Can Moms for Liberty save Trump?

Sep 03, 2024

Donald Trump (left) and Tiffany Justice pose together on a stage.

Former President Donald Trump (left) poses with Moms for Liberty co-founder, Tiffany Justice, during the organization's annual summit. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

‘FIGHT LIKE A MOTHER’: During the annual Moms for Liberty conference over the weekend the organization’s leaders stuck to the usual talking points. They railed against transgender youths participating in sports, rebuked discussions about gender identity in classrooms and called for abolishing the Education Department.

But there was one clear message: They needed to fight to win this year’s election.

“We have to fight this year. Just like we did in 2020,” Tiffany Justice, co-founder of the organization said during welcome remarks. “A Walz-Harris presidency would make 2020 school shutdowns and parents being thrown out of school board meetings look like the warm up act.”

The conservative education reform group consists of a key demographic that former President Donald Trump needs to win the election: women. The polls show that women, who vote at higher rates than men, favor Vice President Kamala Harris. Nationally, almost every recent survey shows Harris leading Trump, but within the margin of error.

Moms for Liberty has 300 chapters and 130,000 members across the country — 600 of whom attended the summit, according to the organization. They attended sessions titled “What does it mean to Abolish the Department of Education?” and “Moms Know Best: Protecting Kids from Secret Gender Transitions in Schools.”

They also heard from Trump in what was billed as a “fireside chat” with Justice, which jumped from topic to topic such as Ivanka’s clothing line, his mother’s Scottish origins, and his reality TV show, the Apprentice.

Trump and Justice also talked about transgender students participating in sports. Justice said that there has been “an explosion in the number of children who identify as transgender” and asked what he would be “able to do as president.”

“Well, you can do everything,” Trump said. “The president has such power.”

The audience cheered and applauded.

The local chapters had similar views on gender identity and sexuality being taught in schools, improving reading scores, and school choice, among other topics. One topic that they all agreed was important — but didn’t have as cohesive of messaging on — was school safety.

School shootings have become increasingly common. There have been 413 since Columbine, and the last one was only two months ago, according to the Washington Post’s tracker.

Corie Pinero, a chapter chair of Broward County, Florida, where the Parkland shooting took place, said she believes discipline is key to preventing school shootings.

“The Parkland shooter was allowed to fall through the cracks so many times because they gave him so many chances,” Pinero said. “We need to have more safeguards and more structure for discipline for our kids. They need to have consequences for their actions.”

She also said that local high schools recently implemented metal detectors, which Moms for Liberty and other groups supported.

Others struggled to identify exactly what policy solutions they’d like to see to prevent mass shootings.

“I don’t know if Moms for Liberty has a comment for that” Lisa Adams, a chapter chair in Plymouth, Massachusetts said. She paused briefly and then said: “Actually, we are pro-police, so we are pro-adding resource officers to address that.”

Several other chapter presidents said they were in favor of adding resource officers to schools, but didn’t have many further comments.

IT’S TUESDAY, Sept. 3. WELCOME TO WEEKLY EDUCATION. I’m your host Rebecca Carballo. Send me a note at rcarballo@politico.com. Reach out with tips to me or my colleagues: Juan Perez Jr. (jperez@politico.com), Bianca Quilantan (bquilantan@politico.com) and Mackenzie Wilkes (mwilkes@politico.com).

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Campus Protests

PUSH BACK: Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, an organization of 300 faculty and staff members, condemned the university’s recently published campus rules in a statement over the weekend.

Students must receive administrative approval before writing with chalk on a sidewalk, pitching a tent, putting up an art exhibit, or using a public space, or else they may face consequences, according to the rules published in August.

The university writes that the rules are “sourced from numerous existing policies.”

The group alleges that the Harvard Campus Use Rules bypassed faculty input or review and were created to deter students who plan to protest the war in Gaza.

“The University’s current intent is clear: to chill and police the speech of students, faculty, and staff advocating for justice in Palestine and institutional divestment from the military-industrial complex,” Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine wrote in a statement.

The group said the new rules will not deter them.

“We refuse to be silenced by these draconian measures while Harvard aligns itself with the war machine perpetrating the genocide of Palestinians,” the statement said. “We cannot hold our tongues as our university leaders and political leaders undermine international law to shield the State of Israel from accountability.”

Harvard is not the only one to publish such rules ahead of the school year. Schools across the country are adjusting how they will regulate protests, prompting some concerns from First Amendment and academic freedom groups.

For instance, Indiana University instituted a new campus demonstration policy in August after protesters and police clashed on the university’s flagship Bloomington campus last semester. Restrictions on the use of light projections, signs, amplified sound and sidewalk chalk are now in place — and protests are only allowed to occur between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m.

The American Association of University Professors condemned such policies last month calling them “overly restrictive.”

THE FAFSA

ON TRACK: The Education Department is inviting community-based organizations to volunteer to be in the first round of testing for the new FAFSA form. They can submit a form expressing their interest up until Thursday.

In a call with reporters last week, Education Department officials said they were optimistic about being able to start testing on Oct. 1.

“In our prep, just to give some confidence, we've hit every milestone so far on time,” said Jeremy Singer, FAFSA executive advisor for the department. “That bodes well for us being able to meet the beta testing period, and a solid path to actually open it up to real users on October 1.”

The form will not be widely available until Dec. 1, two months later than usual. Aaron Thompson, president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, which oversees the state’s public universities and community colleges, says that delay will create some strain on the admissions process.

“The delayed FAFSA launch creates a domino effect that pushes back other parts of the college admission process,” Thompson told Weekly Education in a statement. “While we don’t expect this year’s delay to be as disruptive as last year, postsecondary institutions will be feeling pressure to package financial aid more quickly so students can make informed college decisions by early May.”

Some states are still catching up from the delays last year. Pennsylvania Sen. Wayne Fontana (D-Allegheny), the chair of the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, said they were still processing last cycle's forms in late August.

He said they were nearly caught up, but it's no easy feat.

“We received a half million records all at once in May,” he said. “We’re trying to expedite the process.”

Syllabus

At Michigan, Activists Take Over and Shut Down Student Government. The New York Times.

Columbia Failed to Stop Hate, Violence Against Jews on Campus, New Report Says. The Wall Street Journal.

Title IX regulations on sex discrimination can be Trump-era or Biden-era, depending on your state or school. The Hechinger Report.

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