New York Sex Ed Lessons Include Hitler, Lady Gaga — and Inaccurate Claims, Report Finds

Adolf Hitler and Napoleon Bonaparte had syphilis. Having sex before marriage makes you more likely to cheat on your future spouse. Taking birth control pills increases your risk of contracting a sexually transmitted infection. Lady Gaga, Tina Fey, and Robert Pattinson have all chosen abstinence. If a teenager is preoccupied by sex, they might be a rapist.

These are just some of the things New York students are learning in their schools’ sexual education classes, according to a new report released Wednesday by the New York Civil Liberties Union. 

Researchers reviewed sex ed curricula used by 50 school districts across the state in the 2023–24 school year and found that more than one third contained medically inaccurate or misleading information. 

NYCLU selected a sample of 50 school districts across the state, including the five largest, and requested their K-12 sexual health curricula from the 2023–24 school year. Researchers evaluated each document using the nonprofit-developed National Sex Education Standards and assigned districts scores based on whether their materials were medically accurate, inclusive, and covered consent, abstinence, harm reduction, and STI prevention.

Many districts also omitted lessons about LGBTQ people, prevention of STIs, contraception, consent, and abortion, the report found. It also identified bright spots, with some districts providing comprehensive lessons on healthy relationships, dating violence, sexual assault, and other topics acknowledging diverse student experiences. 

New York does not require school districts to provide comprehensive sex ed besides instruction on HIV and AIDs and child sexual abuse prevention. Instead, school districts largely determine what students learn about human sexuality in health class, resulting in a patchwork of approaches across the state. 

That means students in one district could be taught about safe sex and pregnancy prevention, while students in a neighboring district are taught only about abstinence.

Bills regulating what is taught in schools are “very difficult to move” because of New York’s deeply embedded culture as a local-control state, said Assemblymember Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, who first introduced legislation requiring schools to teach comprehensive sex education in 2021. The few curricula bills that do pass are typically part of the state budget, when many non-fiscal policies are able to pass with less scrutiny than standalone bills. 

“I think there’s also sadly still an uncomfortableness with sex, sexuality, and children,” Gonzalez-Rojas told New York Focus. “But we might see a lot less sexual assault, rape, and intimate partner violence if young people have the tools early on to understand what consent means and to really grasp it.” 

Gonzalez-Rojas said she hopes NYCLU’s report will move the needle on passing her bill, called the Healthy and Safe Students Act, which would require public schools to teach medically accurate and inclusive K-12 sex education that reflects national standards and covers issues including healthy relationships, body image, and self-esteem. 

As recently as 2024, New York ranked among the top 10 in the nation for gonorrhea and chlamydia rates, and its teen pregnancy rates rose between 2021 and 2023 for the first time in two decades, according to the latest available state data. A vast body of research has linked teen pregnancy and birth to difficulty completing high school, pursuing higher education, and getting well-paying jobs. And decades of research show that abstinence-only sex ed does not reliably reduce teen sexual activity.

New York Focus reached out to all 50 school districts mentioned in the study. Many did not respond by publication time, though some provided statements disagreeing with NYCLU’s analysis. Those statements are included in the map above.

NYCLU reported that 10 of the districts in the report have a strict abstinence-only curriculum, while four others did not cover even basic anatomy and reproduction in their sex health curriculum. Only nine districts present abortion as an option during pregnancy, while three districts include information from the anti-abortion groups Project Truth, American Pregnancy Association, and Birthright International in their curricula, according to the study. 

Seventeen districts use materials that the NYCLU classified as shame and fear-based instruction. For instance, in Hamburg Central School District, which serves 3,100 students in Erie County, a presentation on abstinence tells students that pre-marital sex can cause marital issues down the line, including “extramarital sexual affairs” and low trust stemming from “knowing that your spouse has had sexual relations with other people.” The rest of the presentation focuses on how having sex can lead to feelings of disappointment, emptiness, regret, and guilt.

Over 360 miles away, Mahopac Central School District in Putnam County teaches students that birth control pills put girls at greater risk of contracting an STI, according to curriculum materials it sent NYCLU. (There is no clear evidence that birth control pills increase susceptibility to STIs.) Another slide lists celebrities it says have chosen abstinence, including Lady Gaga and Robert Pattinson, who have both recently had children with partners they are not married to.

Massena Central School District’s curriculum features a list of historical figures it claims had syphilis, though there’s no historical evidence that three of them — Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, and Vincent van Gogh — ever had the disease. 

In Suffolk County’s Smithtown Central School District, a list of “behavioral clues of a potential rapist” includes a preoccupation with sex. Meanwhile, the Canandaigua City School District in Ontario County presents students with misleading and false statistics, including claims that one in five women will become pregnant the first time they have sex, and one in two will become pregnant within six months of becoming sexually active. (The materials were likely referring to decades-old studies on premarital pregnancy rates among women who do not use any form of contraception.) 

Hamburg, Mahopac, Massena, Smithtown, and Canandaigua school districts did not provide comment before publication.

A 2023 meta-analysis of 34 studies found that comprehensive sex education was associated with improved sexual health knowledge and adolescents’ confidence in their ability to make decisions related to sexual health. 

New York’s HIV instruction mandate puts it among 42 states that require some form of sexual education, but many states require a much broader range of instruction. California, Oregon, and Washington, for example, mandate comprehensive sex ed in all public schools. New Jersey and Rhode Island require sex ed to cover consent, healthy relationships, and sexual orientation.

Last year, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, a nonprofit advocacy group, rated New York among the 10 worst states in the country for sex ed, alongside Wisconsin and Oklahoma. It was the only state in the Northeast to make the list. 

“New York is seen as this beacon of progressiveness when it comes to education, but we are extremely behind other states when it comes to sex education,” said Aliyah Ansari, NYCLU senior education strategist who co-authored the new study. “A lot of students are getting inaccurate information, and feeling shamed and stigmatized for their identities and the choices they’ve made about their bodies and relationships.” 

Ansari said the study indicates little has changed since 2012, when the group published its first report on statewide sex ed. That report found that districts often used materials that included inaccuracies about human anatomy, harmful gender stereotypes, and shame-based messages around sex and sexuality.

In a statement, New York State United Teachers union spokesperson Anna Gronewold said that “while NYSUT typically opposes direct curriculum mandates, we remain engaged in conversations to ensure all New York students receive current and comprehensive health education.” 

State Senator Julia Salazar, who sponsors the Healthy and Safe Students Act in her chamber, said she was shocked by the report’s results. State leaders should have no more tolerance for false information in sex education as they would in a subject like math or science, she argued.

With the Trump administration scaling back and reshaping federally funded teen pregnancy prevention and sex ed programs, Salazar said it’s even more urgent for state leaders to act.

“It’s heartbreaking to think of the negative impact this abstinence-only and shame-inducing messaging about sex can have on young people,” Salazar said. “In New York, we really shouldn’t tolerate harmful curricula that, at its worst, is traumatizing young people, but otherwise is not preparing them to be confident and have bodily autonomy and healthy sexuality.”