Transcript
Grapevine
Episode 5: Open The Floodgates
Evangelical activists open a new front in their campaign to impose their version of biblical morality in public schools — at the Texas statehouse. While legislators debate bills requiring the Ten Commandments and banning mention of gender identity in classrooms, three nonbinary students share the trauma they’ve endured at Grapevine High. Meanwhile, a coalition of progressive parents and disillusioned conservatives pledge to retake control of their school system.
(CHORUS SINGING)
NATE SCHATZLINE: All right. We’re here right in the middle of the Capitol. We have an entire team of church coming together and worshiping right here, and we are singing and giving glory to God.
ANTONIA HYLTON: January 10, 2023. It’s the first day of the new Texas legislative session in Austin. And one of the state’s newest lawmakers is filming himself inside the Capitol rotunda. Representative Nate Schatzline, a 31-year-old youth pastor turned freshman Republican legislator, smiles into the camera.
NATE SCHATZLINE: That’s right, right here in the Capitol, giving it to the Lord before we start this session for --
ANTONIA HYLTON: Schatzline, who represents a section of north Texas near Grapevine, pans the camera for his followers watching live on Instagram, showing dozens of fellow believers swaying and singing with their hands raised over the Capitol building’s white marble floors.
NATE SCHATZLINE: There’s nothing more important than we could be doing than this right here, worshiping and praying in the middle of the Capitol.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: For the next half hour, Schatzline and the other worshipers invite the Holy Spirit to reign over the state house and the affairs of Texas state government, singing “Let heaven come.”
(SINGING)
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: The Texas Capitol is one of the most revered buildings in the state. Its exterior walls are constructed of Texas red granite with Texas limestone on the inside. The statue atop its copper-domed roof is more than 300 feet high, taller than the U.S. Capitol. The echo inside this public space is magnificent, and right now, Schatzline and his supporters are using that effect to declare this building, the seat of power in America’s second most populous state, as God’s territory.
(SINGING)
NATE SCHATZLINE: Let them know that God is the authority over everything that goes on in this building. Come on, continue to lift it up, continue to lift it up.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Later, Schatzline told us he and his pastor organized this worship gathering to set the tone for his first legislative session.
NATE SCHATZLINE: I believe in starting everything with prayer.
ANTONIA HYLTON: And to ask God to guide him as he worked to deliver on his core campaign promises, to defend religious liberty and, quote, “fight for families,” by protecting children from drag queens and from school library books on gender and sexuality.
NATE SCHATZLINE: We worshiped, uh, we prayed and I think -- I think prayer is essential. I think we’d have a -- a better nation if more people would humble themselves and -- and, you know, pray.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: In the weeks after his prayer rally at the Capitol, Schatzline and other Christian Republican lawmakers would propose a raft of bills, mixing education and religion. They would seek to divert state money to fund private religious academies, to require schools to display Christian symbols inside classrooms. And just like the Grapevine school board had done the previous summer, they planned to ban educators from providing books or lessons about gender identity, taking some of the policies that were upending Ramser’s teaching career and trying to apply them to every school district in the state.
From the NBC News team that brought you “Southlake”, I’m Mike Hixenbaugh.
ANTONIA HYLTON: I’m Antonia Hylton.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: And this is “Grapevine”.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Episode Five: “Open the Flood Gates”.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Unlike in Congress, which works continuously throughout the year, serving in the Texas legislature is a part-time job. Lawmakers convene in Austin every other year for their regular legislative session. That’s when they spend about five months from January to May working to get bills passed. Most days under the rotunda sound less like a church service and more like this, as staffers scurry to committee hearings and members of the public and lobbyists line up to testify for or against bills.
MAN #1: All right.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Republicans have had total control over this building as well as the governor’s mansion for two decades. But over the past several years, Texas state government has tacked even harder to the right. That’s thanks in part to the influence of a small group of far-right mega donors, most notably, a trio of oil and gas, billionaires, Tim Dunn and the brothers Farris and Dan Wilks, none of whom agreed to speak with us.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Dunn has expressed the Christian dominionist view that Texas state government should be led exclusively by evangelical Christians. And this is Dan and Farris explaining their position on public education in a rare 2013 interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network.
DAN WILKS: I just think we have to make people aware, you know, and -- and bring the Bible back into the school and -- and start teaching our kids at a younger age.
FARRIS WILKS: They’re being taught the other ideas, the gay agenda, every day out in the world.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: In the past decade, these three mega donors have funneled tens of millions of dollars into GOP campaigns through the political action committees, Empower Texans and Defend Texas Liberty, boosting candidates like Representative Schatzline and challenging Texas Republicans deemed insufficiently conservative.
ANTONIA HYLTON: And they’ve been getting results. In 2021, Texas passed a bill introduced by a Wilks and Dunn-backed state senator that allowed private citizens to file lawsuits worth tens of thousands of dollars against anyone they suspected of helping a woman terminate a pregnancy, effectively banning most abortions a full year before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade. This session, in 2023, the state’s GOP leaders were promising to apply the same conservative Christian values that inspired the abortion ban to the state’s education system.
BRANDON CREIGHTON: Okay. Members, uh, we’ll get started with the Senate committee on education and, uh, it’s good to have everyone here this morning.
ANTONIA HYLTON: One way that Texas Republicans were planning to protect children from what they called “woke indoctrination” was by requiring public schools to teach children that Christianity played a central role in America’s founding.
PHIL KING: One of the most recognized set of foundational principles were the 10 Commandments, which were -- which were displayed in public buildings across the United States, including schools.
ANTONIA HYLTON: This is Texas state Senator Phil King, whose district stretches across North Texas. Today at an education committee hearing he’s laying out his proposal to require all Texas classrooms starting in kindergarten to display among others, the phrases, “Thou shall not commit adultery,” and “Thou shall not covet by neighbor’s manservant.”
PHIL KING: I think this would be a good healthy step for Texas to bring back this tradition of recognizing America’s religious heritage.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: To help make the pitch to the other 12 senators on the Senate education committee, King has invited someone who’s built a career out of arguing that America was founded as a Christian nation and should be one once again.
BRANDON CREIGHTON: The chair will call, uh, David Barton.
DAVID BARTON: Mr. Chairman, thank you. Members --
ANTONIA HYLTON: David Barton is the self-taught historian whose revisionist take on U.S. History was a staple of Weston Brown’s home school education. Barton had come to give his expert opinion on the appropriateness of displaying a Christian religious text inside public schools. Seated at a table facing the committee members, he says he’s for the 10 Commandments bill. To make the case, he’s brought a copy of a 333-year-old textbook.
DAVID BARTON: This is the first textbook ever printed in America. It was done in 1690 in Boston, uh, was used into the 20th century. So, it’s through five different centuries that it appears.
And it’s interesting that in this textbook, there are 43 questions on the 10 Commandments. So, this is what we used into the 20th century. This was traditional educational stuff.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Just like in his lectures, Barton never stops to mention what else were standard parts of education and society in the 16- and 1700s that have since fallen out of favor, like slavery and subservient female gender roles. And nobody on the committee stops to ask him.
BRANDON CREIGHTON: That’s great. Thank you. Appreciate that.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Barton didn’t respond to our interview requests.
DAVID BARTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: A few days after this hearing, the Senate Education Committee would vote to advance Phil King’s 10 Commandments bill, sending it to the full Senate where it still faced a long road before potentially becoming a law. It was just one of numerous GOP bills this session aimed at elevating Christianity in public schools and eliminating protections for transgender students and adults.
ANTONIA HYLTON: And one freshman legislator was doing his best to help get as many of these bills passed as possible. Representative Nate Schatzline, the young legislator who hosted that worship service in the Capitol rotunda.
NATE SCHATZLINE: Thank you guys for -- for inviting me to the interview.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Of course, thanks for making time for us.
ANTONIA HYLTON: We’d reached out to Schatzline to better understand why Texas Republicans were pressing so hard to restore religious traditions in education. The former pastor is a charismatic speaker, and when he sits down with us, he introduces himself as a typical dad and husband.
NATE SCHATZLINE: My daughter is our newest addition to our family. She’s our first little girl and she is unapologetically our favorite and it’s not even close. So, uh --
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Schatzline tells us his children are why he got into politics. He believes America is in a spiritual war between forces of good and evil, and that God wants Christians like him to fight for what they know is right.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: How does your faith shape your political priorities?
NATE SCHATZLINE: It comes back to, you know, really the scripture that talks about “On this rock I will build my church.” That word “church” is actually “ecclesia” in the original scriptures, which means public square, meaning, uh, entertainment, meaning civil society. It -- it means government and all the industries that we’re in, even education. We should reflect Christ, um, in all that we do.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Schatzline is alluding to his embrace of the Seven Mountains Mandate, the belief that Christians are called to influence all aspects of society, including government and education. For Schatzline that’s meant, for example, throwing his support behind the 10 Commandments classroom bill. He’s also supporting a bill to allow public schools to use state safety and security funds to hire Christian pastors or chaplains to serve as unlicensed mental health counselors.
NATE SCHATZLINE: It’s always good when we can put more sound-minded adults in a space where they can help mentor children, help them make right decisions, help them get to where they want to go in life.
ANTONIA HYLTON: And another bill to allow public schools to set aside a block of time during the day for students and teachers to pray and read the Bible or other religious texts.
NATE SCHATZLINE: I am always going to advocate for bills that share our Christian values. I’m always going to advocate for the protection of the innocence of children. I’m always going to advocate, um, for making sure that we’re passing laws that -- that push religious freedom.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Do you believe in the fundamental separation of church and state?
NATE SCHATZLINE: I believe that church and state -- this is a great question. I get it all the time. It’s not in -- in the Constitution. Uh, but I believe that -- that separation of church and state -- what was written about it was written to keep the state out of the church, not to keep the church out of the state. When I think of separation of church and state, I think the church is the body of people that represent our values. And so, no, I do not believe that the church or those that represent the church should stay out of government.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: In his day job Schatzline runs a nonprofit called For Liberty and Justice, whose mission is to get conservative Christians elected in the greater Fort Worth area of north Texas, which includes Grapevine. The church that hosts Schatzline’s nonprofit, Mercy Culture, teaches that Satan has used homosexuality and gender identity to hurt and confuse children. So, it’s no surprise that the legislator is supporting bills this session to ban and criminalize transgender medical care for minors, to require publishers to apply age ratings to children’s books, and school districts to restrict any dealing with sexuality. And to prevent trans students from participating on college sports teams matching their gender.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Here’s how he explained his position on the bill targeting gender affirming medical care when he appeared recently on a far-right Christian television program called “Flashpoint”, alongside the Seven Mountains evangelist Lance Wallnau.
NATE SCHATZLINE: Absolutely. You know, it’s so beautiful. I believe that SB14 is going to set the tone for the way other states respond to this horrific, uh, really transgender ideology that’s invading our schools. It’s invading our country, it’s invading and socially transitioning students and -- and even adults, uh, inside of social media.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Speaking to us, Schatzline is more measured in how he describes his position. He says he loves all children regardless of how they identify, but like Ren’s mother Sharla, he believes many teens who identify as transgender have been deceived by social media or by educators.
NATE SCHATZLINE: I do believe there’s an agenda to sexualize our children. I do believe that there’s an agenda to expose children to things that they’re just not ready to see. That’s where we -- we see these children saying, well, you know, maybe -- maybe I’m not the gender that I was born. Maybe I’m not this, you know, and ultimately what we’re looking at here is we’re looking at, uh, a lack of education for these kids.
ANTONIA HYLTON: During our conversation, Schatzline frames many of his positions on education as standing up for parents’ rights. We ask him how he squares that with his support for bill’s banning trans medical care for minors and restricting what bathrooms trans kids can use.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: In this case, isn’t Texas taking rights away from parents?
NATE SCHATZLINE: Yeah. I think the question would always be, at what point do you allow a -- a parent to harm a child? Um, that’s always my, my counter question.
And it’s because oftentimes these children are making decisions and their parents -- and I’ll be honest with you, I -- I don’t think that all these parents are evil or bad. I think that they have the right intention, many of them, to help their child because they’re faced with these questions like, would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter?
You know, that’s -- I’ve heard this over and over.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Schatzline tells us he doesn’t trust scientific studies showing that gender affirming hormone therapy can reduce the risk of suicide among transgender teens.
ANTONIA HYLTON: We’ve spoken to many LGBTQ children living in North Texas and other parts of Texas as well. What we hear from LGBTQ children right now is that this slate of bills has made them feel less safe in their community and in their school. How do you square that reality with your Christian faith?
NATE SCHATZLINE: Yeah, I think -- I think Christianity is always rooted in truth, and our emotions are always going to tell us things. You know, ultimately, um, if I made decisions based off the sheer desire of my children, then they would be the most unhealthy children in the world ‘cause all they would eat is candy. And what we have never done is, um, encourage violence against that community. What we have never done is encourage hatreds towards that community.
Um, and th -- this is really where our messaging has to be very precise um, as conservatives is saying, hey, we -- we love that you’re a part of our community and you know, not everyone is good at sharing that messaging.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Whether the problem was the messaging or the message, that spring many transgender teens and their parents were feeling targeted and threatened by the agenda being pushed by Schatzline and other GOP legislators.
ACTIVIST: And I’m tired.
ANTONIA HYLTON: And one evening this March, a group of nearly a hundred trans rights activists, parents, and teenagers staged an impromptu demonstration of their own at the Texas Capitol. They gathered in an echoey courtyard, just outside a committee room where lawmakers were debating a bill that would ban any discussion of gender identity in public schools statewide.
ACTIVIST: When they say parental rights, there’s always this asterisk, right? And the asterisk in the fine print is LGBTQ people of Texas do not apply.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Even if the odds were stacked against them, even if they were in the minority, they were going to tell Texas GOP lawmakers that they weren’t going to let them erase their identities from public schools, demonize their favorite teachers and criminalize their healthcare without at least taking a stand.
ACTIVIST: Are you ready to fight back? (CHEERING) Fight back. (CHEERING) Fight back. (CHEERING)
ANTONIA HYLTON: While lawmakers in Texas were debating the role of religion and education in Oregon that Spring, Ren was staying busy with schoolwork, taking lots of weekend ski trips with her dad, and seeing a therapist to work through everything that went down between her and her mother. She was also paying close attention to the wave of anti-trans bills hitting the Texas legislature, and thinking a lot about some of the queer students at her old high school.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Are you still in touch with friends back in Grape -- Grapevine?
REN: Yeah.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: How are they doing?
REN: Not great, to be honest.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: I’m really sorry.
REN: Yeah, I appreciate that. Um, I hope things get better, but that’s all I can do. Just hope.
ANTONIA HYLTON: From more than 2000 miles away, Ren wasn’t able to make a sign and go march in a protest at the Texas Capitol. The 16-year-old junior wasn’t old enough to vote. She felt safe now, but powerless to help the queer classmates she left behind.
Her mother, Sharla, hadn’t been quite as outspoken since kicking up so much controversy by talking to the “Dallas Express”. She’d posted some links to her “Woke Mama Bear” page, promoting groups promising to fight transgender indoctrination. And she’d written a few blog posts.
In one she wondered how her child’s soul would be changed under, quote, “The enemy’s influence in his father’s house.” Sharla wrote that she was still in pain about her estrangement from Ren, but she knew she’d done the right thing, writing, quote, “Any loss of parent-child, friend, or spouse relationships is unmatched to the gain of knowing Christ .”
REN: It’s really unfortunate. And I wish she would stop, but -- I don’t know. What am I supposed to do? Tell her to stop? She doesn’t listen.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Is that part of why you’ve agreed to sit and talk with us?
REN: I don’t know. I’ve been told that this is important, that my story is important, that it might help people. And I don’t know how much I believe that.
I don’t know, because I don’t think there’s many things in the world that could change my mom’s mind about this. And I know not everyone is like my mother, but I think a lot of these types of people have a very fixed mindset about everything. But I know simultaneously that there are a lot of people like my old friends out there who are, um, they’re queer and they’re living in a world that doesn’t want them to be.
And they’re living with parents who they don’t feel safe with. And I don’t know if I’m doing this for them or for the people that I could change. I don’t know how much my words could really influence the lives of those who I love, but I hope that I could influence them in good ways.
ANTONIA HYLTON: We weren’t able to talk to the friends who Ren says she worried about. Like she said, their parents aren’t supportive. So, speaking to a couple of national news reporters wasn’t really on the table, but to understand what it’s been like for LGBTQ students in Grapevine, we went and met up with three non-binary high school seniors who are open about their identities.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: You heard from two of them in an earlier episode, when they told us about the protests they organized against the school board policy restricting books and lessons on transgender people. After that policy was adopted, they’d followed up that week by staging a student walkout. Dozens of classmates had joined them, waving pride flags, giving speeches, and chanting out on the high school lawn.
GROUP: (CHANTING) Protect our rights. Protect our rights. Protect our rights. Protect our rights. Protect our rights. Protect our rights.
ANTONIA HYLTON: We’ll start with an easy one. We’ll just go down the line. Just introduce yourself.
MARCELINE: Um, hi, my name is Marceline. Um, I go by they/them. I’m 17 years old. I was the one who came up with the idea for a walkout.
TEDDY: Uh, I’m Teddy. I am -- I also go by they/them, uh, 18 and I am kind of the, like the brains. I like, I have all the information and then I give it to Marcy to say.
JENNA: Um, I’m Jenna, I’m also 18. And I’m the beatboxer of the group.
MARCELINE: Yes, she does this randomly all the time.
JENNA: (BEAT BOXING)
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: If you can’t tell, Marceline, Teddy and Jenna are a lot of fun. You wouldn’t know it from all of their wisecracks or by the volume and frequency of their laughs. But the past couple of years at Grapevine High School have been hard for them.
Some conservative parents might see these teens as a walking embodiment of what they’ve been fighting against. The students have no problem honoring each other’s requests to go by whichever pronouns feel right.
MARCELINE: What pronouns do you go by?
JENNA: Oh, I didn’t -- uh, they/she.
MARCELINE: Oh, they/she?
JENNA: Yeah, it’s been that way.
TEDDY: Marcy!
MARCELINE: I knew she/they, not they/she. I’m sorry.
ANTONIA HYLTON: If you are not familiar, Jenna saying she goes by, they/she pronouns signals that she’s non-binary, but still connects with female aspects of her identity, that she’s okay using those non-binary and female pronouns interchangeably.
Marceline and Teddy both go by they/them, which means their gender identity is neither exclusively masculine or feminine. This is normal for them. And as we sit in Teddy’s living room, the teens begin to rattle through the ways their normal has made them feel like targets in Grapevine.
They’ve never really felt fully accepted among their peers, but to them, the growing anti-LGBTQ backlash and the rise of Patriot Mobile as a force in local politics has seemed to invite a new level of harassment in recent years. Here’s Jenna.
JENNA: In my junior year, I was walking through the hallway with my girlfriend and that had never been an issue. We were just holding hands. We weren’t doing anything crazy overt.
And um, this guy shoved us out of the way, like, physically and I almost fell down and he flipped us off and then walked away and we were just like, wow. Okay. And I remember for the rest of our relationship, I was just -- then I was concerned about everything else I did that might come off as queer to other people, because I just -- I didn’t want to put a target on my back.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Marceline says they learned how some classmates view LGBTQ people in a group chat after they came out.
MARCELINE: I was called multiple slurs because I made it known to people that I was queer. And it was just in those environments where it was just honestly scary to like exist, just as like who I am. And I was not even like fully out as like non-binary or gender fluid back then. It was mainly just being bi.
ANTONIA HYLTON: All three teens have to various degrees been a part of the local faith community. And despite some of the anti-trans rhetoric emanating from some of the area churches, all three say they don’t have a problem with religion playing a big role in Grapevine’s culture and identity. They just don’t believe those values should be forced on anyone.
TEDDY: I love my family and my family is Christian and they love me back. Like, it’s not -- I don’t have a problem inherently with religion, but the church that I was raised in does not love me. Religion is a very important part to a lot of people’s lives here.
MARCELINE: Mm-hmm.
TEDDY: And again, that’s not inherently bad, but when that religion is used as a weapon, then that is when it starts becoming something that is a hostile force.
JENNA: I really feel like there are two sides to it again, like there are the people who are traditional Christians who love, you know -- love thy neighbor and they hold to that. And I feel like those are the people that I -- I really appreciate in my life because they bring in that kind of more divine layer to their support --
MARCELINE: Mm-hmm.
JENNA: -- where they’re trying to explain, like, God loves you no matter -- you know, you are created in the right way and you deserve to be here, but then you’ll have people who go to their same churches and are a part of those communities who just want us to burn in hell. It’s not even that they think that we are. They -- that’s what they want for us.
MARCELINE: Yeah.
JENNA: They don’t understand.
MARCELINE: They want us to atone for our sins.
JENNA: It’s not like a lack of understanding. It’s like the presence of hate.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: The teens see that animosity in the newly restrictive school board policies and in the way, some parents have attacked teachers over classroom library books. They don’t know Ren personally, but they read about her story in the “Dallas Express” and have seen firsthand how much Sharla’s claims affected their favorite faculty member, English teacher Em Ramser.
TEDDY: This teacher is very dear to us.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Teddy, Jenna, and Marceline aren’t in the ASPIRE gifted program, so they haven’t had Ramser as a teacher, but they’ve all gotten to know her either through the Gay Straight Alliance or just walking between classes.
MARCELINE: Yeah. I don’t even know her and she asks me, like stops me in the hallway and asks me if I’m okay sometimes.
TEDDY: The first strong experience I had was when she hosted GSA.
MARCELINE: Mm-hmm.
JENNA: Yes.
TEDDY: And she was incredibly supportive in GSA. She let the students do what they needed to do. And she stepped in to provide guidance when she needed to. And it was an incredibly supportive environment where it was like, safe and validating.
ANTONIA HYLTON: One day at school, Teddy told Ramser that they loved poetry. Afterward, Ramser asked Teddy to help her start a poetry club on campus.
TEDDY: Before this point, I had never shared my poetry with anyone. I was terrified of sharing my poetry with anyone, cause again I’m -- I’m not --
JENNA: Yeah, you’re not a speaker.
TEDDY: I’m not a speaker.
MARCELINE: You’re not a speaker.
TEDDY: But she was like, hey, I want to do this. I see potential in you. And so, she would share poems and we would talk about them and it -- and we would write poetry. And she like -- she is the reason that I have competed in poetry competitions.
MARCELINE: Mm-hmm.
TEDDY: Like, she is the reason that I have been able to share my words with other people. And it is incredible that she has the ability to bring students out of their shell --
MARCELINE: Mm-hmm.
TEDDY: -- in a way that they are comfortable being who they are with her.
MARCELINE: Mm-hmm. We love Ramser.
TEDDY: Yeah.
JENNA: Yeah. Good teacher.
ANTONIA HYLTON: They’ve seen how Ramser’s classroom was transformed after Patriot Mobile backed members to control of the school board. Any sign or symbol of support for LGBTQ teens had been removed from campus. It has them worried about what kind of high school environment they’ll be leaving behind when they graduate in the spring.
MARCELINE: I’m so scared for like the freshmen ‘cause there are like a few that I know that don’t have like the houses that are like safe for them.
TEDDY: School is not going to be an escape. Like students who do not have supportive households are going to have nowhere to go.
MARCELINE: Mm-hmm.
TEDDY: And that is dangerous.
MARCELINE: Mm-hmm.
TEDDY: But it’s not just that. It’s also academically you’re creating an environment where no one is -- feels safe to learn.
ANTONIA HYLTON: But they haven’t given up hope. There were three more seats coming up for election on the Grapevine-Colleyville school board that May. If candidates opposed to far-right politics won all three, they could retake majority control from members backed by Patriot Mobile.
TEDDY: We saw what getting a majority of a conservative did to this -- our school and to this district. We saw that it allowed for incredibly harmful policies to get put into place. We saw that happen the last election. And if anything good has come of that, more people are aware that this next election is going to be just as important for the people who are still in the district.
MARCELINE: Yeah.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: And these teens plan to get involved in that fight.
SERGIO HARRIS: Hello sir.
MAN #2: Hey.
ANTONIA HYLTON: It’s a cloudy and windy Sunday afternoon in April, 2023.
SERGIO HARRIS: How are you doing? Uh, my name is Sergio Harris.
MAN #2: Yeah.
ANTONIA HYLTON: It’s the last weekend before early voting begins in the upcoming Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District board elections. And candidate Sergio Harris and his wife are going door to door, trying to drum up support for his campaign as a continuous line of planes come in for landing at the nearby Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.
SERGIO HARRIS: Uh, I’m running for GCISD school board. Uh, have you been keeping up what’s going on in the school district at all?
MAN #2: No.
SERGIO HARRIS: No. Uh, can I tell you a little bit about myself?
MAN #2: I ain’t got time. Thank you.
SERGIO HARRIS: Okay. You have a great day, sir.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Harris is the dad of two Grapevine students and is a high school social studies teacher at a nearby district. He’s a registered Democrat and the only Black person seeking one of the three open seats on the board this spring. He’s part of a trio of candidates running with the support of a local bipartisan political action committee called the Texas Nonpartisan PAC that’s been working to defeat a new slate of candidates backed by Patriot Mobile.
SERGIO HARRIS: Hello.
WOMAN #1: Hi.
SERGIO HARRIS: Uh, my name is Sergio Harris. Uh, I’m running for a school board.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Harris’s pitch to voters goes something like this: some extremely partisan people have taken over the schools in Grapevine and have been pushing policies that aren’t good for kids and aren’t good for teachers, and as a teacher himself, he should know.
SERGIO HARRIS: And right now we do not have any current educators on the school board. And of course, these are the people that are making, uh, policies for our kids. Anyway, so, uh, my website is down at the bottom. Election time is almost here.
WOMAN #1: Yes.
SERGIO HARRIS: So I’m really hoping that you will get out there and vote.
CHRISTY HARRIS: Have a good afternoon.
WOMAN #1: Thank you. You, too. Bye.
SERGIO HARRIS: Bye.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Unlike the year before when Patriot Mobile made all of the noise, Harris believes the support he’s getting from the Texas Nonpartisan PAC and other moderate and left-leaning parent groups will turn the tide and allow GCISD to stop focusing so much on divisive partisan politics and get back to focusing on educating kids.
The Political Action Committee raised about $30,000, a decent sum for a school board election, but still only one-fifth the total spent by Patriot Mobile. The Nonpartisan PAC spent their money on mailers, encouraging voters to support Harris and the two others under the heading Excellence Over Extremism.
SERGIO HARRIS: I think the, uh, the thing about this is a lot of people just haven’t been paying attention. And so now people are actually starting to pay attention.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: While he’s out knocking on doors, I notice Harris is wearing a purple “What Would Jesus Do?” bracelet. With religion playing such a big role in school board politics these days, especially in Grapevine, I had to ask.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Why do you wear that bracelet?
SERGIO HARRIS: Um, because, uh, Jesus was a great man and -- and I realized one thing. I always tell my students this. Um, I don’t expect everybody to like me. There’s -- there’s no way. If everybody likes you, then something’s wrong with you if everybody likes you. Jesus was a perfect man and they literally crucified him, so, uh, why would you expect everyone to like you?
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: We asked Harris about some of the people organizing against him, like Pastor Rafael Cruz, who’s been warning that candidates like him, candidates who are promising to make schools more welcoming for LGBTQ students and teachers, are motivated by an evil agenda.
SERGIO HARRIS: Yeah. I -- I -- I hate the narrative that they push that they are the ones that are bestowed or chosen by God to -- to -- to -- to fix education or fix this district as if there are no other Christians walking around this place right now. And -- and is it not the Christian thing to do to kind of be understanding of everyone? Um, if we’re really going to truly walk as Jesus walked, then we -- we need to not just talk the talk, but also walk the walk.
That’s not what this is about. This is -- this is not about whether you’re a Christian or not because this community has too many people that are -- are not necessarily Christian. That is not how I would run this -- this -- this district or be a part of running this district by pushing my -- my religion on these people.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: With that, we let Harris and his wife get back to campaigning.
ANTONIA HYLTON: The next morning, a chilly Monday, is the first day of early voting. When we arrive around 9:00 AM, a steady stream of voters is already filing into the polling site at Colleyville Library,
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Bright sunny day in Colleyville.
ANTONIA HYLTON: It’s actually nice in the sun. It’s not so nice in shade. So that’s them over there to the left you think?
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Yeah.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Across the parking lot, we notice one of the three Patriot Mobile supported school board candidates greeting voters and handing out campaign flyers. Richard Newton used to be the Mayor of Colleyville. Now he’s running to bring his brand of small-town conservatism to the school board.
At this point no Patriot Mobile backed candidate has ever agreed to speak with either of us. So we decide to give it a shot with Newton.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Good morning.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Hey there. Good morning.
RICHARD NEWTON: How are you guys?
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Good.
MAN #3: I’ll let y’all go. Have a good day.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: My name’s Mike. I’m a reporter with NBC News.
RICHARD NEWTON: Yeah. Mike, how are you?
ANTONIA HYLTON: Hi, I’m Antonia.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: We explain that we’re a couple of reporters working on a story about the impact of national politics in local school districts like Grapevine-Colleyville. Then Newton tells us why he’s running. He believes the current school board majority is doing a great job and he thinks even more can be done to help the district get back to the basics and get more students learning on grade level.
RICHARD NEWTON: And you know, public schools are there to give every student, not just some, every student across the whole spectrum, an opportunity for a great education. The other thing it says, in the legal side of things from legislature is to teach the students what it is to be a great citizen and to teach the founding documents. And so, those are important things.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: In his mid-70s, Newton is the oldest candidate in the race. His first stint as Mayor of Colleyville was back in 1992. You can tell he’s still a popular figure in town. Voters keep coming up and interrupting us.
RICHARD NEWTON:Hey. Richard Newton.
MAN #4: Richard. Thank you for all you do.
RICHARD NEWTON: Oh, well, thank you. (PHONE RINGING)
MAN #4: You were, you did a great job as Mayor.
ANTONIA HYLTON: After a few minutes, we bring up the school board’s sweeping policy, banning books and lessons on racism and gender and giving teachers authority to call transgender and non-binary students like Teddy, Marceline and Jenna by pronouns that don’t match their identities.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Would you have voted on it? Voted yes on it?
RICHARD NEWTON: Yes, I would. So --
ANTONIA HYLTON: What would you say to students who have told, not just us, but people across this community that they’ve felt less safe and less respected since those policies have been put in place?
RICHARD NEWTON: Well, I haven’t talked to any students that said that, but you -- you have to, you have to look at the whole perspective. Board of trustees are there to represent the entire district, all schools and all students. That’s their job.
All students need to feel comfortable and safe in going to school. And you need to have policies that allow that to happen. And so will everybody be happy with everything? Never going to happen, believe me. But you try to make decisions that’s in the best interest of all students and the district.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Newton says, he’s talked to teachers who say, having students asked to go by different pronouns, puts educators in an uncomfortable position.
RICHARD NEWTON: That’s a big distraction. That’s detrimental to their ability to teach. And so that policy is attempting to give them clarity around how to handle it.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Plus, he says, the district has to consider how some students’ gender expressions might affect their classmates.
RICHARD NEWTON: You also have a whole group of other students that may feel very uncomfortable about, you know, what other students want to do. So, you have to -- you have to take all that into consideration. Does that make sense?
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: For weeks, Newton had been campaigning on a promise to continue the work of a Patriot Mobile backed board majority. The company’s political action committee had spent $130,000 to send mailers and hire workers to go door to door on behalf of Newton and the other two candidates. One of those campaign flyers claimed that Newton and the other two would stand up to the democratic extremists who want to quote, “normalize the sexualization of children and woke indoctrination.”
But when I bring up Patriot Mobile, Newton tries to distance himself from the company and its PAC.
RICHARD NEWTON: So let me just make a comment about that.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Sure.
RICHARD NEWTON: Patriot Mobile is a PAC.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: They support you.
RICHARD NEWTON: They are a Christian conserva -- yeah. And they have come out and sent flyers that endorsed me. I have not talked to Patriot Mobile. They have not talked to me. I did not pursue their endorsement. Uh, which is the way PACs work.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Newton is right. That is usually how PACs work. Political action committees often do the dirty work of politics, including running attack ads. The candidates they support normally do try to keep their distance, often saying that they have no direct connection to the PACs that spend money supporting them.
RICHARD NEWTON: And so to me, Patriot Mobile is a Christian conservative group of people. I happen to be a Christian conservative.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Sure.
RICHARD NEWTON: Uh, but I’m running, uh, I’m running a campaign for school district and I have not involved Patriot Mobile in that race. And so that’s about all you’re going to get out of me and Patriot Mobile.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Whether or not Newton wanted Patriot Mobile Action involved in his race, the PAC certainly believed in him. And it’s worth pointing out, Newton and the other two Patriot Mobile-backed candidates were linked to the PAC in at least one very direct way. They all hired Patriot Mobile’s preferred GOP consulting firm, Edgerton Strategies, to run their school board campaigns.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Newton also wasn’t interested in discussing the other big theme that we had identified in this year’s election.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Do you -- do you support the idea of putting God back into schools?
RICHARD NEWTON: So you’re talking about something that’s going on in the legislature. Many things are going -- many things are going on in legislature.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Absolutely.
RICHARD NEWTON: I’m working on a local election to a school board. I’m -- I’m not, I haven’t been to Austin, believe me, in the past --
ANTONIA HYLTON: People in the community see you as aligned with Patriot Mobile, whether you ask for it or not. And so, when they hear them say, they want to bring God into schools, the Bible into schools, prayer into schools, they’re associating that with you. And they want to know, is that what you want to do if you become a member of the school board?
RICHARD NEWTON: Well, you know, I -- I’m, uh, under, I’m a great believer in, uh, the rule of law. Absolutely a great believer in the rule of law. And, uh, so if I’m on the school board, we would do what is lawful and, uh, that’s the way I think.
ANTONIA HYLTON: But do you want to put prayer and the Bible in schools?
RICHARD NEWTON: That’s not an issue in this election.
ANTONIA HYLTON: It is.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Newton tells us he’s seen our past reporting on school board politics in north Texas.
RICHARD NEWTON: So I have read articles that you’ve written.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: And he’s not impressed.
RICHARD NEWTON: You’re attempting to drag me into something you can write about. I’m just, I -- I’m going to tell you my views.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: We’re not trying to drag you --
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: And he doesn’t plan on saying one way or the other, whether he supports restoring Christian religious traditions in public schools. So, we leave it there.
ANTONIA HYLTON: All right. Well, thank you. We really appreciate your time.
RICHARD NEWTON: Surely, nice talking to you.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Thanks so much.
RICHARD NEWTON: Uh-huh.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Newton might not have wanted to discuss his views on the role of God in education, but Patriot Mobile and its surrogates had been casting the stakes of this election in starkly religious terms. Just a couple of weeks before testifying in support of the 10 Commandments bill in Austin, the Christian historian David Barton brought his disputed version of U.S. history to a Grapevine theater at an event hosted by Patriot Mobile. Barton was joined on stage by several area school board members, including Grapevine-Colleyville’s board Vice President, Shannon Braun.
DAVID BARTON: You want to go on the offensive because we now have tools in our arsenal we haven’t had in a long time, it will be --
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: Barton reminded the school board members and others in the audience that former president Donald Trump had succeeded in creating a six-three conservative super majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. That meant they didn’t need to wait around for legislation from Austin. Local schools were already free to display Christian symbols in classrooms, and to pray at school events.
DAVID BARTON: We can now go back to singing the traditional Christmas carols that go with Christmas and schools can do that. It’s absolutely fine to go back to putting up the national motto In God We Do Trust. Student-led prayer -- as long as it’s students who lead the prayer, it’s absolutely fine to have prayer in schools. Uh, as a matter of fact, go back to graduation prayer. We haven’t had that in 15 years, ‘cause the court said no. That’s now back on the table.
ANTONIA HYLTON: He mentioned teaching children the biblical creation narrative alongside the science of evolution.
DAVID BARTON: We can now go back to teaching things we haven’t been able to teach in 50 years. So, progressives took all this stuff out. We have an opportunity to put it back in.
ANTONIA HYLTON: Barton acknowledged that school leaders would face blowback for making these decisions. But that, too, it seemed, was part of God’s plan.
DAVID BARTON: Hopefully somebody will sue you if you do this, ‘cause that’s what we need. Cause if they will sue you then these guys will take it to court, we can win at that. And the whole nation wins as a result.
So, we have to start. (CLAPPING)
ANTONIA HYLTON: Hopefully somebody will sue you and the whole nation wins as a result.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: That was the game plan, spelled out in public view. Use the power of school boards and state legislatures to force religion back into public schools, then hope for a legal challenge that might serve as a test case to get the Supreme Court to overturn the separation of church and state in America once and for all.
ANTONIA HYLTON: The only question left to answer that spring was whether lawmakers in Austin and the people of north Texas would go along with the strategy.
MIKE HIXENBAUGH: That’s next on “Grapevine”.
From NBC News Studios, this is the fifth of six episodes of “Grapevine”, a series about faith, power and what it means to protect children in an American suburb. Grapevine was written, reported and hosted by me, Mike Hixenbaugh.
ANTONIA HYLTON: And by me, Antonia Hylton. The series is produced by Frannie Kelley. Our senior editor is Julie Shapiro, with story editing by Michelle Garcia. We had production support from Emily Burke and Eva Ruth Moravec. Fact-checking by Janina Huang. Sound design by Rick Kwan. Original music by Ali Shaheed Muhammad. Bryson Barnes is our technical director. Alexa Danner is our executive producer. Marisa Reilly is the director of production, and Liz Cole runs NBC News Studios.
