Moms for Liberty co-founder Tina Descovich. CC BY 3.0.
CV NEWS FEED // What began as two moms wanting to get more involved with their children’s schools has bloomed into a movement of over 120,000 members championing parental rights.
Known for its viral videos of moms calling out woke agendas at school board meetings, Moms for Liberty (MFL) was founded in 2021 to organize, educate, and empower parents to defend their parental rights in education and government.
In an interview with CatholicVote, MFL co-foundress Tiffany Justice explained the mission:
We are reclaiming education now in America by winning school board seats and reclaiming local control so national teachers unions aren’t driving curriculum choices in our hometowns.
She said that the idea for the group started with what she discovered during her time serving on her own children’s school board in Vero Beach, Florida.
Justice had initially been concerned about the facilities in the school, but soon realized that there was a deeper issue at hand – a lack of respect for parental rights.
Justice eventually came across another mom in the same situation, MFL’s other co-foundress, Tina Descovich. Like Justice, Descovich had begun serving on her own children’s school board only to find the same problem of political ideologies being pushed in the classroom without informing or soliciting the consent of parents.
Though in separate counties, the moms found each other after noticing that they were the only ones on their respective school boards voting down measures restricting parental rights.
“We kept seeing each other in the paper as ‘4 – 1 vote, 4 – 1 vote.’ Tina Descovich dissenting, Tiffany Justice dissenting,’” Justice told CatholicVote.
We were the only ones saying no and political party didn’t seem to matter. There were Republicans on both of our boards, but weak people are weak people.
With the added layer of mask mandates in 2020, Justice and Descovich decided that there needed to be an organized effort to protect children in public schools. This effort officially launched MFL as an organization with two Florida chapters in January, 2021. Today there are nearly 300 chapters present in 45 states.
The organization’s slogan is “We don’t co-parent with the government,” which Justice explained is an assertion that a parent’s fundamental right to direct their child’s upbringing does not stop at the classroom door.
We’re seeing in the public schools now situations where they feel like they need to keep the children safe from the parents. In loco parentis means that the school is acting on behalf of the parent and the parent is partnering with the school for certain information to be imparted. At no time should it be happening that there is teaching in the classroom that is directly antithetical to the teaching in the home.
Left-leaning media outlets have characterized Moms for Liberty as a hate group. The Nation labeled the women “hateful fascist bigots.” The Washington Post reported that the Southern Poverty Law Center designated the organization an “extremist group” that spreads “messages of anti-inclusion and hate.”
“If we weren’t so successful at driving out this woke nonsense, they wouldn’t be coming after us,” Justice said when asked about these attacks. “It’s only going to get harder from here if people don’t stand up now.”
And the organization’s success has the numbers to back it up.
The Free Press recently reported that “more than half of the 500 candidates Moms for Liberty endorsed for local school board elections last year won their races.”
Justice knows they’re up against some of the nation’s most massive political organizations:
Parents are the number one drivers behind student success, but the teachers unions have been controlling the schools and cutting parents out for asking too many questions.
Operating under the title of “Joyful Warriors,” Moms for Liberty persists despite the anger and frustration that comes with battling current education problems, says Justice:
I decided that if we were going to do Moms for Liberty we were going to do it with a joyful spirit and show our children that it was a privilege to fight for America, and it can be done in a positive and uplifting way.
Justice emphasized that this cause is unifying because regardless of race, religion, or political party, a parent’s love for their child is like nothing else in the world.
“Moms will stop a revolution,” said Justice. “We will do anything to protect our children. The lines between home and school have become very blurry and we are the only ones who can stop this and redraw that boundary.”
For more information on Moms for Liberty, visit momsforliberty.org.
