The Sydney Sweeney Controversy is a Dangerous Distraction
A recent report from Human Rights Watch and other advocacy groups detailed accounts from migrants held at a Miami immigration jail. One detainee, identified as Pedro, described being shackled with hands tied behind his back and forced to kneel to eat food from styrofoam plates "like dogs." He reported being packed into a holding cell for hours, denied lunch until about 7 PM, and still shackled with food on chairs in front of them, stating, "We had to eat like animals."
Another report, this time from Senator Jon Ossoff, revealed even worse abuses against immigrants. In one instance, the partner of a woman in DHS custody reported that the woman, who was pregnant, bled for days before facility staff would take her to a hospital. Once there, she was reportedly left alone to miscarry without water or medical assistance for over 24 hours. Another pregnant detainee described repeatedly requesting medical attention and being told to "just drink water" instead of receiving an exam.
Alexis, a trans woman from Guatemala, fled violence in her home country due to her identity. At the U.S. border, she sought water from a Border Patrol agent who allegedly made fun of her gender, pulled her hair, and yelled at her. She was sent to be prosecuted for unauthorized entry and spent time in "la hielera" – described as "a living hell" due to extreme cold and unsanitary conditions.
These stories are all extremely recent; most of them are from late July, just a few weeks ago. But are we discussing them? Are we fighting to make this better? Is anyone focused on protecting these people?
Of course not. Instead, everyone wants to focus on Sydney Sweeney
The vast majority of our readers and columnists, including me, are progressive. Like many progressives, I was upset when I heard that Sydney Sweeney, one of America’s biggest stars, was in an ad promoting eugenics. This article was originally going to be against her and American Eagle.
However, my research to create this article quickly led to me discovering that the whole controversey is nothing more or less than total nonsense. Even for America in 2025, this is incredibly stupid. Every piece of evidence we have — and every piece we don’t have — proves beyond all reasonable doubt that both Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle are innocent.
In case you are a happy and well-adjusted person who doesn’t spend time on Twitter (which is a major reason why you are happy and well-adjusted), I will catch you up on the scandal.
Sydney Sweeney recently had an ad with American Eagle to help them sell their jeans. The ad is highly suggestive, with Sydney somehow making a full denim jacket look like a bikini. The obvious focus of the ad is to sexualize Sydney Sweeney to make people pay attention to the ad. A bit sleazy? Definitely.
Here is where the controversy starts. First, I will let you watch the ad on your own without any input from me:
Notice anything bad? The answer for most is no. The wordplay between jeans and genes is openly apparent from the very beginning. Equally apparent is the ad’s main purpose, selling jeans by having an attractive actress wear their products. However, many progressives on Twitter have claimed that the ad promotes eugenics.
The argument goes like this:
The advertisement says Sydney Sweeney has great genes.
Sydney Sweeney has blond hair (she is actually a natural brunette), which implies the superior “great” genes are Aryan.
During the eugenics movement, they specifically sterilized people seen to have “inferior” genes, which was overwhelmingly aimed at people who were not white.
The Nazis supported eugenics as well.
Therefore, Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle are pushing a nazi eugenicist agenda
Right off the bat, this argument is a gold medal tier Olympic stretch, with some mental gymnastics thrown in for some razzle dazzle.
But this is Twitter, where people act like common sense is illegal and punishable by death. So, Twitter took this logic and started sprinting. Tweets accused Sydney Sweeney, who was never even involved in the writing of the ad, of secretly being a white supremacist who is dog-whistling her secret eugenicist views. I wish I were joking, but here is a laundry list of tweets demonstrating the pure panic that has grabbed progressive Twitter by the throat:
Many of you, my fellow progressives, are already furious with me for disagreeing. You may be completely convinced that somehow the American Eagle team is full of highly educated racial theorists who know how to do hyper-subtle dog whistles and will do so for zero economic incentive.
I am going to make a promise to everyone reading this article. By the time you finish this article, you will agree with me. I guarantee you will realize that the accusation of Nazism is foolish, unfounded, and dangerous to the progressive cause. This is exactly the kind of behavior that makes us look genuinely insane.
In fact, by the end of this paragraph, most of you will be convinced. American Eagle is run by a man named Jay Schottenstein, who is both the CEO and the Executive Chairman of the Board. Nothing in the company can happen without his approval. Jay is himself a jew, which makes the idea of him supporting Nazism genuinely hilarious. I laughed out loud as soon as I discovered this information. But he is not just Jewish by race alone; he is a practicing member of Judaism. So much so that he has been praised by the Times of Israel multiple times. I’ve never read that newspaper, but I think I might be able to guess their opinions on Nazi eugenics.
He has consistently spent money on causes that heavily contradict any claims of Nazism. He is spending millions to build a museum to house the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Hebrew texts. According to the Times of Israel, “American Eagle CEO Jay L. Schottenstein, a Jewish philanthropist whose family has donated tens of millions of dollars to a range of Jewish organizations… and the family has given to a range of Jewish institutions in Columbus, Ohio, where the Schottenstein family is based.”
He even paid millions to put a Mezuzah inside the American Eagle Times Square store. I have no idea what a Mezuzah is, but it sounds like the type of thing Adolf would not be a fan of. Unless Jay wants to commit suicide with extra steps, I highly doubt that he supports Nazi eugenics.
Speaking of Hitler, Jay Schottenstein has also donated tons of money to the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. He donated so much money that they put him on the website.
Still not convinced? After all, he could hypothetically support eugenics despite all of these things. Of course, there is no evidence for that, but at the very least it could be hypothetically true.
Unfortunately for Twitter, American Eagle has demonstrated a consistent pattern of behavior to not only support minority causes, but to actively make their board more diverse. Due to these efforts, around 60% of the members of the American Eagle board are minorities. It is highly unlikely a board with that much diversity would willingly play into eugenics.
In addition, this is not just acompany finding a few diversity hires to protect it from accusations. They actively fight to make their entire organization as inclusive as possible. American Eagle Outfitters (AEO Inc.) has a formal DEI policy, which they describe using the acronym IDEA: Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Access. They have defined IDEA as a core part of their culture and operations. The program was designed by associates and is built around three pillars: Hiring, Community, and Development
These projects include REAL Pride, REAL Black Alliance, AAPI, Real Jewish Connection, Women @ AEO, and The Anti-Racism Connection. If you are still not convinced, they also have the AEO REAL Change Scholarship for Social Justice, committing $5 million to support associates engaged in anti-racism and equality initiatives. In addition, they even work directly with HBCUs
Some of you are still not convinced. After all, someone maybe (?) could do all of these things and still hate minorities. However, all of the info above demonstrates a clear pattern of behavior that this company goes out of its way for social justice. This stands at odds with recent accusations that the company is somehow blowing a secret dog whistle that somehow only progressives can hear.
If the above evidence isnt enough, then we need to also move onto identifying a motive and/or incentive. In this case, their incentives are completely inconsistent with blowing a dog whistle. It’s true that a bunch of conservatives bought some stock in the company to “own the libs”. But the vast majority of their customer base are young women, the majority of whom are overwhelmingly progressive.
They have already suffered a decrease in sales and a reduction of foot traffic into their stores. In other words, American Eagle is going to lose millions upon millions of dollars due to the uproar over this ad. Why would a company intentionally do something that pisses off its most important group of customers?
Hillbilly racists living in cornfields and weird 4chan nazis living in their mom’s basement do not shop at American Eagle. They can’t even afford to shop there!
By every objective measure we have, there is no evidence that this ad was anything more than a pun. There is no direct evidence at all except for the genes and jeans pun. There is no pattern of behavior indicating they would ever have or promote eugenicist views. In fact, they have a consistent record of promoting diversity in their company and social justice all over the world. Worst of all, their incentives are directly at odds with blowing a dog whistle that only people who will never shop at your store will hear. This has been reflected by the drop in sales, proving that doing something like this on purpose would have been against their best interests.
All of these factors combined make it easy for any rational person to conclude that this entire Twitter controversy was nothing more than a distraction. It is completely baseless, and no matter what eugenics history book you quote at me, no one accusing this company has any direct proof that this company is eugenicist. The allegation is false.
But why does any of this matter? Why did I myself spend so much time on this? Read the consequences of this mistake on the next page.
