The Education of Shelby Knox

"The Education of Shelby Knox" Information

Shelby's Bio

Shelby Knox grew up as a conservative Southern Baptist in Texas turned progressive activist and documentary film subject. She recently graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Political Science. Throughout her college career, Shelby traveled across the nation to speak to young people about the importance of comprehensive sex education and the power of youth activism, using the film that carries her name, The Education of Shelby Knox, as a vehicle for discussion. She currently lives in New York City and is a full time speaker/activist/organizer working with progressive organizations to promote sex education, women's rights, and youth empowerment.

As the subject of the film The Education of Shelby Knox, filmmakers Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt follow 15-year-old high school sophomore Shelby Knox as she battles to have sex education included in the curriculum at her high school in conservative Lubbock, Texas. Although Knox's parents—like the majority of Lubbock's citizens—are Republican and members of the fundamentalist Baptist church, they support their daughter. Knox has taken the church's "True Love Waits" virginity pledge and is aware that Lubbock has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases in the nation. In fighting for her belief that sex education saves lives, she begins to question her conservative Southern Baptist upbringing. When the campaign broadens to include a fight for a gay-straight alliance, Knox confronts her family and her pastor and declares herself a Democrat and a liberal Christian in the end.

Texas public schools have had abstinence-only sex education since 1995, when then-governor George W. Bush signed a law making Texas the third state to follow the "abstinence-only" curriculum. The federal program specifies that the "exclusive purpose" of sex education must be to "teach that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity" and that "sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects."

Synopsis: 50 words

The Education of Shelby Knox tells the story of a teenage girl's personal, political, and spiritual coming of age, forged through her involvement in a small town battle over sex education and her friendship with a group of gay students in town who are fighting for the right to form a gay-straight alliance.

Synopsis: 125 words

Lubbock, Texas has some of the highest teen pregnancy and STD rates in the nation. The town's solution? A strict abstinence-only education curriculum in the public schools and a fire-and-brimstone preacher who urges kids to pledge abstinence-until-marriage.

Shelby Knox is a politically conservative, deeply religious, Southern Baptist teenager who joins the Lubbock Youth Commission, a group of high school students representing a youth voice in city government. When the teens confront Lubbock's sexual health crisis and campaign for comprehensive sex education, Shelby throws herself into the fight with missionary fervor, struggling to reconcile her newfound political beliefs with her conservative religious views. When the campaign broadens to include a fight for a gay-straight alliance, Shelby must confront her family and pastor in this coming-of-age story.

Synopsis: 250 words

Shelby is a pledger, a politically conservative, deeply religious, fifteen-year old Southern Baptist who joins the Lubbock Youth Commission, a group of high school students representing a youth voice in city government, because she loves politics. But when the teens confront Lubbock's sexual health crisis and campaign for comprehensive, fact-based sex education, a new world opens up for Shelby. She throws herself into the fight with missionary fervor, struggling to reconcile her newfound political beliefs with her conservative religious views.

When the fight widens to include a group of LBGT students who are trying to start a gay-straight alliance, Shelby must make a choice: Stand by and let others be hurt, or go against her parents, her pastor, and even the other teens on the commission, to help the gay kids in their fight?

By the end of the film Shelby, now 17, has learned a lesson that will guide her to adulthood: "Some people never take their head out of the Bible to see the world around them. And it’s sad, but it’s understandable, because it’s safe. But God wants you to question, and God wants you to do more than just blindly be a follower.”

Filmmaker Bios

Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt are the co-founders of Cine Qua Non (CQN), a 501(c)(3) that produces award winning documentaries that inform the general public about vitally important social issues, thereby helping to foster meaningful and lasting public discussion. Our website is www.incite-pictures.com. Incite Pictures is the for profit arm of CQN.

Previous projects include:

The Education of Shelby Knox A coming of age story of a young girl in Lubbock, Texas who transforms from a conservative, abstinence until marriage pledging Southern Baptist to a Democratic feminist and supporter of gay rights. Selected Awards: Sundance Film Festival: Best Cinematography, Hugh M. Hefner Freedom of Expression Award, SXSW: Audience Award, Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival: Best Documentary, Sonoma Film Festival: Audience Award (PBS/POV 2005). For more information go to www.shelbyknox.org.

Live Free or Die A portrait of a small town OB/GYN that explores the radical decline in the number of doctors performing abortions, as well as the impact of Catholic hospital mergers on the provision of abortion services. Aired as a POV special in 2000 with a town hall and Internet component that generated the most extensive on-line discussion in the history of POV programming. Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

Fatherhood USA A mini-series that created portraits of fathers from very different walks of life: a teen dad struggling to break a cycle of fatherlessness; a factory worker discovering that he, too, can be involved with raising his daughters; and a CFO juggling the demands of a high powered executive wife and two small children. Hosted by former Senator Bill Bradley, the program aired nationally in 1998.

The Abortion Pill A one-hour special that followed the long and controversial journey of the abortion pill (RU486) to the U.S. market. Tracking its use from France to England, India, Brazil and finally to the U.S., the program shows how a potent mix of business, politics and ethics made the pill a symbolic linchpin in the so-called abortion wars. Aired nationally, 1997.

All of these programs were reviewed in the national press (New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, New York Magazine), and in the educational press.

Our programs have a long life in the educational market, generating on-going discussions with educators, organizers and audience members for years after their original broadcast.

CQN has been funded by over fifty foundations, including The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The Hewlett Foundation, The Gerbode Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The David and Lucille Packard Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation.