Mothers in NY file suit over teacher’s use of explicit materials in art class – Catholic World Report

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.