INVESTIGATIONS

Claim that sex ed ‘grooms’ kids jolted Nebraska politics a year before it swept the nation

The unsubstantiated claim led to a backlash against sex ed that helped topple local Republican Party leaders and propelled a wave of far-right candidates for local and statewide school board

By Beth Reinhard and Emma Brown
July 24, 2022 at 11:45 a.m. EDT

KEARNEY, Neb. — Last year, when the state board of education proposed new sex-education standards for teaching about issues such as sexual orientation, gender identity and consent, a retired pediatrician in this central Nebraska town reached out to Gov. Pete Ricketts and state lawmakers. ... “This is NOT Sex Ed as anyone knows it,” Sue Greenwald wrote in a July 16, 2021, email obtained by The Washington Post. Lessons that met these standards, she wrote, would be “ ‘grooming’ children to be sexual victims.”

It was a shocking claim, and it was catching on — repeated by Greenwald, by members of the Protect Nebraska Children Coalition, a group she co-founded to oppose the standards, and embraced by Ricketts (R) himself. The message also spread through screenings at libraries and churches of “The Mind Polluters,” billed as an “investigative documentary” that “shows how the vast majority of America’s public schools are prematurely sexualizing children.”

Grooming erupted as a national issue earlier this year, but this state in America’s heartland has been roiled by that attack on comprehensive sex education since last spring, providing a unique window into a newly inflamed debate. The unsubstantiated claim helped activate an army of self-described Nebraska patriots who rose up against the standards, took over the local Republican Party and propelled a wave of far-right candidates for local and statewide school boards, a Post examination found. Earlier this month, these activists were part of a broader, anti-establishment insurgency that toppled leaders of the state Republican Party.

The term “groomer” has become a catchall epithet hurled by the right wing against the left, particularly against advocates for LGBT people, who have become the target of a recent surge in violent threats and attacks. The Post’s examination focused on the specific claim that modern sex education — including lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity — makes children more vulnerable to pedophiles.

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Jeremy Merrill and Alice Crites contributed to this report.

By Beth Reinhard
Beth Reinhard has been a reporter on the investigations desk since 2017. She previously worked at the Wall Street Journal, National Journal, the Miami Herald and the Palm Beach Post. Twitter https://twitter.com/bethreinhard

By Emma Brown
Emma Brown is an investigative reporter and author of To Raise a Boy. She joined The Washington Post in 2009 and has previously written obituaries and covered education. Twitter https://twitter.com/emmersbrown