Moms for Liberty lawsuits span federal and state courts and include both cases the conservative parental rights group filed and cases filed against it. The most consequential was a federal challenge that helped kill the Biden administration’s 2024 Title IX rewrite. The group has also won a First Amendment ruling against a Florida school board, lost a New York library books fight, and is currently defending itself against a Florida teacher’s wrongful interference suit. Its leadership has signaled that more litigation is coming.
Title IX Challenge to the Biden Rule
On May 14, 2024, Moms for Liberty joined Young America’s Foundation, Female Athletes United, a minor identified as K.R., and the states of Kansas, Alaska, Utah, and Wyoming in filing suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas against the Department of Education.1Moms for Liberty. Title 9 Lawsuit The plaintiffs argued that the Department’s final rule, published April 29, 2024, and set to take effect August 1, 2024, illegally expanded Title IX’s definition of sex discrimination to cover gender identity and sexual orientation. They contended the rule compelled pronoun use and treated refusal as sex-based harassment in violation of the First Amendment.2Mountain States Legal Foundation. Moms for Liberty v. US Department of Education
On July 2, 2024, U.S. District Judge John Broomes, a Trump appointee, issued a preliminary injunction blocking the rule in the four plaintiff states and at any school attended by a child of a Moms for Liberty or Young America’s Foundation member. Judge Broomes reasoned that the Department’s interpretation went beyond the statute’s original aim of protecting biological women in education.3Higher Ed Dive. Federal Judge Blocks Final Title IX Rule in Four States
The association-based scope of the injunction turned it into a recruitment tool. On July 19, 2024, Judge Broomes clarified that the block covered both current and future members. Moms for Liberty set up an opt-in system where members added their children’s schools to their profiles, and the legal team filed updated school lists with the court.1Moms for Liberty. Title 9 Lawsuit By late July 2024, the organization had submitted a list of more than 2,000 schools to the Department of Education.4Law Dork. Moms for Liberty Claims More Than 2,000 Schools
The Department of Justice appealed the injunction to the Tenth Circuit, but the case never reached a merits decision.5Education Week. How Moms for Liberty’s Legal Strategy Has Upended Title IX Rules for Schools On February 10, 2025, under the new Trump administration, the federal government reversed its position on the regulations. By June 2026 the case was closed, and the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represented the organizational plaintiffs, described the Biden-era Title IX regulations as “officially defeated.”2Mountain States Legal Foundation. Moms for Liberty v. US Department of Education
Brevard County Free Speech Case
Starting in 2021, members of the Brevard County, Florida chapter alleged that then-board chair Misty Haggard Belford selectively enforced rules against “abusive,” “personally directed,” and “obscene” speech at school board meetings. The policies prohibited naming individual board members and gave the chair broad discretion to cut off speakers. Plaintiffs said the chair warned attendees that “disruptions” could draw a $500 fine and up to 60 days in jail.6Florida Phoenix. Brevard School Board Policy Chills Moms for Liberty Speech, Appellate Court Rules
A district judge first upheld the policies, but on October 8, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed in a 2-1 decision. Writing for the majority, Judge Britt Grant found the restrictions “muddled,” without definitions, and lodged too much discretion in the chair. Enforcement was so inconsistent that “it is impossible to discern the standard used to assess which speech was permitted,” the court wrote. The majority held that calling school board policies a “ploy to silence our opposition to this evil LGBTQ agenda” was not “abusive” speech under the First Amendment: “No one likes to be called evil, but it is not ‘abusive’ to use that term.”6Florida Phoenix. Brevard School Board Policy Chills Moms for Liberty Speech, Appellate Court Rules The ban on “abusive” speech was declared facially unconstitutional as a viewpoint-based restriction that functioned as an “undercover ban on offensive speech.”7Florida Today. Brevard Schools Must Pay Nearly $568K in Public Comment Policy Lawsuit
The board kept enforcing the old policies in November and December 2024. In January 2025, a district court issued an emergency temporary restraining order forcing it to stop.8Institute for Free Speech. Brevard Public Schools to Pay Over $567,000 in Fees After Losing Free Speech Case The board then split its public comment structure into recorded comments on agenda items and unrecorded non-agenda comments where personally directed speech is allowed.7Florida Today. Brevard Schools Must Pay Nearly $568K in Public Comment Policy Lawsuit On October 7, 2025, the board approved a final settlement requiring Brevard Public Schools to pay $567,990.19 in attorney’s fees and costs, most of it to the Institute for Free Speech.
Wayne County Library Book Challenge
In New York, Moms for Liberty of Wayne County and Reverend Jacob Marchitell challenged the Clyde-Savannah Central School District’s decision to keep five books in its junior and senior high school library: People Kill People by Ellen Hopkins, It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover, All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, Red Hood by Elana K. Arnold, and Jesus Land: A Memoir by Julia Scheeres. The petitioners argued the books were sexually explicit and obscene.9New York State Education Department. Commissioner’s Decision No. 18,402
New York State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa dismissed the group’s administrative appeal on April 25, 2024, finding the board’s decision was not arbitrary and that the books were not legally obscene.9New York State Education Department. Commissioner’s Decision No. 18,402 The petitioners then brought an Article 78 proceeding in state court. On April 18, 2025, Judge Denise A. Hartman of the Albany County Supreme Court denied the petition and dismissed the case, ruling that the Commissioner’s decision had a rational basis, that the district had followed its internal review policy, and that the books contained “literary, artistic, political or scientific value” sufficient to defeat any obscenity claim.10Justia. Matter of Moms for Liberty of Wayne County v State of N.Y. State Educ. Dept. No further appeal appears in the record.
McMath v. Moms for Liberty
Duval County, Florida teacher Hope McMath has sued the group in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida (Case No. 3:25-cv-01498), alleging wrongful interference and malicious prosecution. According to the complaint, the local Duval County chapter emailed school officials and the Florida Department of Education with screenshots of McMath’s public social media posts that, according to Liberty Counsel, “celebrated the assassination of Charlie Kirk.” The group asked for an investigation into whether the posts met professional standards. School officials opened an investigation and placed McMath on administrative leave.11Liberty Counsel. Teacher’s Lawsuit Against Moms for Liberty Should Be Dismissed
Liberty Counsel, representing Moms for Liberty, filed a motion to dismiss on March 18, 2026, arguing the emails were protected speech and petitioning activity. The defense also invoked Florida’s anti-SLAPP statute and sought attorney’s fees. McMath’s original defamation claim was dropped, leaving wrongful interference and malicious prosecution. As of late April 2026, the case remained active with briefing still underway.12PACER Monitor. McMath v. Duval County Public Schools et al.
Johnson v. MacCudden Defamation Case
In Wisconsin, a former school district social justice coordinator sued Scarlett Johnson, a local Moms for Liberty activist, for defamation. Johnson had criticized the district on social media for employing the coordinator and had referred to people in such roles as “woke,” “bullies,” “lunatics,” and “white saviors” with a “god complex.”13Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. WILL Defends 1st Amendment Rights of Wisconsin Mom and Conservative Activist A circuit court initially refused to dismiss. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals granted a permissive appeal and, on October 28, 2025, reversed. The panel found Johnson’s statements were subjective assessments and rhetorical hyperbole rather than provably false assertions of fact, and so could not constitute defamation.14FindLaw. Maccudden v. Johnson The case was remanded with instructions to enter summary judgment for Johnson, effectively ending the matter.15Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. Johnson v. MacCudden
Where the Litigation Strategy Is Headed
At its October 2025 national summit, Moms for Liberty leadership encouraged members to move beyond school board races and toward what speakers called “offensive litigation,” with parents serving as named plaintiffs against school districts.16Hechinger Report. At Moms for Liberty Summit, Parents Urged to Turn Their Grievances Into Lawsuits
Several conservative legal organizations have represented or assisted the group across the cases above and beyond: the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Southeastern Legal Foundation, America First Legal, the Mountain States Legal Foundation, Liberty Counsel, and the Institute for Free Speech. The strategy relies on what Kimberly S. Hermann of the Southeastern Legal Foundation described as a “ripple effect”: a lawsuit filed or won in one jurisdiction can pressure other districts to change policies preemptively.16Hechinger Report. At Moms for Liberty Summit, Parents Urged to Turn Their Grievances Into Lawsuits
The Supreme Court’s June 2025 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor gave that strategy a new foothold. The Court held 6-3 that a Maryland district’s refusal to let parents opt their children out of instruction involving LGBTQ-themed storybooks “unduly burdened” parents’ right to free exercise of religion.17University of Washington School of Law. Mahmoud v. Taylor Explained At the summit, allied lawyers urged members to use Mahmoud as a foundation for challenges to opt-out policies, gender-identity policies that allow students to use different names or pronouns without parental notice, student mental health surveys, and school prayer rules.16Hechinger Report. At Moms for Liberty Summit, Parents Urged to Turn Their Grievances Into Lawsuits