"Grapevine" podcast highlights suburban culture wars
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Grapevine students are sharing their experiences with a national audience. Photo: Courtesy of Mike Hixenbaugh
The suburbs of North Texas are on the front line of America's culture clash over everything from how history is taught to which books are allowed in schools to the rights of transgender students.
Driving the news: An NBC News podcast debuting Wednesday chronicles the uproar caused last year when Grapevine-Colleyville ISD passed policies limiting how teachers talk about race, gender and sexuality. The board also mandated which bathrooms trans students can use.
- "Grapevine" follows "Southlake," which detailed how the affluent suburbs of northeast Tarrant County became the testing ground for a new political strategy targeting local school districts, with support from conservative activists.
Of note: "Southlake" was the No. 1 podcast on Apple not long after launching, won a Peabody Award and was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Audio Reporting.
Catch up quick: Patriot Mobile, a North Texas-based cellphone service reseller that markets itself as "America's only Christian conservative wireless provider," was the driving financial force behind the election of at least 11 school board members in four suburban North Texas districts — including several members in Grapevine-Colleyville ISD.
- Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has told conservatives that to "save the nation," they need to target school boards, repeatedly spotlighting Patriot Mobile.
- "The school boards are the key that picks the lock," Bannon said during an interview with Patriot Mobile's president, Glenn Story, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas last year.
Context: These suburbs have a decades-long history of contentious public arguments over cultural issues. "Going back to the '90s, Southlake was at the center of a major case over prayer in schools," Antonia Hylton, one of the two NBC podcast co-hosts, tells Axios.
- In the 1990s, more than 100 Grapevine High School students made national headlines after a walkout related to a ban on Doc Martens boots, which were reportedly popular among skinheads.
Zoom in: "Grapevine" focuses on the story of a transgender student, the student's teacher, and a family divided by politics and religion.
What they're saying: "It's a story about a Texas town, and it's a story about America," Hylton says. "But I do think there is something particular happening in the Tarrant County area."
- "We have these national figures who are trying to push this idea of Christian Dominion," Mike Hixenbaugh, the other co-host, tells Axios. "They want to affect policy after 2020 and 2021, when school boards became the center of conservative activism."
The other side: GCISD President Casey Ford said at the time that the new policies "are a reflection of Texas law and community values."
Worthy of your time: Check out "Grapevine" wherever you get your podcasts.