Jennifer Sey Keeps Getting Canceled for Speaking Up

In 2008, Jennifer Sey was subjected to a vicious backlash after the 1986 USA Gymnastics national champion released Chalked Up, the first memoir published about rampant abuse in the sport. Her new book, Levi's Unbuttoned: The Woke Mob Took My Job but Gave Me My Voice, feels like a continuation of that story, detailing Sey's ouster from the jeans juggernaut-where she was set to become its first female CEO-after she again ruffled feathers earlier this year. This time she wasn't speaking out against abuse in sports; she was speaking out against COVID-19 school closures.

- BILLY BINION

In November, Reason's Billy Binion interviewed Sey by phone about what led to her new book-and why the lifelong Democrat is now politically homeless.

Q: You were one of the first people to speak out in detail about the abuse in gymnastics. It wasn't received well. How do you relate that experience to your experience speaking out on school closures?

A: After [former U.S. women's gymnastics physician] Larry Nassar's arrest, the gymnastics community sort of reassessed and then coalesced around me, kind of pretending that they always had. Which was not the case, but I welcome anyone to the fight. I kept reminding myself that when you say a hard thing that people don't want to hear, the response can be, "You're lying." But ultimately the truth does win out in the end.

Q: Do you feel that's happened here?