Shelving the Sex‑Ed Report to Save Leo
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Bartlet enters the Oval Office and shifts focus to C.J., immediately addressing the contentious sex-ed report.
Bartlet informs C.J. they will shelve the sex-ed report until after midterm elections, prioritizing political survival over public health truth.
C.J. passionately argues against suppressing the report, citing moral obligation to share expert findings with the public.
Bartlet reveals the shelving is part of a deal to protect Leo from congressional hearings, forcing C.J. to confront political reality.
Bartlet instructs C.J. to literally 'throw it out with the trash,' crystallizing the moral compromise.
C.J. exits but delivers a parting shot about being 'better teachers,' leaving Bartlet pensive about the ethical cost.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Righteous and constrained frustration; her professional composure masks genuine dismay at being asked to conceal information she believes will prevent harm.
C.J. makes the ethical and procedural case for publishing the report: she quotes the findings, insists on the White House's obligation, and presses the President on transparency. She pauses, accepts the decision with visible disappointment, then offers a final, cutting rebuke about teaching responsibilities as she leaves.
- • Compel the President to honor the commission's findings and disclose them.
- • Protect public health by ensuring the administration uses its pulpit responsibly.
- • Maintain the integrity of the press office's relationship to truth.
- • The White House has a moral obligation to present empirical findings, especially on public health.
- • Withholding the report will result in preventable harm to teenagers.
- • Institutional reputation should not trump factual disclosure when lives are at stake.
Resolute and mildly weary; outwardly calm with a steeliness that masks the ethical weight of choosing political expediency over immediate transparency.
President Bartlet receives C.J.'s moral argument, listens while working at his desk, makes a considered political decision to delay release, and frames the choice as tactical necessity to protect Leo. He physically sits, removes his glasses at the end, and speaks with a mix of paternalism and bluntness.
- • Protect Chief of Staff Leo McGarry from politically damaging hearings.
- • Minimize institutional and electoral damage before the midterms.
- • Control the public narrative so the administration retains flexibility.
- • The administration must prioritize political survival to preserve its broader program.
- • Congressional funding incentives and realities limit what can be done publicly now.
- • Timing and staging of disclosures matter more than immediate moral purity in governance.
Unstated in scene; implicitly endangered and relieved by the President's action, though the decision will place moral burden on staff.
Leo is not present but is the explicit reason for the President's decision; Bartlet frames the delay as necessary to 'get Leo off the hook,' making Leo the person whose career and immediate safety are being actively protected by the choice.
- • Avoid immediate congressional scrutiny and damaging hearings (as inferred).
- • Preserve the efficacy of his role and the administration's operational capacity.
- • Political exposures can derail staffers and administration priorities.
- • Sometimes containment and timing are the only viable tools to protect personnel.
Not emotional within the scene; their influence is evidentiary and moral rather than affective.
The commissioned medical consultants are invoked indirectly through C.J.'s recitation of their findings; they function as authoritative, apolitical sources whose empirical conclusions create the ethical tension between disclosure and delay.
- • Provide an evidence-based assessment of sex education effectiveness (as intended).
- • Inform policy with clinical findings, expecting responsible use by policymakers.
- • Empirical evidence should guide public-health policy.
- • Disclosure of findings enables better public health outcomes.
Matter-of-fact and slightly reproving; she is focused on protocol rather than the moral argument unfolding inside the Oval.
Mrs. Landingham appears briefly in the anteroom, enforcing presidential routine by denying Bartlet a banana and signaling C.J. is waiting; her presence punctuates the domestic normality around the Oval before the policy exchange begins.
- • Maintain the President's schedule and dignity.
- • Ensure appropriate staff access and timing for meetings.
- • The presidency functions through small rituals and discipline.
- • Orderly administration of the President's day is essential to effective governance.
Joshua Lyman is referenced as a negotiating actor (the dealmaker along with Sam) whose bargain influences the President's choice; his …
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
President Bartlet's metal‑rim reading glasses serve as a small physical punctuation: he wears them during business, uses a gesture (removal) to mark a shift in mood, and removes them at the end while looking pensive — a tactile signifier of private reflection after a morally costly decision.
The printed Sex‑Ed Report is the contested object of the scene: its findings are read aloud by C.J., it is described as "incendiary," and Bartlet decides it will be set aside in a drawer until after the midterms. The report functions as both evidentiary truth and political liability, the physical stand‑in for the moral choice.
The 'Metaphorical Trash' is invoked rhetorically when Bartlet instructs staff how to speak to the press — "Throw it out with the trash" — turning a moral suppression into a communication tactic and verbal ritual of disposal, normalizing the act of burying the report.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Oval Office is the decision chamber where Bartlet and C.J. negotiate truth versus political survival. It concentrates ceremony and authority, making the private choice to shelter the report into an act with national consequence. The room's domestic objects and desk frame the moral weight of the exchange.
The Outer Oval Office stages the opening domestic exchange: Mrs. Landingham intercepts the President, refuses a banana, and announces C.J. is waiting. It acts as a domestic buffer between everyday White House rhythms and the formal decision‑making inside the Oval, subtly enforcing decorum before the political confrontation.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"The sex-ed report's controversial findings lead directly to the decision to shelve it for political expediency."
"The sex-ed report's controversial findings lead directly to the decision to shelve it for political expediency."
"Bruno's political threat directly results in the report being shelved to protect Leo."
"Bartlet's protective loyalty to Leo remains consistent across both moments."
"Bartlet's protective loyalty to Leo remains consistent across both moments."
"Bartlet's protective loyalty to Leo remains consistent across both moments."
"The 'Take Out The Trash' strategy becomes literally enacted with the sex-ed report."
"The 'Take Out The Trash' strategy becomes literally enacted with the sex-ed report."
"Both moments force C.J. to choose between morality and political necessity."
"Both moments force C.J. to choose between morality and political necessity."
Key Dialogue
"BARTLET: We're gonna leave it alone for a while."
"C.J.: The report is very direct, sir, it says withholding knowledge about having sex doesn't prevent teenagers from having sex, it prevents teenagers from having sex safely. And it says offering information about safe sex doesn't increase the rate of sex, it increases the rate of protected sex."
"C.J.: Mr. President? We could all be better teachers."