Moms for Liberty attacks public schools in order to advocate for policies that would privatize education, a goal of the right since desegregation.
Moms for Liberty is a Florida-based nonprofit organization founded in 2021 by three former school board members. The organization attacks public schools by supporting far-right candidates for school boards, pushing book bans, and working with local and state governments to enact burdensome restrictions on teachers and school districts. Moms for Liberty is part of a broader effort led by right-wing activists to undermine trust in public schools in support of policies that privatize education– a right-wing goal since desegregation.
Moms for Liberty, which was designated as an anti-government extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2023, has close ties to violent right-wing extremist groups, including the Three Percenters, the Oath Keepers, and the Proud Boys – three organizations that played prominent roles in the attempted insurrection on January 6th. Moms For Liberty leaders have also lobbed violent threats against librarians and teachers, and members are known for engaging in vicious harassment campaigns.
In 2023, an Indiana chapter of Moms for Liberty quoted Adolf Hitler in its newsletter. Watchdog Media Matters noted that a different Moms for Liberty chapter in Flagler County, Florida used the same Hitler quote in a 2021 presentation.
Co-founder Bridget Ziegler gained prominence as a member of the Sarasota School Board, a position she used to become a “lightning rod” for culture wars. Ziegler was first appointed to the school board by then-Florida Governor Rick Scott and has since been reelected three times. She has “articulated deeply conservative Republican Party positions on critical race theory and parental rights…” and makes regular appearances on Fox News.
Tiffany Justice is a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, a member of The Federalist Society, and an advocate for “parental rights” in schools. She is a frequent guest on Fox News and conservative podcasts where she crusades against so-called “woke” ideology in public education. In 2022, Justice started the “Joyful Warriors” podcast, focused on pushing back against teacher’s unions. As a member of the Indian River County school board in Florida, Justice opposed efforts to desegregate the public school system following lawsuits by the NAACP, claiming it would “create discomfort” among parents.
Tina Descovich is a former school board member and co-founder of Moms for Liberty. She initially conceived of the idea for the group after she was ousted from the Brevard County school board in Florida by a former school employee. After losing her school board race by nearly 10 points, Descovich founded Moms For Liberty in an attempt to capitalize on the political momentum of anti-mask and anti-lockdown advocacy by parents of school-aged children throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Marie Rogerson is the executive director of Moms for Liberty. She previously worked on campaigns for Republican politicians, including Florida State Representative Randy Fine.
Moms for Liberty, founded in 2021, is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization advocating for “parental rights” in schools. Moms for Liberty has grown quickly since its founding, tapping into a network of large donors and elite supporters including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. As of 2023, the organization claims to have chapters in 42 states and over 100,000 members, despite being founded by former school board members with no nonprofit leadership experience.
In 2023, the Southern Poverty Law Center designated Moms for Liberty an extremist group, citing the group’s opposition to “LGBTQ+ and racially inclusive school curriculum” as well as their support for book bans.
Moms for Liberty was founded in part to join a growing right-wing campaign against teaching “critical race theory” in public schools, echoing the fear spread by conservative agitators that public schools had transformed into radical anti-racism training grounds. Moms for Liberty’s proposed solution has been to push conservative ideas and values in the classroom. On its website, the organization offers “Resources for Parents,” which includes a “Parent Pledge” as well as a guide on combating social-emotional learning, which Moms for Liberty claims promotes “concerning anti-american rhetoric” and acts as a “training to become a social justice warrior who will work to disrupt and dismantle America.”
The Moms for Liberty website and that of the affiliated 501(c)(3) Moms for Liberty Foundation promote children’s books that emphasize the values “that makes America great.” Reporting from The New Yorker found one title featured on the site was a “book written by a follower of the John Birch Society” that “referred to Black people as ‘pickaninnies’.”
A local Moms for Liberty chapter in New Hampshire made national news when it attempted to capitalize on a new state law allowing citizens to report educators for teaching critical race theory in classrooms. The local chapter took to Twitter to offer a bounty to the first person to turn in a public school teacher for violating the new law. The New Hampshire governor, Republican Chris Sununu, denounced the bounty, calling it “inappropriate.”
Moms for Liberty has supported efforts to ban books in school libraries and has demanded that, in some cases, hundreds of books be removed from library shelves due to so-called objectionable subject matter. The group worked with Governor Ron DeSantis to enforce a new Florida law giving parents the ability to challenge books they feel are inappropriate. Moms for Liberty also placed their members into a new Florida Department of Education working group charged with designing a new “training,” to “guide librarians statewide on how to follow new library censorship rules signed into law by Gov. DeSantis.” The Daily Beast reported that the Florida Department of Education passed over highly qualified nominees in favor of right-wing activists and Moms for Liberty members.
Moms for Liberty’s book censorship efforts often target books that depict LGBTQ or Black characters or books that focus on America’s history of racism. This includes children’s books like Martin Luther King Jr. and the March to Washington, Ruby Bridges Goes to School, The Story of Ruby Bridges, and First Nations of North America Plains Indians. Moms for Liberty opposes the teaching of these books because of “photographs of political violence,” “racist remarks,” and, in the case of the book about Native Americans, the organization claims it “paints white people in a negative light.” A fictional account of the Civil War was decried by the group as inappropriate due to descriptions of “out of marriage families between white men and Black women.” The group has also fought against books about Galileo because of an “anti-church” message, and objected to a book about seahorses because it could “normalize that males can get pregnant.”
In Tennessee, a local Moms for Liberty Chapter filed an eleven-page complaint with the state Department of Education accusing public schools of violating a new anti-critical race theory law by teaching elementary students about the civil rights movement. The curriculum included teaching the books Martin Luther King Jr and the March on Washington, Ruby Bridges Goes to School, The Story of Ruby Bridges, and Separate is Never Equal as “anchor texts.” The complaint claimed that the books and the teachers’ manual “reveal both explicit and implicit anti-American, anti-White, and Anti-Mexican teaching.” The complaint also claimed that students were manipulated into believing a “heavily biased agenda…that makes children hate their country, each other, and/or themselves.”
Moms for Liberty chapters have challenged books across the country, including literature with LGBTQ themes such as All Boys Aren’t Blue, Gender Queer: a Memoir, and George, books that discuss race such as The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Lawn Boy, and novels the organization claims are generally inappropriate for children, such as Looking for Alaska.
The organization also aims to promote books championed by conservative publishers. Moms for Liberty partnered with BRAVE Books, Heroes of Liberty, and the American Cornerstone Institute, a foundation run by former Trump official Ben Carson. On an episode of her podcast, Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice touted these conservative publishers and offered listeners a discount code to “find books that support our values.”
Moms for Liberty has also recommended the book The Making of America by conspiracy theorist W. Cleon Skousen. The book claims to delve into the history of the constitution and offer context for the articles and Bill of Rights to help readers better understand the framers’ intentions. Skousen operated on the fringes of American conservatism as an anti-communist crusader and conspiracy theorist who believed a “global cabal of bankers controlled the world from behind the scenes,” that slavery was a “blessing,” and that Marx had tried “to create a race of human beings conditioned to think like criminals.”
In addition to targeting books that include LGBTQ storylines, Moms for Liberty has accused public schools of pressuring children to join the LGBTQ community. In an MSNBC interview, Eulalia Jimenez, the chair of the Miami chapter of Moms for Liberty, claimed the existance of an LGBTQ “agenda” influencing young children to come out as gay. Jimenez claimed that by limiting schools’ ability to discuss topics relating to gender identity and sexuality, the state of Florida was returning rights to parents and protecting children.
Moms for Liberty also campaigns against providing children with gender-affirming care, which has been found to reduce depression and suicidality in trans and nonbinary youth. In a podcast episode titled “There is No Such Thing as a Transgender Child,” Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice interviewed Chris Elston, an anti-trans activist who claimed that “unhinged leftists” had captured all major medical institutions in the US and were forcing their political ideology on children.
Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice launched the Joyful Warriors podcast in December 2022, following the midterm elections. On the podcast, Justice interviews individuals from the fringes of the conservative fight about a wide range of topics relating to public schools.
In one episode, Justice interviewed James Lindsay, an extreme right-wing conspiracy theorist who once claimed there would be a white genocide if critical race theory “isn’t stopped.” In the podcast, Lindsay promoted the “cultural marxism” conspiracy theory, which claims that all major academic institutions have been infiltrated by communists who are working to destroy western civilization. According to Lindsay, this is accomplished by teaching divisive and emotional content that allows schools to force communism onto children. The cultural marxism conspiracy theory has been identified as antisemitic by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Moms for Liberty, which was designated as an anti-government extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in June 2023, maintains various longstanding ties to right-wing extremists.
Moms for Liberty chapters have been tied to a number of extremist groups, including Christian Nationalist organizations, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and sovereign citizen movements, which experts describe as a violent terrorist threat. Additionally, members of the Three Percenters, a far-right anti-government militia group that stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and was deemed a terrorist group in Canada, were invited to a school board meeting by Moms For Liberty.
Vice News also reported that the Proud Boys, a “Western-Chauvinist” extremist group known for their prominent role in the 2017 white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville and the 2021 Capitol riot, is “heavily involved” in the Miami chapter of Moms for Liberty. Moms for Liberty and the Proud Boys collaborate in chats on the encrypted messaging app Telegram and a former Moms for Liberty Miami chapter member described the “Vice City Proud Boys” as the “foot soldiers” of the chapter, assisting the chapter in its harassment campaigns.
Moms for Liberty’s 2023 national summit features KrisAnne Hall, a member who gave a presentation to a white nationalist group and is a member of the Oath Keepers, the anti-government extremist group that planned violence ahead of the January 6th Capitol riot. Hall compared the Capitol police to “Nazi Germany’s S.S.” in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol.
Moms for Liberty members and leaders have threatened violence while engaging in intense harassment campaigns. The communications director of the Lonoke County, Arkansas Moms for Liberty chapter threatened gun violence against local librarians in 2022.
In 2023, an Indiana chapter of Moms for Liberty quoted Adolf Hitler in its newsletter. Watchdog Media Matters noted that a different Moms for Liberty chapter in Flagler County, Florida used the same Hitler quote in a 2021 presentation.
Moms for Liberty is closely associated with the Florida Republican Party and amplifies many of the same talking points, including justifications for Governor Ron DeSantis’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler is married to Florida Republican Party Vice Chairman, Christian Ziegler, and Moms for Liberty executive director Marie Rogerson is a professional Republican political strategist.
Beyond social connections, Moms for Liberty has quickly tapped into a cadre of Republican elites for fundraising and events. In July 2022, Moms for Liberty hosted their first ever summit, an event covered by national media outlets and headlined by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Six months after its founding, Moms for Liberty hosted talk show host Megyn Kelly for a fireside chat to raise money for the group. Named sponsors of the event included local Republican officials, including State Senator Debbie Mayfield and State Representatives Randy Fine and Tyler Sirois. The organization’s ability to recruit top Republicans for their first fundraiser points to the deep right-wing media connections that Moms for Liberty has leveraged to achieve their rapid growth.
Megyn Kelly is a former Fox News host best known for hosting The Kelly File before taking a position at NBC News. Kelly was later fired from NBC News for racist remarks in 2018. Since her ouster, Kelly has hosted a podcast where she interviews a rotating cast of right-wing media figures.
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