The Southern Poverty Law Center labeled Moms For Liberty a hate group just days before its national conference, causing protests to descend on the event and inundate attendees with threats of violence.
Over 600 parents, conservative leaders, and five presidential candidates — including Donald Trump — gathered for four days at the Philadelphia Downtown Marriott Hotel for the Moms for Liberty National Summit 2023. Just three weeks before, the SPLC added the grassroots parents’ group to its list of extremist groups. Tina Descovich, co-founder and CEO of Moms For Liberty, told The Daily Wire that the pushback was almost immediate — and frightening.
“Their label sent thousands of protesters to our event, protestors smashed in windows of the venue the night before, and spray-painted over historical displays,” Descovich said. “They surrounded the venue for days. Philly PD had to call in the riot force and extra equipment. The following months and weeks were filled with continued threats and harassment.”
“Adding us right before our 2023 National Summit, where we hosted five presidential candidates, was not an accident; it was calculated and coordinated,” Descovich added.
The SPLC has come under renewed scrutiny after the Justice Department last week released a sweeping indictment of the controversial leftist group. The SPLC is alleged to have funneled millions to hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan from 2014 to 2023. The group claims it was paying informants, but critics say the SPLC was simply propping up its own targets — most notoriously by allegedly helping fund the infamous 2017 “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“Once the SPLC labeled us, it gave people in my community and even extended family justification for really vile behavior towards me. I tried to protect my kids from the hate I received, but it wasn’t long before even they knew I was a target for people’s hate,” Kit Hart, Moms For Liberty membership engagement coordinator, told The Daily Wire. “It’s something no innocent mom should be subjected to.”
“A group of us had dinner reservations offsite and the moment we exited the building, we were berated and screamed at,” Hart recalls. “The protestors had been waiting all day for members of our organization to leave the doors of the hotel to shove signs in our faces, curse at us and show every sign of aggression you can think of. As we were walking to our Uber, we needed to be escorted by security.”
An LGBTQ+ group called The Agenda PAC obtained the hotel room numbers of Moms For Liberty members, and while they slept, left door hangers on their hotel rooms that said “Please Disturb: Fascism In Progress. Did you know a designated hate group is staying at this hotel?”
Pennsylvania State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta, who is currently a Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee, chaired The Agenda PAC.
A heavy police presence was stationed outside the hotel for the duration of the conference to keep attendees safe. Protesters, carrying pride flags and signs with hateful messages such as “Ban The Fascists,” “F*ck Nazi’s,” and “Klanned Kookie Karens,” camped outside the hotel for the duration of the conference and harassed women as they entered or exited. One group of moms was swarmed by a group of protesters when they tried to leave the hotel in an Uber. Several protesters were arrested.
Despite the tensions and security concerns, the planned programming was uninterrupted, and President Trump commented on the SPLC label during his speech.
“The radical Left is even slandering Moms for Liberty as a so-called hate group,” President Trump stated during his speech. “Can you imagine Moms for Liberty, a hate group? I’m telling you, these people are sick.”
The conference gained attention from national media outlets, which consistently associated Moms For Liberty with the SPLC hate group label. A group of Democratic Pennsylvania state senators used the SPLC label to fuel their ongoing campaign to get the 2023 summit canceled. The politicians sent a letter to the Museum of the American Revolution, where a welcome event for the summit was held, asking that it cut ties with Moms For Liberty.
“Moms for Liberty, put plainly, is a hate group. This is not hyperbole — on June 6, 2023, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designated Moms for Liberty a hate group, and specifically, as an ‘anti-government extremist group,’” the letter reads. “The Museum’s leadership has demonstrated a lack of judgment in agreeing to host a hate group. Fortunately, the mistake can be fixed with a simple and elegant solution: cancel the Moms for Liberty event scheduled for June 29.”
This reporter was present at the June 2023 summit and can easily recall the throngs of protesters and increased security. To avoid harassment from the mob of protesters outside of the hotel, attendees exited the Marriott hotel from a discreet side entrance and were covertly bused to the museum, where we were greeted by a raucous crowd screaming from behind a metal barricade, “Get the f*ck out of here” and “Philly is a trans city.” Police officers acted as a human shield and formed a path that allowed us a safe entrance to the museum.
The door hangers on each hotel room door in Philadelphia tonight where the Moms for Liberty hate convention is taking place are incredible. pic.twitter.com/KKREKXCLas
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) June 30, 2023
The impact of the SPLC’s extremist label extended far past the summer of 2023 and continues to weigh on parents today. The SPLC has an interactive “hate map,” and Moms for Liberty chapters make up the single largest bloc of any organization on it, putting a target on the back of each local group.
“Every day since the SPLC added Moms for Liberty to its hate map, our organization has had a dangerous target on our back. Members have been doxed, cancelled, and threatened,” Descovich told The Daily Wire. “The fabricated lies told by the SPLC have caused extensive harm to our organization and our members.”
For the past three years, Moms For Liberty Wisconsin leader Scarlett Johnson has also been harassed, defamed, and feared for her own safety after being labeled a far-right extremist by the SPLC.
“I lived this. I was harassed, doxxed, and even sued. And almost every article, every interview, every news segment about me included the same line — that I’m part of Moms for Liberty, a group the SPLC labeled as extremist,” Johnson told The Daily Wire. “That label followed me everywhere. It changed how people looked at me, spoke to me, and treated me.”
“It was the slow, grinding loss of normalcy that no one ever gives back,” she added.
Johnson said the SPLC label didn’t just draw the ire of leftists, but made some local Republicans hesitant to be affiliated with her and the group. Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director for research, reporting, and analysis at the SPLC, admitted that was the group’s goal in a June 2023 interview with NPR.
“Carroll Rivas said she hopes that adding Moms for Liberty and similar groups to its extremist list will help inform communities, reporters and politicians who are just learning about them,” NPR reported. “And, perhaps, that it might tarnish association with those organizations.”
Johnson told The Daily Wire she is thankful SPLC is being investigated, but the reputational damage they’ve caused can’t be undone.
“Not everyone understands what the SPLC is or how those labels get used — but politicians and media repeated it without question,” Johnson told The Daily Wire. “And when you repeat something like that over and over, it doesn’t just shape a narrative. It hardens into something people act on.”
The SPLC did not respond to The Daily Wire’s request for comment.
