Editorial Advisory on Moms for Liberty National Summit

To: Journalists covering the Moms for Liberty national summit and March for Kids, Washington, D.C., August 29-September 1, 2024

Fr: Maurice T. Cunningham, J.D., Ph.D., author Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization

Re: Editorial Advisory on Moms for Liberty and March for Kids

Moms for Liberty (M4L) will hold its national summit and March for Kids in Washington, D.C., from August 29-September 1, 2024. M4L’S planned “fireside chat” with Donald Trump cements the unholy troika of M4L, Trump, and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.

The Moms for Liberty-Project 2025-Trump Troika

Politico recognizes that M4L and Trump enjoy a “symbiotic relationship” and a Trump spokesperson admits “a lot of mutual consensus.”  M4L is on the Project 2025 Advisory Board and has endorsed Heritage’s radical Project 2025 which would destroy public education in America. M4L’s positions overlap with Project 2025 education chapter and Trump’s 2024 GOP Platform: Make America Great Again. “Parents Rights;” anti-Critical Race Theory, anti- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; shredding the separation of church and state to put Christian Nationalism into schools; universal school choice that will decimate public schools; defunding schools that teach accurate racial history; and closing the Department of Education to return education to the states are all positions shared by M4L, Trump, and Project 2025.

M4L is a dependent of Heritage. At an April 9 forum at Heritage, M4L co-founder Tiffany Justice gushed (1:12) about how president Kevin Roberts and Heritage had been “amazing partners since we started Moms for Liberty.” Roberts spoke at the 2023 summit. A Strategy Session titled “The 10 Laws of Fundraising” at the 2024 summit will be led by Heritage. A Strategy Session called “What does it mean to abolish the Department of Education” will be led by Lindsay Burke, author of the Project 2025 chapter on education and director of the Center for Education Policy at Heritage. The session “Writing for the Local Media” will be taught by Mary Vought, vice-president of Strategic Communications at Heritage. Her husband Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump and a co-author of Project 2025, was recently recorded explaining that Trump’s disavowal of Project 2025 was insincere “graduate level politics.” In truth, Trump “blessed” his organization (Center for Renewing America) and “he’s very supportive of what we do.”

Not “Parents Rights”

Children deserve the freedom to find themselves, to understand others, and to fire their imaginations through reading. Moms for Liberty’s book ban program—targeted at LGBTQ themed books or books dealing with race—robs this right from children. It steals the freedom to read away from children and gives it to a handful of puritanical right-wing activists. A 2023 Washington Post analysis revealed that of the 985 challenges it studied that were filed nationally in the 2021-2022 school year, 60% were filed by just 11 people. M4L Indian River, FL chapter head Jennifer Pippin has filed 245 book challenges, including banning a book about banning books! Melissa Bollinger got 444 books removed from Elkhorn Area School District, WI bookshelves. M4L, Heritage, and Trump are robbing parents—and their children—of  the children’s freedom to explore the world through the pages of a book.

One of the “parents’ rights” M4L stresses is the right to protect innocent children from sexual predators. Trump’s appearances in 2023 and this year make a mockery of that claim. Trump faces a court ordered judgment to pay a $83.3 million judgment for defaming a woman he sexually assaulted. He has boasted how he can grab a woman’s private parts any time he wants to because he is famous. He has made lewd remarks about his own daughter’s body and spoken of dating her. He allegedly bragged about walking into a dressing room as beauty contest participants were undressed, even girls as young as fifteen. So much for protecting children.

Political Decline and Scandals

Politico just recognized M4L “losing elections in Florida and some swing states.” In 2023 school board elections, as a Brookings study found, M4L got shellacked at the ballot box.  Jon Valant of Brookings concluded that the M4L endorsement is toxic.

In 2023 co-founder Bridget Ziegler became enmeshed in a threesome sex scandal with her husband Christian Ziegler, who was accused of sexual assault by their partner (Christian was not charged. Bridget left the M4L board early in 2021 but remained on the advisory board). Both Zieglers were speakers at the 2023 summit. M4L has worked with the Proud Boys. A faith leader of the Philadelphia chapter was revealed to be a registered sex offender.  A Pennsylvania “parents’ rights” activist was arrested after punching out a teenager at an underage drinking party she was hosting for her teen daughter. At last year’s summit Justice told the assembly “One of our moms in a newsletter quotes Hitler. I stand with that mom.”

Justice and third co-founder Tina Descovich were humiliated in a “60 Minutes” interview on book banning. Scott Pelley asked if they could define the terms “gender ideology” and “groomers” they have used in their attacks on teachers and librarians. They were stumped. M4L quickly resumed hurling the “groomers” slur at adults who support LGBTQ teens.

Conclusion

Accurate coverage of the Moms for Liberty-Project 2025-Trump Troika will acknowledge its radical goal: to decimate public schools in favor of, as the far-right Council for National Policy puts it, “free-market private schools, church schools and home schools as the normative American practice” (emphasis in original).  Those are your “choices.”