UA News

The Women's Resource Center will screen a documentary about Shelby Knox, who will also visit the UA to speak about her experience.

A then-15-year-old conservative Southern Baptist from Texas whose story was propelled into the national debate about sex education in public schools will speak at The University of Arizona this month during a student-sponsored event.

The Women's Resource Center is hosting Shelby Knox, who has spoken across the nation, during a film screening and discussion that will be held on campus Jan. 21.

The event is free and open to the public and is expected to open a dialogue regarding the debate on whether public schools should teach abstinence only or offer more comprehensive sexual education teachings.

Prior to the discussion, the center will screen "The Education of Shelby Knox: Sex, Lies and Education," a Sundance Film Festival award-winning documentary by filmmakers Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt. The film was shot in 2001 and released in 2005.

The film is about then-teen Knox, who was serving with a youth commission in 2001 that was fighting for comprehensive sex education in at her high school in Lubbock. At that time, Knox has pledged abstinence until marriage, becoming what many believed at the time to be an unlikely advocate for comprehensive sex education.

Public schools in Texas have taught abstinence-only sex education since 1995.

The event, which is part of the Women's Resource Center's annual film series, will be at 7 p.m. at Gallagher Theater, located in the Student Union Memorial Center, 1303 E. University Blvd.

"One of our main goals is to increase sexual awareness and health for Arizona students," said Tiffany L. Tedesco, the Women's Resource Center media and advertising intern.