Moms for Liberty is going to open a taxpayer-funded charter school

Citizens of Charleston, South Carolina are protesting a taxpayer-funded charter school whose six-person governing board will include three members from the local Moms for Liberty (M4L) chapter. M4L is an anti-LGBTQ+ organization that has been designated as an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The Ashley River Classical Academy, set to open next fall in the affluent town of Mount Pleasant, will include three M4L members on its governing board: chair Tara Wood, treasurer Janine Nagrodsky, and education committee head Nicole McCarthy. As a charter school, it will largely avoid government oversight.

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The school will reportedly use The 1776 Curriculum, a right-wing teaching plan that downplays the United States’s history of slavery and racism and has been criticized by the American Historical Association. The curriculum was developed by Hillsdale College, a Christian college in Michigan that has been praised by former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for its opposition to “leftist academies.” Hillsdale College has opened 23 charter schools in 14 states; Ashley River will be its first in South Carolina.

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Allan Morris, the state chapter chair for the progressive political group Defense of Democracy, called the Hillsdale curriculum “a red MAGA hat in textbook form” when speaking to WCSC-TV.

Another protester, Carol Buer, told the aforementioned news station, “I think that [the school] would create more little Moms for Liberties, which I’m sure is the choice.”

“Ashley River Classical Academy is not a Moms for Liberty school,” Wood said in a statement to Business Insider. “It is one of Hillsdale’s K-12 schools and I just happen to be on the board. That’s it.”

Wood wrote in 2022 that the Charleston County School District is trying to “sexualize our children through inappropriate books and lessons.” She introduced DeSantis at a state political event last April.

Fellow board member Nagrodsky has posted transphobic memes on Facebook, including one that said, “I actually wish transgender women could get periods. That would end this [trans] movement within about 28 days.” Another referred to former First Lady Michelle Obama as a “guy” named Mike, which is part of a larger conspiracy theory promoted by conservative pundits that Michelle Obama is secretly a trans woman. Yet another alludes to trans identities by stating, “Refusing to indulge another person’s psychosis is not a phobia.”

Ashley River’s charter is sponsored by Erskine College, an Associate Reformed Presbyterian school that believes homosexuality is a sin. The college sponsors 28 charter schools, “generating millions of dollars in revenue,” according to The Los Angeles Blade. The college will be the “sole arbiter” of whether Ashley River is meeting its obligation to students, the publication added.

The school’s headmaster, Alexandria Spry, previously oversaw the Florida charter school Jacksonville Classical Academy East. While under her leadership, Jacksonville Classical received an “F” from the Florida Department of Education due to its low percentage of students receiving passing grades in state assessments for English (29%), math (23%), and science (12%), Popular Information reported.

M4L’s past activities include offering bounties for turning in teachers who discuss “divisive topics,” attacking the Trevor Project for trying to prevent LGBTQ+ teen suicide, trying to get a book about seahorses banned for being too sexy, complaining about a book about the Civil War because it portrays “white people as ‘bad’ or ‘evil,’” trying to get librarians arrested for offering “inappropriate books,” saying that two girls briefly kissing at a school function is “lewd” and “traumatic,” lobbying in Florida for the Don’t Say Gay bill, encouraging schools to ignore LGBTQ History Month, and suggesting that LGBTQ+ students be forcibly isolated from other pupils.

Anti-LGBTQ+ activists have admitted to encouraging parents to file lawsuits accusing public schools of violating their rights by teaching students about racial and LGBTQ+ issues. These lawsuits could eventually secure a U.S. Supreme Court victory that would redirect billions of taxpayer funds from public schools to religious homeschools and charter schools.