A federal lawsuit filed on behalf of Florida-based Moms for Liberty accuses the Biden administration of not responding to records requests about whether agencies are monitoring the parental rights organization after it was designated an “extremist” group.
The Heritage Foundation and Mike Howell, the foundation’s director of the Oversight Project, filed the complaint Sept. 28 in Washington, D.C. It accuses defendants FBI, U.S. Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education of failing to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests relating to communications between the agencies and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
The SPLC published a report designating Moms for Liberty, a group that opposes gender and race ideology in schools, an “extremist” coalition of “far-right antigovernment parents” that intimidates teachers and other school officials.
“SPLC officials have made multiple visits to the Biden White House,” a Heritage Foundation news release states, “and media reports have highlighted concerning examples of federal law enforcement agencies relying on the SPLC’s ‘hate group’ list to weaponize the federal government against American citizens.”
The issue of whether federal agencies have taken actions or plan to take actions as a result of the SPLC’s characterization of Moms for Liberty represents a matter of public importance, since the government should be both transparent and accountable, according to the lawsuit.
“Plaintiffs seek to determine what response the United States government has to a baseless designation by the SPLC,” the complaint states. “Furthermore, plaintiffs have a vested interest in determining whether limited government resources are being used to monitor and counteract a grass-roots organization founded by mothers advocating for their children.”
The media scrutiny of Moms for Liberty has ramped up in the wake of the SPLC designating the group an extremist organization, according to the lawsuit.
“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,” Howell said in a prepared statement. “...Our recent investigation discovered that SPLC employees visited the White House 11 times in the past three years, including six meetings with the president himself.”
The SPLC, which is not a defendant in the litigation, did not respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman for the Heritage Foundation told the Florida Record that the foundation has not heard back from the SPLC about the lawsuit.
None of the federal agencies that are defendants has yet responded substantively to the Heritage Foundation’s FOIA filing, according to the lawsuit. The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division responded to the FOIA request by calling it “unduly burdensome and overly broad and certainly a fishing expedition through the agency files,” the complaint says.
“The unfocused and blanket nature … untied to any discrete subject matter or issue is far removed from the accepted functions and purposes of FOIA,” it states.
Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, defended the group’s purpose and record, saying that its efforts to speak out at school board meetings cannot be considered “extremism.”
“Moms were harassed and targeted by their own federal government for speaking out during the COVID school shutdowns,” Justice said in a prepared statement. “The Department of Justice labeled parents of public school kids ‘domestic terrorists.’ Then, the SPLC puts a target on our backs by falsely accusing us of antigovernment extremism. … We look forward to the truth coming to light.”