Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

Teaching young people about AIDS is an enormously popular idea. Since the late 1980s, Gallup Polls have revealed that over 90 percent of respondents think public schools should do so. Agreement ends there, however. In the 1990s, more angry debate focused on AIDS education than on any issue facing schools since court-ordered busing in the 1970s. The core question of the debate is simple: What is the best way to equip students to protect themselves from this fatal disease? The answers may be miles apart. For one side, "equipping" means advocating the only sure means of protection, sexual and drug abstinence. For the other, it means supporting abstinence along with knowledge of sexual practices, the use of clean drug needles, and the use of prophylactics (condoms), which are distributed in some schools. Between these positions lie a great many issues of disagreement that have bitterly divided school districts, provoked lawsuits, and cost high-ranking Washington, D.C., officials their jobs.

Sex is an old battleground in public education. Liberals and conservatives argued over it in the decade following the sexual revolution of the 1960s, initially over whether sexual issues should be discussed in schools. After all, earlier generations who went to public schools learned mainly about reproductive organs. As new classes began appearing in the late 1970s, children learned about the sexual choices people make. If liberals appeared to win the "sex ed." debate, growing social problems helped: rises in teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases secured a place for more explicit school health classes. The much greater threat of AIDS pushed state legislatures into action. By the mid-1990s, AIDS prevention classes had been mandated in at least 34 states and recommended in 14. But the appearance of even more explicit teaching has reinvigorated the sex ed. debate.

Supporters of a comprehensive approach say AIDS demands frankness. Originating in comprehensive sex ed. theory, their ideas also came from pacesetting health authorities such as former surgeon general C. EVERETT KOOP. Arguing in the mid-1980s that AIDS classes should be specific and detailed and taught as early as kindergarten, Koop countered conservative arguments by saying, "Those who say 'I don't want my child sexually educated' are hiding their heads in the sand." This position holds that educators are obligated to teach kids everything that can stop the spread of the disease. "What is the moral responsibility?" Jerald Newberry, a health coordinator of Virginia schools, asked the Washington Times in 1992. "I think it's gigantic." Abstinence is a part of this approach, but expecting teens to refrain from having sex was considered by many to be unrealistic given some studies that show that nearly three out of four high school students have had sex before graduation. Thus, the comprehensive curriculum might well include explaining the proper use of condoms, discussing homosexual practices, describing the sterilization of drug needles, and so on.

Abstinence-only adherents think being less frank is being more responsible. They view sexuality as a moral issue properly left for parents to discuss with their children and one that lies beyond the responsibilities of schools. The conservative columnist Cal Thomas spoke for this viewpoint when he argued that parents "have lost a significant right to rear their children according to their own moral standards." Other objections come from religious conservatives who oppose any neutral or positive discussion of homosexuality. Koop, for example, was blasted for allegedly "sponsoring homosexually oriented curricula" and "teaching buggery in the 3rd grade." In addition to voicing moral objections, critics say comprehensive sex ed. is generally a failure because it encourages a false sense of security among teens that leads to experimentation with sex or drugs. "We have given children more information presumably because we think it will change their behavior, and yet the behavior has gotten worse, not better," said Gary Bauer, president of the Family Research Council.

Each side accuses the other of deepening the crisis. Comprehensive approach supporters think abstinence-only backers are moral censors, indifferent to pragmatic solutions. The liberal People for the American Way attacked "a growing wave of CENSORSHIP ravaging sexuality education" that promotes only "narrow" curricula. It mocked such abstinence-only programs as Teen Aid and Sex Respect, both of which have brought threats of legal action from the AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION and Planned Parenthood. The conservative American Enterprise Institute asserted that liberal programs only prod students toward bad choices: "There has been a transition from protection to preparation." Neither side can agree on any data, other than to point out that the problems of AIDS and teen sexuality have appeared to worsen.

Nowhere are the two sides more split than on the issue of condoms. Schools in at least 23 cities sought to distribute condoms during the mid-to late-1990s. The assumption was that since students will have sex anyway—despite warnings not to—they had better be protected. Conservatives see this position as a cop-out in two ways: it sells values short and it undermines parental authority. In 1992, in Washington, D.C., critics erupted over a decision by the Public Health Commission to hand out condoms in junior and senior high schools without parental consent. William Brown, president of the D.C. Congress of Parents and Teachers, complained: "We are looking to build and reinforce and establish family values where they have been lost, and here we have an agency of our government that totally ignores those things we are working for." Dr. Mary Ellen Bradshaw, the commission's chief, replied: "Our whole focus is to save the lives of these children, stressing abstinence as the only sure way to avoid [AIDS] and making condoms available only after intensive education." In other cities, upset parents simply sued. By 1992, CLASS ACTION lawsuits had been brought against school districts in New York City, Seattle, and Falmouth, Massachusetts, arguing that condom distribution violated parents' right to privacy.

AIDS education in schools is not merely a local issue. While most decisions are made by states and school boards the federal government plays two important roles. First, it funds AIDS prevention programs: abstinence-based programs receive funding under the Adolescent Family Life Act of 1981, and programs that promote contraceptive use among teenagers are supported through the Family Planning Act of 1970. How these funds are spent is a matter of local control, but conservatives have sought to put limits on program content. During the early 1990s, Senator JESSE HELMS (R-NC) twice tried to ban funding for programs that were perceived to promote homosexuality or that did not continuously teach abstinence as the only effective protection against AIDS. In response, one federal agency, the Center for Disease Control, adopted regulations that prohibited the use of funds on any materials that are found offensive by some members of communities.

The second role of the federal government is largely symbolic but no less controversial. It is to guide school efforts through advice, sponsorship, and public speeches, and primarily involves the offices of the surgeon general and of the federal AIDS policy coordinator. Koop, who was a Reagan appointee, roused a fair degree of controversy, yet it was nothing compared to the upheaval that greeted statements by appointees of the Clinton administration. AIDS policy czar Kristine Gebbie and surgeon general M. Joycelyn Elders were forced from their posts after making statements that conservatives found appalling—Gebbie promoting attitudes toward pleasurable sex and Elders indicating a willingness to have schools talk about masturbation. Thereafter, the administration frequently stressed abstinence as its top priority for school AIDS programs.

Problems surrounding AIDS education are unlikely to go away. Communities frequently disagree on sex education itself, and compromise is often difficult on such a divisive issue of values. As the experience of the Clinton administration suggested, Washington, D.C., could easily exacerbate an already contentious area, with policy coordinators becoming lightning rods for criticism. On the matter of what to say to kids about AIDS, poll data have been misleading. U.S. citizens are of three minds: say a lot, say a little, and do not say what the other side thinks.