'Generation COVID' bears witness to devastating toll of school closings

Jennifer Sey is an ex-gymnast, but she spent years swimming against the tide.

The former national champion once blew the whistle on abuse within the sport, a position she says drew plenty of internal fire. Powerful gymnastic voices dubbed her a “grifter and a liar,” Sey recalls to Align, long before the general public learned of horrifying cases like convicted predator Larry Nassar.

'I think there are a lot of young people who look at that time and see the course of their lives were altered forever. Democrats did that.'

She recalls receiving threatening voicemails at work from the head of USA Gymnastics, too.

“The sporting community really attacked me, teammates [did, too] … even the head of Gymnastics Australia tried to take me down,” Sey recalls of abuses chronicled in her memoir, “Chalked Up.”

The experience “strengthened my resolve,” she says.

From Levis exec to 'radical'

Jennifer Sey

Years later, Sey sat in a comfortable position as a Levi’s executive when another injustice forced her to speak out. She watched with alarm as leaders kept kids locked out of school during the COVID-19 pandemic.

That stance eventually forced her exit from Levi’s corporate team and branded her a radical in the eyes of some pandemic hardliners. Years later, Sey’s position has been more than vindicated. Legacy media outlets confirm the damage done to students who couldn’t participate in school during the pandemic.

The cost of quarantine

Except she’s not willing to forgive and forget. She’s the driving force behind an upcoming documentary “Generation COVID,” focused on the innocents caught in the bureaucratic crossfire.

The film lets children share what they endured during the pandemic. Suicide attempts. Lost collegiate scholarships. Drug overdoses. Scholastic declines. Weight gain. Loneliness.

“It’s heartbreaking and devastating,” she says of those on-camera revelations. “I can’t tell you how many of the interviews I ended up crying and needed to collect myself.”

Sey’s children suffered, too.

“It’s why we moved to Colorado from San Francisco,” she says, recalling how one of her children went from being a boisterous kid to one who was “distant and lethargic.”

“I want him to establish a love of learning ... it broke my heart,” she says.

Rewriting history

She’s furious to see some who helped shutter schools attempt to rewrite history on the subject, like Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

“They’re such liars ... it’s all so well-documented,” she says. “How do they have the gall to lie about their role?”

“Nobody was fighting for the children,” she adds.

“Generation COVID” features sizable input from Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, now the Director of the National Institutes of Health. The film also eschews partisan politics, featuring voices across the political spectrum with a focus on the facts.

“It’s not at all meant to be political but document what happened and hear from the kids directly,” he says.

Distributor wanted

The film still needs a distributor, a complication that plays into our political divide.

“Right-wing conservative platforms talked about COVID for a while, but it’s played out. Mainstream left-leaning platforms aren’t ready for this ... it puts us in a difficult spot,” she says.

The film’s message may be more relevant than many realize. She name-checks bird flu woes and housing “migrants” in public schools as examples of modern-day school concerns.

“The ‘Closed Schools’ [approach] is now a tool in the tool box. We close them at the bat of an eye,” she says. “There’s a portion of the left and the community that says if we just did it better and locked down harder, it would have worked out better.”

Sey acknowledges one political fallout from the lockdowns — a higher number of young voters flocked to President Donald Trump in the last election. She says one of the young men featured in “Generation COVID” “will not forgive and forget” how the lockdowns impacted his life, including extreme weight gain and the possible loss of a football scholarship.

He's not alone.

“I think there are a lot of young people who look at that time and see the course of their lives were altered forever. Democrats did that,” she says.

Built for the fight

Sey isn’t done fighting. Last year, she created the XX-XY Athletics brand, dedicated to defending women’s sports. The case of trans swimmer Lia Thomas versus Riley Gaines made national headlines in recent years and epitomizes Sey's battle.

She’s pleased by President Trump’s executive orders protecting women’s sports but understands more work needs to be done. Consider the recent case of Natalie Daniels, a five-time marathon winner and mom who got kicked out of her running club on the dawn of the Boston Marathon for speaking out against trans women in women’s sports.

“She’s the kindest, sweetest, most gentle human,” Sey says of Daniels, who was targeted by activists who Sey says tried to track her whereabouts during the imbroglio. “It’s a reminder of how far we have to go … she was bullied to the point of almost retracting her comments.”

“That’s what we’re up against. I’m not gonna let an unhinged, screaming minority intimidate me,” she says. “Eighty percent of Americans agree [with me].”

Few fights are harder than what Sey already endured as a young athlete.

“The physical pain and suffering inflicted on me, eating 300 calories and working out eight hours a day ... call me any names you want, I can take it,” she says. “Nothing will ever be that hard.”