Ozaukee County News

A civil rights litigation group that ranked Moms For Liberty with the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups really should leave the mothers alone but probably won't, the Wisconsin county chair of the group said in a social media post.

Moms For Liberty is all about protecting the kids from "The Woke," Scarlett Johnson, Ozaukee County Chair of the grassroots group and former school board candidate, said in her lengthy Twitter post Tuesday, June 6.

"Moms like me are simply trying to protect children," Johnson said in her post. "We just want to be left alone. We just want these activists to leave our kids alone. But that's not going to happen so I’m not going anywhere."

Johnson also issued a challenge.

"So, you know what, bring it," she said. "It's not that I am without fear. I just have a far greater fear of what the woke lunatics will do to the children of America if I do nothing."

Johnson ran unsuccessfully for Mequon-Thiensville School Board during a recall election in 2021 and again last year.

Her Twitter post came the same day the The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) issued its Year in Hate and Extremism 2022 report, which designated Florida-based Moms for Liberty as "an extremist group."

"They can be spotted at school board meetings across the country wearing shirts and carrying signs that declare, 'We do NOT CO-PARENT with the GOVERNMENT'," the report said. "The group hijacks meetings, preventing officials and parents from conducting their normal proceedings."

Moms for Liberty is "at forefront of" mobilizing "an anti-student inclusion movement that targets any inclusive curriculum that contains discussions of race, discrimination and LGBTQ identities," the report continued.

The SPLC also issued a "hate map" that placed parent advocate groups, including Moms for Liberty, on the same list as the KKK and other hate groups. The map designated Moms for Liberty as one of 1,225 U.S.-based groups, each one an "anti-government movement" that includes the Proud Boys, Oathkeepers and Parents Defending Education.

"Hate and antigovernment extremist groups are intent on staging public spectacles of hatred that harass, threaten and violently harm Black, Brown, Asian, Jewish, LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities," Susan Corke, director of The SPLC's Intelligence Project, said in a separate news release. "Schools, synagogues, and LGBTQ+ businesses — venues that have traditionally been safe spaces for our children, the Jewish community and LGBTQ+ people — are now on the frontlines of hatred and violence. We all have a responsibility to speak out against hate, extremism, and violence when we see it, and encourage those in positions of power to fulfill their duty to act."

Johnson countered in her Twitter post that the mothers of Moms for Liberty - not The SPLC - are out to protect their children.

"These are not their children, they are our children and we will fight for them and that doesn't make us anything other than heroes," Johnsons said. "We run for school boards and we help others run for school board. We speak to our communities, we speak at board meetings, we testify to state legislative bodies. We will talk to national leaders when given the opportunity. We use the mechanisms at our disposal, legal means of petition as provided by local policy, state statues and in the United States Constitution."

Moms for Liberty was founded by former school board members in Florida, Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich, according to information on the about page on the group's website. Moms for Liberty's stated primary objective is to advocate for parental rights and now has chapters nationwide, with some states having multiple chapters.

The SPLC got some labelling of its own the same day it released its report and map.

"The SPLC is a left-wing activist organization that manipulates historical guilt in order to smear its political opponents," Christopher Rufo, senior fellow at Manhattan Institute, said in his own Twitter post. "The women who lead Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending Education are good-hearted patriots who should file suit against the SPLC."