Moms For Liberty labeled as 'extremist group' in new Southern Poverty Law Center Report
Moms For Liberty is now labeled as an antigovernment group.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released their annual "Hate and Extremism Report" categorizing the movement that started on the Space Coast as a national threat for extreme ideologies.
Moms For Liberty has chapters in over 40 states, but it was founded by a former Brevard school board member made up of parents protesting mask mandates. While the new label isn’t phasing the leaders, SPLC researchers are concerned about how the group is impacting public education.
"They do push out these conspiracy theories that children in public schools are being indoctrinated and radicalized through this Marxist agenda," said Maya Henson Carey who’s a research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In the new report, they documented 1,255 hate and antigovernment extremist groups across the U.S in 2022 with Moms For Liberty making the list for the first time.
"They’re really in your face, and they’re the loudest voices and they’ve been put in a position where they can make a lot of changes for the majority of people," Carey added.
Mom’s For Liberty is not phased by the new report. In a statement sent to FOX 35 – the founders, Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich say "…name-calling parents who want to be a part of their child’s education as ‘hate groups’ or ‘bigoted’ just further exposes what this battle is all about: who fundamentally gets to decide what is taught to our kids in school - parents or government employees?
"They’re basically calling anybody who doesn’t agree with them extremists, and that’s in my opinion pretty extreme," said Katie Delaney who was a former Moms for Liberty member in Brevard County.
Delaney is now a Moms For America member which is another parent group the SPLC is tracking."It’s pretty funny that they mark groups or people as something so horrible as an extremist without ever even having any communication with us," Delaney said.
The SPLC says they’ll continue to fight back against anti-student inclusion groups with parents pushing back, too."Not only to combat groups like Moms For Liberty but also just to advocate for true student inclusivity for all students," Carey concluded."I’m going to fight for the protection of my children," Delaney concluded. This is the first time these SPLC analysts categorized Moms For Liberty and Moms For America as anti-student inclusion groups in the antigovernment category and say they added them to their report because school boards are becoming more of a battleground than ever before.