The Heritage Foundation has initiated legal action against President Joe Biden’s administration in defense of the parent’s rights organization, “Moms for Liberty.”
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, after facing declined Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, is now seeking legal intervention to access records from various departments, including Justice, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and the FBI, to ascertain any collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which has designated Moms for Liberty as extremist.
Mike Howell, the director of the Oversight Project at The Heritage Foundation, in a statement, said, “President Biden needs to leave the moms alone. But his crooked administration won’t because these parents are the only thing standing between the government and your children.”
Howell continued, “Under our rights as American citizens, we demanded from these agencies all communications about Moms for Liberty. In clear violation of the law, these agencies are withholding this information. So now, we are fighting back for parents across the country and suing President Biden and his corrupt administration.”
The focal point of the dispute is SPLC’s classification of Moms for Liberty as an extremist faction.
The SPLC states, “Moms for Liberty is a far-right organization that engages in anti-student inclusion activities and self-identifies as part of the modern parental rights movement.”
In June, SPLC incorporated Moms for Liberty and other similar groups like Parents Defending Education into its “hate map.”
The Heritage Foundation suggests that the SPLC might not have made this characterization independently. They highlight that SPLC representatives visited the Biden White House 11 times, prompting suspicions of joint efforts with federal agencies for what Heritage terms an “unhinged mob harassment campaign.”
Tiffany Justice, Co-founder of Moms for Liberty, has expressed concerns about the organization being labeled as extremist.
In an interview with LittleAfrica News regarding the lawsuit, Justice stated, “Exercising our free speech rights to attend public school meetings as parents and as Americans to determine how public schools operate should not be labeled as extremism.”
The legal action seeks to reveal government-held records regarding actions taken or planned after the SPLC labeled Moms For Liberty as an “anti-government extremist group.”
On July 13th, the Oversight Project from Heritage issued five Freedom of Information Act requests. These requests sought records related to the term “Moms for Liberty” and its founders’ names, “Tiffany Justice” and “Tina Descovich.” Additionally, they requested information linked to the email domain “@splcenter.org” from documents dated from Jan. 1, 2020, to July 13 of the present year.
Justice noted that the organization is taking the necessary actions to obtain the information.
She said, “We wanna know what do they have to hide? And we really look forward to the truth coming to light. It’s very important for us to understand why the American government is being weaponized against the American people.”
Justice added, “We wanted to figure out why did the SPLC meet so many times with the Biden administration in the months leading up to us being designated as a hate group. We want some answers.”
She continued, “How is the Biden administration and others choosing to use the SPLC to try to silence the voices of everyday moms and dads across America?”
Moms for Liberty
Moms for Liberty, founded in Florida in January 2021, was established in response to growing concerns surrounding the modern educational climate. Founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich created the organization dedicated to preserving and re-establishing parental rights in the educational realm.
Since its inception, the group has witnessed remarkable growth. With over 300 chapters across 48 states and a membership exceeding 130,000, the organization has sparked nationwide debates on parents’ rights in public school education.
Discussing the group’s genesis, Justice remarked that its emergence was due to parents’ concerns about their children, and while seeking acknowledgment for their voices and worries, they were labeled as “domestic terrorists.”
She also commented on the stance of the teachers’ unions, emphasizing their resistance to parental involvement in decision-making and curriculum content.
She declared, “We send our kids to school with you, and we expect a couple of things. We expect you not to violate our fundamental parental rights, not to have private conversations with our kids about things that are not appropriate to be discussed at school, like gender identity or sexual orientation. That is the role of the parent.”
Past Controversies
In 2021, the Justice Department encouraged probes into parents based on a memo. This memo came shortly after a letter to President Biden from the National School Boards Association equating protesting parents to domestic terrorists and suggesting using the Patriot Act against them. Further revelations showed that the White House collaborated on the letter’s content with the school board group.
However, the Justice Department later withdrew the memo, and the National School Boards Association expressed regret for their letter.
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