After setbacks and scandals, the group’s efforts have expanded — and its role in public education is growing
It’s easy to chuckle at the failures of Moms for Liberty. The far-right “parental rights” group — founded in Florida during the Covid-19 pandemic to encourage re-opening schools without mask mandates or vaccine requirements — has invited laughter for its distorted, sometimes bizarre claims about plots to undermine American education, warning members that “Globalists, utopians, socialists, totalitarians, and the UN are using public schools to undermine freedom and Christianity.” It requires little effort to arrange the group’s most unhinged statements into a cornucopia of lunacy, surpassed in recent memory only by the tinfoil conspiracism of QAnon.
The so-called “joyful warriors” have led harassment campaigns in school districts across the country, demanding action against curricula on systemic racism and gender identity. They’ve worked to ban recent books like Maia Kobabe’s “Gender Queer” and George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” as well as classics like Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five” and Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” among others. But beyond lobbying for safeguards surrounding what is taught, Moms for Liberty activists have also spread harmful misinformation about those who teach it. They accuse teachers who cover systemic racism of engaging in “Marxist indoctrination” under the guise of Critical Race Theory — and those who emphasize LGBTQ+ inclusion are allegedly “grooming” and “sexualizing” children.
Even amid its mounting local election losses, humiliating public scandals and designation as an “extremist anti-government” group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Moms for Liberty remains a growing force in American politics.
But while the organization’s rhetoric can be laughably hyperbolic, a quick peek under the hood reveals a record that cannot be laughed away. Even amid its mounting local election losses, humiliating public scandals and designation as an “extremist anti-government” group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Moms for Liberty remains a growing force in American politics.
That’s because in a Republican Party fueled by culture wars — where feelings often prevail over facts — Moms for Liberty has become a “political powerhouse” for its unique ability to energize conservative women by stoking rage over issues of race, identity and wokeness in schools. Rather than shunning the group as purveyors of misinformation when they were founded in 2021, the Republican Party was quick to celebrate its effective messaging and position it as a new GOP kingmaker. By 2023, five Republican presidential candidates spoke at the annual Moms for Liberty conference, each emphasizing their overlap with the group’s platform, including opposition to teacher unions and woke ideology, as well as support for school choice and book bans.
Nikki Haley, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, challenged the organization’s designation as an “extremist” group, telling the audience, “When they mentioned this was a terrorist organization, I said, ‘well then, count me as a Mom for Liberty.’” Donald Trump also dismissed the accusation before telling the crowd that they “are the best thing that ever happened to America.
