Q&A: The co-founder of Moms for Liberty, in her own words
What rights do parents have when it comes to what their children are taught in public school? That’s a debate taking place across the nation, and at the forefront of it lately is Moms for Liberty, a Florida-based group with more than 120,000 members in 25 states.
Founded by Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich in 2021, the group is a registered nonprofit that bills itself as grassroots and nonpartisan, although some observers have noted its links to prominent Republicans, as well as financial support for its meetings from powerful conservative organizations including the Heritage Foundation and the Leadership Institute.
The group’s rapid growth and influence has caught the attention of the left-leaning Southern Poverty Law Center, which in June named Moms for Liberty an extremist, anti-government group. Then, Moms for Liberty made national headlines after an Indiana chapter included a quote from Adolf Hitler in its newsletter (and later apologized).
Justice, a 44-year-old mother of four children ranging in age from 11 to 18, says the criticism is unfounded and her organization has been unfairly portrayed by its ideological opposites and by media outlets sympathetic to the left.
The organization’s goals are simply to restore sanity in an educational system that has swung wildly away from the values of most American families, she says, and to push back at government overreach.
Justice, who lives in South Florida with her children and husband of 19 years, was a stay-at-home mom for more than a decade, and has been a school board member in her county. Now she finds herself on a national stage, her organization powerful enough to attract speakers like Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Donald Trump at its recent national summit in Philadelphia.
In two recent phone interviews with Deseret, Justice spoke about the Southern Poverty Law Center’s claims against the group, book challenges and why she believes it’s important for moms to run for their local school boards. The conversations have been edited for clarity and length.
Deseret News: Can you explain the controversy around the Hitler quote in the Moms for Liberty Indiana chapter’s newsletter?
Tiffany Justice: The Southern Poverty Law Center designation, and the way that the media has handled a lot of this, has made us a target. If (all media outlets) had shown the whole newsletter, it would have been obvious to everyone that, of course, the chapter wasn’t supporting Hitler. That’s ridiculous. Literally one of our taglines is “We do not co-parent with the government.” And that quote (in the newsletter) is talking about how the government wants to indoctrinate your children.
But the way (some media outlets) framed it and the picture that they used from the newsletter where they cut it off ... the average American, do they know? This may be the first time they’re hearing about us, and then it’s getting this slant. And now, all of a sudden, half the country thinks we’re Nazis. My gosh, how irresponsible.
DN: What’s your response to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s claim that Moms for Liberty are extremists and “anti-student inclusion”?
TJ: We want every child to be engaged and involved in their education in school, and we want to see children learning practical skills where they can unfold their full potential. We want every child to be included in proficiency rates for reading that should be much better than the two-thirds of kids not reading on grade level in schools right now. Every child should feel safe and valued at school, and every child has the right to learn to read. And currently, that is not happening.
So if you want to talk about inclusivity, and you want to talk about kindness, and you want to talk about education, and you want to talk about students, let’s talk about the fact that kids are in school, first and foremost, to get an education so that they can fulfill their full potential in life. And no child that cannot read can unfold their full potential, can become who they are meant to be.
It’s just another baloney comment that’s being made; there have been many statements made about Moms for Liberty, saying that we’re anti-LGBTQ — nothing could be further from the truth. We have members who are gay, we have chapter leaders who are gay, one of our out national outreach directors is gay. And we have members who have gay children. ... But the bottom line is: the least interesting thing about an elementary school student should be their sexual orientation.
We should be focused on giving children practical skills and getting them excited about learning. Right? How about we teach them how to play an instrument? How about we put more money into intramural sports and arts and theater?
DN: So you’re not saying “Don’t address gender, don’t address race.” You’re just saying, “Not in the classroom”?
TJ: Yes, we’re redrawing the boundary between school and home. Government schools don’t know their place. They have encroached upon parental rights, our rights as parents, and now we are redrawing the boundary.
So we say to schools: teach the kids to read, teach the kids to do math. Teach them how to write. Let’s teach them history — all history. American history is everyone’s history. And there are good things that have happened in the past, and there are bad things that have happened in the past.
Let’s make sure that we explain to our children how much progress we have made as a country together. We have made so much progress as a country and we need to continue to do that. And we won’t be able to do that by telling some kids that they are oppressors and telling some kids that they’re oppressed and putting kids in boxes with labels and telling them that there are certain things that they will always have surrounding them, that will affect them in ways that they can’t control. That is a horrible message to give to a child.
DN: The Moms for Liberty summit in Philadelphia included training for people who want to run for school board — is that right?
TJ: Yes. We endorse only for school board races. Moms for Liberty is calling out educational failure in America. We’re disrupting the balance of power in public education. We’re reclaiming school boards and school board seats from the left and the teachers’ unions. And once liberty-minded individuals are elected into those states, we are reforming public education. We are getting back to the basics.
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DN: Why is “down-ballot” voting, in general, important and particularly so when it comes to school boards?
TJ: I was a school board member in Florida, so was Tina. ... And we know how much power a school board has in a community. They have a lot of power, the decisions that your school board makes affect your life in very big ways. You said down-ballot but I like to think of it as up-ballot.
So what’s the importance of school board races? We have elected representatives serving at that most local level. That’s the hook — parents care about their kids. And they can make a real change at the school board level, and it can happen fairly quickly.
I think COVID really helped us because people wanted to know, like, “Where does the authority live for this decision?” I think Americans saw that there were policies that were hurting them and hurting their kids and they said, “How did these policies get here and how do we change them?”
The change really needs to happen in your own backyard.
DN: It’s about really direct government, right?
TJ: Right. Our moms have the cellphone numbers of their representatives. They can call them and say “This bill just got filed, I’m concerned about this.” So our chapters work at the most local level.
In certain states where we’ve gotten enough chapters, we have what’s called the legislative committee. Each chapter gets one vote, and they review all of the relevant policies and bills that are being offered, or they help to advocate for certain policies or bills to be sponsored. And they work together and then they either support those bills or they speak out against bills and that is truly engaging in our government, representative government — having your voice heard. It’s wonderful.
That’s why, when you look at why school board races are important, we’re engaging a whole new group of people in American politics.
DN: Are these women registered Republicans now?
TJ: You know, they’re registered to vote. I don’t care if they’re registered Republican or Democrat. We want to make sure every American is registered to vote. Whether you register as a Democrat or Republican or independent, this issue of parental rights is something that we can all come together on.
DN: Let’s talk about the controversy around book bans. What is the goal of book challenges?
TJ: Curating a children’s library is not banning books. And collectively in the United States, we have had, together, an idea about what’s age appropriate when we agree to movie ratings. I don’t see anyone outside of movie theaters petitioning to let their 13-year-old go into a R-rated movie. Tipper Gore, a Democrat, fought for explicit content warnings on music. And children don’t have unfettered access to the internet at school.
This is a public school library we’re talking about. This is not a public library — that’s different. This is a public school library.
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DN: I remember from your testimony to the House Subcommittee that you mentioned constitutional rights. Is that what’s really at stake here? Is your work about more than parental rights?
TJ: You have a right to address your government with your grievances. You have the right, in our founding documents, to have your voice heard. And it wasn’t, “You have that right only if you agree with us.”
(During the COVID-19 pandemic) when our nation was in crisis, we were extremely concerned about closed schools and about vaccine mandates — our California and New York moms had a lot of concerns about that — at a time where parents were very concerned and sought to have their voices heard, government shut them down.
(Still today) you get school boards shutting down microphones. You know, this is a government meeting. This isn’t like, you know, a meeting in the living room. This is a government meeting where they are changing the rules, changing citizen input, shutting down microphones because a parent said something they don’t like or (because a parent) read from a book that’s in the library that they don’t think is appropriate. How hypocritical is that?
(Republican congresswoman) Debbie Lesko out of Arizona has introduced a (parents’ rights) constitutional amendment. When you think about amending our Constitution, and, you know, recognizing fundamental parental rights, it seems like that’s where we are now — we need to do that.
DN: Parents rights advocates seem to have been effective in bringing Latino and Black voters who are traditionally aligned with the Democratic Party to the movement, and perhaps to the GOP. What are your thoughts?
TJ: I think it’s sad that the GOP is the only party that apparently seems to care about parental rights. I’m wondering when the Democrats are going to wake up and recognize that their voters are parents and have fundamental rights that need to be protected, too.
