephanie B., who “places tight restrictions on the content her son views so as to protect her son’s emotional well-being,” stressed that exposing her son to the sexually explicit material was psychologically distressing.
Jesse R., “a practicing Christian whose sincerely held religious beliefs require that she, not the State, direct the moral and spiritual formation of his child,” stated that the board violated her First Amendment right to the Free Exercise of Religion. She specified that officials ignored her sincerely held beliefs by interfering with her right to control when and how her son receives information about human sexuality based on his maturity level and in accordance with her faith.
The mothers also charged that the board interfered with their Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children. They added that officials violated their Fourteenth Amendment due process rights by failing to afford them notice and an opportunity to be heard in making decisions about the educational and moral upbringing of their children.
The mothers seek a declaratory judgment that the board violated their constitutional rights, an order preventing school employees from exposing children to such explicit materials, compensatory and nominal damages for the harms they experienced, and attorney fees.
Reflection and analysis
When dealing with sexually explicit materials, it is worth recalling a quip from former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s concurrence in Jacobellis v. State of Ohio, a case addressing “…hard core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it….”
Ruminations about judicial challenges in describing pornography aside, the materials assigned by Gates in her class were grossly age-inappropriate for seventh-graders under the “know it when I see it” standard. Additionally, educators ignored a century of clear Supreme Court guidance on parental rights by not informing them about what the teacher was doing when instructing their children.
Gates, with the apparent support of her school’s administration, was negligent in not even attempting to offer a purported pedagogical rationale for exposing seventh-graders to such materials. The board’s lack of concern makes this even more troubling as the mothers appear to have a “slam dunk” case that these activists, in the guise of educators, ignored clear Supreme Court guidance protecting parental rights, let alone the emotional well-being of seventh-graders.
Without reviewing all the precedents on this crucial issue, the Supreme Court first explicitly acknowledged parental rights to direct the education of their children a century ago in 1925’s Pierce v. Society of Sisters, a case from Oregon, wherein the Justices affirmed the right of non-public schools to operate. In often quoted language, the Justices unanimously emphasized that “[t]he child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”
More recently, this June, in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case from Maryland, the Supreme Court upheld the rights of an interfaith coalition of parents to be able to opt their children, who were as young as three, out of explicit sex education instruction involving “LGBTQ+” characters and themes. The justices reasoned that the local school board violated the parents’ First Amendment rights to the free exercise of religion by forcibly exposing their children to age-inappropriate materials inconsistent with their faiths.
The actions and attitudes of school officials in Waterton are particularly troubling. The response, or lack thereof, of those responsible for educating children here is problematic because officials first concealed, and then not only ignored but downplayed, legitimate parental concerns, as educators seemed intent on exposing students to hyper-sexualized materials.
Instead of using this incident as a “teachable moment” in light of clear Supreme Court precedent from which the educators could have learned, officials downplayed parental concerns. In the process, the officials violated Jessy R’s First Amendment free exercise rights not to have her son exposed to values inconsistent with her Christian beliefs, an indisputable right that the Supreme Court explicitly reaffirmed earlier this year in Mahmoud.
Officials also violated both mothers’ well-established Fourteenth Amendment rights to be informed about important educational matters so they could make informed decisions about what is in the best interest of their children.
While it is difficult to predict how courts will rule, precedent and common sense are on the side of the mothers and their supporters. Unfortunately, because educators breached the trust that their community placed in their judgments, Watertown highlights the need for parents to remain vigilant in protecting their children from “teachers” seeking to advance their own agendas by exposing children to inappropriate sexual materials inconsistent with the beliefs and values of their parents.
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Perhaps the government should consider codifying into criminal law a breach of trust by teachers and educators—making it punishable by fines or even imprisonment. I know that might sound idealistic, but something must be done to hold these so-called educators accountable when they harm children or disregard parents’ wishes.
Ellen : I have a feeling that the “government “ IS the problem.
It often is, Br. Jacques. We know what Ronald Reagan had to say about that.
🙂
We stand at a watershed moment when parental rights to control the education of their children are under assault but we seem to have at least a Supreme Court intent on protecting them. Another important case, perhaps lost in the pre-Christmas run-up, was the permanent injunction a federal court in southern California entered December 22 barring a California scbool districts from concealing gender transition issues from a child’s parents, something the California Attorney General’s office sought to protect. The state is not a co-parent; the intrusion of its snout into parental rights must be resisted.
The decision was from “Saint” Roger Benitez. He’s decided a number of Second Amendment cases as well and brings a correct reading of the law and common sense to his decisions. Not surprisingly, “en banc” panels in the 9th Circuit usually reverse him.
I hate to point this out, but this is about more than displaying graphic, perverted material to children. This is just swallow test of the bitterest carrying agent for the toxin of tyranny.
This is a social experiment of government control of children in extremis. If parents will not rise up and defend your children from the attack on their innocence, you will not rise up against other tyrannies, it will be a useful barometer to ruling elite to determine if parents agree with, are indifferent to or are simply to blind and or exhausted to stop the corruption of their children.
The people that made COVID into an orgy of compliance with inane and sometimes counterproductive rituals with neologist names, i.e. “social distancing” and especially those that mindless attacked the more thoughtful who questioned these things have emboldened them. It’s no long a matter of fooling all of the people some of the time or fooling some of the people all of the time, it’s now about fooling enough of the people most of the time.
Those that lust for power care not a wit about the injunction in Luke 17:2
“It were better for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones.”
If these materials are as pornographic as they sound, a simple removal of Ms. Gates from her position is insufficient for the damage she has caused, even with a stiff monetary fine. I know it is a different world, but at 12 – 13, the ages of most 7th graders, I wouldn’t have known what the images meant and would have been confused and devastated. Homosexuality was a foreign concept until I was much older. Group sex, I mean, just why? Both the board and Ms. Gates deserve more than civil punishment, though I doubt that is provided for in statute. Pity
If these materials are as pornographic as they sound, a simple removal of Ms. Gates from her position is insufficient for the damage she has caused, even with a stiff monetary fine. I know it is a different world, but at 12 – 13, the ages of most 7th graders, I wouldn’t have known what the images meant and would have been confused and devastated. Homosexuality was a foreign concept until I was much older. Group sex, I mean, just why? Both the board and Ms. Gates deserve more than civil punishment, though I doubt that is provided for in statute. Pity. This should be a criminal offense.
I am a lover of art; particularly sculpture. However, the taste or my appreciation of art remains firmly in the classical world. Haring is such a strange choice for a 7th grade class or even a 12th grade class. In fact, I could easily see the first couple years of university education taking typical art classes and still not reviewing Haring’s work in-depth. He is a cartoonish artist that really is fit only for subway walls.
There is just so much more to the world of art than to spend more than a few minutes of Haring and those artists that have a similar style. This is the big issue for me and what leads me to conclude that there is more to this teacher’s choice than just a simple “mistake”. This is a far more conscious decision. The teacher could have reviewed Haring’s work without any need to every show a single pornographic piece of his work. She has no place in teaching junior high school students.
Just disgusting stuff that is unquestionably from the left. As are the constant violations of freedom of religion wherever these moral midgets can squash it. Too graphic for a public newspaper almost exclusively read by adults to publish, yet they want to expose children to it??? All part of their plan to normalize perversion, and undermine parental authority. Thank God my children are grown. One went to Catholic schools and the other mostly public. But at this point I would not put a child in a public school no matter HOW much the Catholic school cost. What is the value of your child’s life to you? Its more important than that vacation in Bermuda.
Part of the blame goes to the people ( probably leftists) who voted in this school board. Folks, they keep telling us that Republicans and conservatives dont show up for mid-term and “small” local elections like this. Well, this story should tell you WHY you HAVE to vote EVERY TIME!! Dont let them getr a foothold in ANY elected office. These people are like roaches multiplying and doing disgusting damage everyplace they go. Keep them OUT of office!! Those who helped vote in the folks who sexually corrupted these kids innocence are equally guilty of the sin of the school board and pervy “teacher” . Unless you are an atheist, thats no small matter.
A peasant uprising…tribal s**t heads beware!
This is s-xual abuse and should be prosecuted as such.
She abused her authority and forced minors to view indecent material that they can’t ever u see. Egregious and criminal.
If an adult took graphic, obscene materials to a playground or a children’s sports event & compelled grade school age kids to look at it, wouldn’t parents call law enforcement?
Thanks to all who commented.
Hopefully by working together to shine a light on this craziness we can push back hard enough that it will stop.
Happy New Year’s to all,
Charlie
Parental rights are being eroded in Canada as well. Teachers are being told by the school administrators and/or school boards to keep silent about the use of preferred pronouns of students at school, the prescription medications taken by students at school, and other important issues, under the guise of not submitting the child to potential abuse by the parents. Being a high school teacher in Canada, I witness these events first-hand, on a regular basis. My colleagues and I have been warned to use language that is contrary to reality whenever we write to parents (i.e. calling “Sara” “she” in emails to parents, yet calling the student “he” and “Sam” at school). This is sheer hypocrisy and duplicity; it erodes the rights of parents to know what is going on with their own child. If we dare go against the school/school board’s edict, we can not only lose our job, but be brought before the College of Teachers and be stripped of our teaching license. I usually circumvent the “orders” by always repeating “the student” or “your child”, in my emails to parents, thus never using names or pronouns. I can only hope that the parents will figure out that there is something afoot. As for the use of sexually explicit materials in the classroom, I would never expose my students to what amounts to porn. This being said, the curriculum of school boards actually has undesirable materials in their lists of books and materials. The week before Christmas vacation, I saw a book on “homosexuality for teens” in the school library, in full sight; this, by the way, is a so-called “Catholic” high school!! The mind-poisoning culture of today’s society is seeping into every aspect of our lives, wanting to claim the most vulnerable and easily influenced clientele: children and teenagers. This is one of the reasons that made me rebel and write my book Defending Human Dignity. I cannot sit back and accept the dismantling of the most sacred aspect of God’s creation: the family unit of one mother, one father and their offspring. It is not the right of schools to destroy the precious bond of families.
Marie Brousseau, Author of Defending Human Dignity: Catholic Answers to Gender, Abortion and Relativism
mariebrousseau.com
Follow on X: @MBrousseau28195
Only a predator intentionally exposes children to sexually explicit material. These parents should familiarize themselves with the relevant pornography laws and sue on that basis.