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Think Tank Says Washington Using NGOs to Launch Probes Into Parents Group

The Heritage Foundation has filed a lawsuit seeking documents from federal agencies accused of targeting Moms for Liberty.
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Think Tank Says Washington Using NGOs to Launch Probes Into Parents Group
Loudoun County mother Meggan Jenkins, a member of the parental rights group Moms for Liberty, at a rally outside the Loudoun County Public Schools administration building in Ashburn, Va., on Sept. 13, 2022. Terri Wu/The Epoch Times
Darlene McCormick Sanchez
By Darlene McCormick Sanchez
10/5/2023Updated: 10/5/2023

When parents learned that federal agencies had coordinated with a national education group to target them as “domestic terrorists” for speaking out against gender and race ideologies at school board meetings, it galvanized a growing national parental rights movement.

Parents were outraged to learn that the National School Boards Association urged the White House and federal law enforcement to investigate parents, using counterterrorism tools such as the Patriot Act against them, according to a report from the Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, is questioning whether the federal government is using that same playbook against Moms for Liberty, a Florida-based, grassroots parents group with national chapters.
Moms for Liberty, which fights “social justice” agendas in schools, has been designated, along with other parent groups, as “extremists” by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a Montgomery, Alabama-based left-wing group.

SPLC employees visited the White House 11 times in the past three years, including six meetings with President Joe Biden, according to the Heritage Foundation.

“It reminds us very much of what they did with the teachers,” Mike Howell, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, told The Epoch Times.

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“It was clear as day to me—the Left had figured out how to manipulate the system,” he said.

To put the SPLC designation into context, Moms for Liberty is now on a “hate map” along with the Ku Klux Klan.
The Heritage Foundation filed a lawsuit at the end of September after a public records request was denied seeking documents from federal agencies concerning actions taken or planned following  SPLC’s designation of Moms For Liberty as an anti-government extremist group.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 1, 2023. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 1, 2023. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Among the federal agencies that refused to turn over records were the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Department of Education, and the FBI, according to the Heritage Foundation.

Mr. Howell said that someone has to stand up for parents targeted by a federal system “weaponized” against them.

“We know that the radical Southern Poverty Law Center has targeted the patriots at Moms for Liberty, which resulted in an unhinged mob harassment campaign,” he added.

Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, said in a statement that the “SPLC put a target on our backs by falsely accusing us of anti-government extremism.”

“Exercising our free speech rights to attend public school board meetings that decide how our public schools operate is not ‘extremism.’ It is American,” Ms. Justice said.

Mr. Howell said he believes there is a systemic pattern of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies under the Biden administration using “complaints” to launch politically motivated cases.

The Southern Poverty Law Center headquarters in Montgomery, Ala., in June 2019. (Google Maps/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
The Southern Poverty Law Center headquarters in Montgomery, Ala., in June 2019. Google Maps/Screenshot via The Epoch Times
Mike Howell, director of the Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project. (Courtesy of the Heritage Foundation)
Mike Howell, director of the Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project. Courtesy of the Heritage Foundation

The SPLC’s credibility has been questioned by conservatives in terms of its “hate map” and involvement in protests.

“The SPLC is a garbage organization now dedicated to harassing groups that advocate for parents. In the future, their pronouncements must be met with scorn,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) posted on X, formerly Twitter.
A July article in the Daily Signal published by the Heritage Foundation detailed that SPLC lawyer Thomas Webb Jurgens faced domestic terrorism charges after police arrested him following a volley of Molotov cocktails and rocks thrown at an Atlanta police training facility.

The agitators destroyed construction equipment at the facility that critics call “Cop City,” the article stated. No injuries were reported.

The SPLC defended Mr. Jurgens, expressing outrage at his arrest. The group claimed that he was a “legal observer” who was “documenting potential violations of protesters’ rights.”

Mr. Howell said that starting with the Obama administration, there has been a fundamental shift in government operations.

The federal government now uses non-governmental organizations to “do the things that otherwise cannot be done” to get around protections in the U.S. Constitution, he said.

The same thing is happening with commercial service providers that surveil cell phones and social media, he said.

Mr. Howell said he believes the federal agencies are investigating Moms for Liberty because they refused to release any information when asked for records.

“If you’re a mom who wants to protect your children at school, that is completely within the civil rights regime to do so. And so when the FBI act on these things, they’re in violation of those civil rights,” Mr. Howell said.

Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice addresses the media near Capitol Hill in Washington on March 23, 2023. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)
Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice addresses the media near Capitol Hill in Washington on March 23, 2023. Richard Moore/The Epoch Times

“The problem is, who’s going to sue to protect that? And what kind of judge will agree that these things have gone so far afield?” he asked.

Mr. Howell said that the judge assigned to the lawsuit seeking the documents is going before District of Columbia U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan.

Judge Chutkan is presiding over the election interference case against former President Donald Trump, who asked the judge to recuse herself for making what the former president contends are biased statements against him.

She also has been criticized for handing down harsh sentences against those convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the Capitol.

The SPLC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Darlene McCormick Sanchez
Darlene McCormick Sanchez
Reporter
Darlene McCormick Sanchez is an Epoch Times reporter who covers border security and immigration, election integrity, and Texas politics. Ms. McCormick Sanchez has 20 years of experience in media and has worked for outlets including Waco Tribune Herald, Tampa Tribune, and Waterbury Republican-American. She was a finalist for a Pulitzer prize for investigative reporting.
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