What Is Behind the Moms for Liberty Ruckus?

Left-leaning media have smeared Moms for Liberty leaders and put them on its “hate map” that also includes chapters of the Ku Klux Klan. The left-leaning media outlets have repeatedly claimed that leaders of the Moms for Liberty have harassed school board members or moms who disagree with them. The Daily Signal examined the claims and found them without a foundation. In fact, the Moms for Liberty leaders were the ones being harassed in the very situations that Media Matters, GLAAD, and outlets and activist groups like them say they are the villains. How can the same people be victims and villains at the same time?

Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich are co-founders of Moms for Liberty, and they have repeatedly condemned threats and harassment. In addition, they claim that there is no evidence that Moms for Liberty leaders encouraged or engaged in any threats to school boards. The following information comes from the examination of the facts by The Daily Signal: 

1. Accusations Against Tiffany Justice

Citing local Florida news reports, Media Matters clamed of Justice, the Moms for Liberty co-founder: “Justice once visited her son’s elementary school to oppose the district’s COVID-19 mask mandate, and her conduct with teachers and administrators was reportedly ‘so disruptive and disrespectful’ that the superintendent ‘warned she could be barred from campus.’”

Justice, who served on the Indian River County School Board for four years, set the record straight in an interview with The Daily Signal. She said Deputy Superintendent Scott Bass and Principal Rachel Finnegan, who oversaw her son’s school in the Indian River district, Beachland Elementary in Vero Beach, Florida, pulled her into a storage closet to discuss her son’s issues and yelled at her there.

“My son had told my husband and I that if he had to continue wearing a mask at school, he didn’t want to live his life anymore,” she said, noting that her son has special needs….

2. Jennifer Jenkins’ Claims

Jennifer Jenkins, a school board member in Brevard County, Florida, claimed she was harassed by Moms for Liberty after replacing Tina Descovich on that board in 2021. “There is zero evidence that Moms for Liberty is involved,” Justice told The Daily Signal.

“Jenkins filed police reports. None of them were involved in any of it,” the Moms for Liberty co-founder added.

In January 2022, a Brevard County judge dismissed Jenkins’ request for a restraining order against Florida state Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican. Jenkins said that Fine had “cyberstalked her” on social media, but the state legislator argued that his public Facebook posts, in which Fine criticized Jenkins, amounted to speech protected by the First Amendment….

3. Nicole Marie Prussman

The Pocono Record reported in March that Nicole Marie Prussman, chairwoman of the Monroe County, Pennsylvania, chapter of Moms for Liberty, was arrested on a harassment charge. Left-leaning outlets trumpeted the news and published salacious claims that Prussman had used the Facebook account of a dead woman, Libby Leonard, to harass a mother who disagreed with her.

These news outlets have not reported that a judge dismissed the harassment charge against Prussman on Oct. 4….

4. Larry Leaven

Larry Leaven, superintendent of the Florida Union Free School District in Florida, New York, resigned after alleged harassment. The Florida Times Union reported that Moms for Liberty had accused Leaven of “anti-white and anti-Christian bias” and engaged in homophobia, attacking Leaven because he is in a legal same-sex marriage. Moms for Liberty’s endorsed candidates won three out of five school board seats in May 2022, and Leaven resigned shortly afterward….

5. New Hampshire ‘Bounty’

New Hampshire’s Republican governor, John Sununu, condemned the state’s Moms for Liberty chapter in November 2021 after it promised a “bounty” for anyone successfully catching a public school teacher violating a law against teaching divisive concepts such as critical race theory.

The law, called the Right to Freedom From Discrimination in Public Workplaces and Education, prohibits public school teachers from teaching that one group of people is superior or inferior to another group, or that certain groups are inherently oppressive.

New Hampshire’s Department of Education set up a website to collect complaints against teachers, and the Moms for Liberty chapter announced a reward for those who successfully report teachers.

“We’ve got $500 for the person that first successfully catches a public school teacher breaking this law,” the chapter tweeted. “Students, parents, teachers, school staff … We want to know! We will pledge anonymity if you want.”

“The governor condemns the tweet referencing ‘bounties’ and any sort of financial incentive is wholly inappropriate and has no place,” Sununu spokesperson Ben Vihstadt, told The Associated Press.

Justice defended the idea, however.

“I kind of think of it like ‘Crime Stoppers for Education,’” the Moms for Liberty co-founder told The Daily Signal….

6. Ed Kelley

Ed Kelley, a school board member in Charleston County, South Carolina, faced pressure to resign after critics claimed he said at a Moms for Liberty chapter meeting in March that if his child’s teacher publicly identified as transgender, he would show up at the teacher’s doorstep with a gun.

Kelley said that one or more critics had twisted his words, and no one has come forward with video of the remarks to disprove the school board member….

7. Melissa ‘Missy’ Bosch

Critics have accused Melissa “Missy” Bosch, head of communications for the Lenoke County, Arkansas, chapter of Moms for Liberty, of threatening librarians with gun violence in June 2022.

In contrast to Kelley’s case, critics produced an audio recording of Bosch’s alleged threat. “I’m telling you, if I was [having] any mental health issues, they would all be plowed down with a freaking gun by now,” Bosch said.

Bosch’s remark in itself doesn’t constitute a direct threat, as Tiffany Justice noted.

“She’s saying she doesn’t have mental health issues but if she did …,” Justice told The Daily Signal. “They’re so upset.” …

Justice of Moms for Liberty concluded that the organization members “are effective advocates.” She added, “We are not taking violent steps, we’re going through the process. We’re working to get people elected, we’re changing policy and procedure.” She added, “We’re doing that so there isn’t violence.” She then stated that the critics are simply “looking for anything and everything to take it and twist your words.”