Paranoid right-wing parents now have a new tool at their disposal.
Last week, the Department of Education launched a so-called End DEI portal, a place where people—parents, teachers, students, and anyone else—are invited to submit reports of “illegal discriminatory practices at institutions of learning.” (Reminder that DEI is not illegal, and Trump can’t actually ban it in the federal government, as a judge ruled last month—but that hasn’t stopped the DOE from alleging that DEI perpetuates reverse racism against white students.) The portal asks for contact information, along with information on the school or school district and up to 450 words of detail on the alleged discrimination.
“The US Department of Education is committed to ensuring all students have access to meaningful learning free of divisive ideologies and indoctrination,” the portal says, under a banner that reads, “Schools should be focused on learning.”
The move instantly prompted mockery, with many social media users suggesting they would spam the portal with fake reports. But one person who publicly cheered it was Moms for Liberty Co-Founder Tiffany Justice. Coincidentally, she was also the only person quoted in the department’s press release announcing the portal’s launch, where Justice urged parents to use it to “share the receipts of the betrayal that has happened in our public schools.” Since then, Justice has aggressively promoted the portal on social media, announcing it in an X post and repeatedly pushing parents to use it.
Despite this, neither Moms for Liberty nor the DOE will clarify what role, if any, the right-wing group known for pushing baseless conspiracy theories and fear-mongering to support so-called “parents’ rights,” had in setting up the portal. When I reached out for details, a spokesperson for the DOE reiterated vaguery, claiming the office’s Office for Civil Rights will use the submissions “as a guide to identify potential areas for investigation.” But they declined to respond to additional questions about Moms for Liberty and the potential role they may have had in the portal’s creation or maintenance; Nor would the DOE answer how many submissions the portal has received since its launch or who is reviewing them.
Moms for Liberty also did not respond to specific questions about their potential involvement, instead only providing a statement saying the group “has been working closely with a number of key members of the Trump administration to ensure that students’ needs are prioritized in the education system.”
“With the release of The ‘End DEI’ Portal,” the statement continued, “we are beginning to see the fruit of our efforts from the last four years.” The group did not respond to follow-up questions, and Justice did not respond to a message on X.
If Moms for Liberty did help set the portal up, it would certainly be on-brand. The group, which was founded by a group of conservative school board moms in early 2021 to protest mask and vaccine mandates in schools, has since played an influential role in stirring up moral panic around pronoun usage and representation of diversity in schools; promoted book bans in schools; and baselessly claimed public school teachers are “grooming” and “indoctrinating” kids. Despite—or maybe because of—this, they have grown into an organization with hundreds of chapters nationwide and more than 100,000 members. The group also has a track record of evasiveness on other matters related to their influence. As I reported last year, the group launched more than $3 million in Biden attack ads in swing states during the presidential campaign, but would not say where the cash came from.
But Justice’s inclusion in the DOE’s announcement last week suggests that the group is attempting to bounce back from a slew of bad press in recent years. There was the disastrous “60 Minutes” interview last year, in which they failed to effectively articulate their reason for existing and dodged questions; the loss of a bunch of candidates they backed in 2023, as my colleague Kiera Butler reported; and, of course, the sex scandal involving co-founder Bridget Zielger, who also helped author Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.
