After setbacks and scandals, the group’s efforts have expanded\u00a0\u2014 and its role in public education is growing<\/b>
\nIt\u2019s easy to chuckle at the failures of Moms for Liberty. The far-right \u201cparental rights\u201d group \u2014 founded in Florida during the Covid-19 pandemic to encourage re-opening schools without mask mandates or vaccine requirements \u2014 has invited laughter for its distorted, sometimes bizarre claims about plots to undermine American education, warning members that \u201cGlobalists, utopians, socialists, totalitarians, and the UN are using public schools to undermine freedom and Christianity.\u201d It requires little effort to arrange the group\u2019s most unhinged statements into a cornucopia of lunacy, surpassed in recent memory only by the tinfoil conspiracism of QAnon.
The so-called \u201cjoyful warriors\u201d have led harassment campaigns in school districts across the country, demanding action against curricula on systemic racism and gender identity. They\u2019ve worked to ban recent books like Maia Kobabe\u2019s \u201cGender Queer\u201d and George M. Johnson\u2019s \u201cAll Boys Aren\u2019t Blue,\u201d as well as classics like Kurt Vonnegut\u2019s \u201cSlaughterhouse-Five\u201d and Toni Morrison\u2019s \u201cBeloved,\u201d 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 \u201cMarxist indoctrination\u201d under the guise of Critical Race Theory \u2014 and those who emphasize LGBTQ+ inclusion are allegedly \u201cgrooming\u201d and \u201csexualizing\u201d children.
Even amid its mounting local election losses, humiliating public scandals and designation as an \u201cextremist anti-government\u201d group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Moms for Liberty remains a growing force in American politics.
But while the organization\u2019s 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 \u201cextremist anti-government\u201d group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Moms for Liberty remains a growing force in American politics.
That\u2019s because in a Republican Party fueled by culture wars \u2014 where feelings often prevail over facts \u2014 Moms for Liberty has become a \u201cpolitical powerhouse\u201d 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\u2019s 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\u2019s designation as an \u201cextremist\u201d group, telling the audience, \u201cWhen they mentioned this was a terrorist organization, I said, \u2018well then, count me as a Mom for Liberty.\u2019\u201d Donald Trump also dismissed the accusation before telling the crowd that they \u201care the best thing that ever happened to America.\u201d And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has worked closely with the group, issued his steadfast support: \u201cWe will pull the levers that we have available to us to be able to defend the rights of parents.\u201d
In retrospect, it\u2019s easy why pundits have pegged this conference as the high water mark for Moms for Liberty\u2019s influence. Since then, the group has been plagued by scandal, embarrassment and election losses. The group\u2019s co-founder, Bridget Ziegler \u2014 who also helped author Florida\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Say Gay\u201d law banning LGBTQ+ curriculum from early grades \u2014 has been mired in controversy after she and her husband Christian, the chair of the Florida Republican Party, were caught in a scandal involving a threesome and an investigation into her husband\u2019s alleged sexual assault of their partner. (He resigned his position after DeSantis called on him to step aside.)
Moms for Liberty\u2019s other co-founders, Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich, have not escaped embarrassment. In a 2024 interview with \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d the pair were unable to mount a coherent explanation as CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley challenged them with simple questions, including one about why they accuse teachers of \u201cgrooming\u201d kids. But Descovich and Justice often avoided questions and resorted to stock one-liners. Pelley even noted their evasiveness before suggesting that their organization intentionally misrepresents outliers \u2014 such as when books intended for high school students accidentally land on elementary school shelves \u2014 to produce skewed narratives of public schools.
Perhaps most glaring among its struggles, Moms for Liberty has failed to match its early success in school board elections. Back in 2022, on the heels of the pandemic, nearly half of the candidates endorsed by the organization won their elections. But in 2023, only a third of their candidates won. There are more recent signs that Moms for Liberty\u2019s win rate is continuing its decline. In last November\u2019s elections, Democratic candidates in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a political bellwether, enjoyed a sweeping defeat of conservatives who championed the group\u2019s policies, as did others across the country.
These defeats were part of a nationwide trend for candidates endorsed by or aligned with Moms for Liberty. After the election, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said, \u201cLast night, we saw voters support their local schools in towns, counties and cities across America, including important school board wins in Albuquerque; Wichita; Nashua, NH; Douglas County, CO; Cy-Fair, Texas; and Bucks County, PA.\u201d
Major media outlets have been quick to present the organization\u2019s recent struggles as a sign of declining influence. And while they might be right, it seems that what is happening is a shift in the group\u2019s emphasis, one that compliments its early bottom-up approach that sent thousands of moms into school board meetings with a top-down approach that works from government down to schools.
Despite its grassroots origin story, Moms for Liberty has always been closely connected to the Republican establishment. But in recent years, the group\u2019s efforts have expanded, aiming not only to win school board elections but to orchestrate legislative change and drive voter turnout in state and national elections.
In the lead-up to the 2024 election, in which Moms for Liberty experienced diminishing returns on investments in school board elections, the group pumped $3 million dollars into swing state advertising and voter mobilization. Although the organization does not endorse presidential candidates, Moms for Liberty ran scathing anti-Biden ads in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. (As a 501(c)(4), the group is not required to disclose its funding sources, but records show ties to one of the most influential conservative super PACs, Richard Uihlein\u2019s Restoration PAC.)
At the state level, Moms for Liberty lobbyists have worked with elected officials to craft \u201canti-woke\u201d legislation, like Florida\u2019s \u201cParents Bill of Rights\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t Say Gay\u201d law, which, among other things, require teachers to notify parents when a child requests to change pronouns and bans \u201cinstruction about sexual orientation and gender identity\u201d in K-12 schools. Moms for Liberty has helped pass similar legislation across the country, including in Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Montana and in the Dakotas. They\u2019ve worked on bills limiting \u201cobscene materials\u201d and banning minors from attending drag shows.
And with the Trump administration back in the White House, Moms for Liberty has achieved new national influence. Going beyond New Hampshire\u2019s \u201cdivisive concepts\u201d law, the Department of Education recently announced an \u201cEnd DEI\u201d portal, where the public can report teachers who \u201ccommit illegal discriminatory practices.\u201d In the official Department of Education announcement, only one person was quoted \u2014 co-founder Tiffany Justice, who later encouraged parents to use the new portal to \u201cshare the receipts of the betrayal that has happened in our public schools.\u201d
Although the group\u2019s top-down focus has grown, Moms for Liberty hasn\u2019t forgotten that it caught fire by waging local school board battles. In fact, the organization is redoubling efforts to win school board elections with its recent launch of Moms for Liberty University, an online training program for political organizing \u2014 not a degree-granting university \u2014 where parents can master the group\u2019s positions on race and gender while also exploring a Make America Healthy Again toolkit for those curious about food choices or vaccine requirements in schools. If the program works as planned, parents across the country will have the tools to organize their own battles in local public schools.
To be sure, Moms for Liberty has endured a rough stretch. The combination of salacious scandals and heavily publicized election losses have undercut the group\u2019s image. Yet as the group develops its state and national work \u2014 shaping legislation, mobilizing voters in swing states and working directly with the Department of Education \u2014 its role in American public education is still growing, and so might its chilling effect on American teachers. After all, the group recently announced that \u201cthousands of parents\u201d have already reported teachers to the government\u2019s new \u201cEnd DEI\u201d portal. While Mom\u2019s for Liberty\u2019s recent embarrassments might merit a good laugh, their critics should know it might not be the last one.<\/p>\n