order to continue to the original mission of the university, which was the pursuit of truth. so i think we can look all of those figures as models follow in the years ahead. hey, thanks much. had i to thank the panelists for a terrific conversation.

we are thrilled to be here. i'm thrilled to be here. and i thought that i haven't done this elsewhere, but i wanted to just because i realize that for many people this all comes like, maybe not you guys so much, but this is all a big, you know, new thing. so but i thought i would just read just very beginning opening of one of the chapters.

and this is set in eastern tennessee. i specifically did not do the central bucks one because you guys can do that yourself. so this chapter is chapter four. it's about how weaponizing crt disrupts learning and let me just read this a little bit. matthew horn was the teacher who, between classes at sullivan central high school in sullivan county, tennessee, would be in the hallway bantering with fellow teachers and with students about tv music. he wore a pearl jam t shirt when we first met and nonsense such as what exactly? qualified as soup. he coached baseball and taught courses on personal finance and for juniors, seniors, two sections of a class titled contemporary issues horn as students called or coach john would pause a lesson to let a kid show off a new tattoo. when he taught, he pulled up a chair or sat at a school desk. who is not about podiums and lectures but converse sation even about private creation, he

nudged, but also listened classes about learning to question, to research and to evaluate what you thought. kids wanted to take that class because. they wanted to talk. they want to learn. they want to argue in an academic setting one student who took harlem's contemporary issues class twice told me a former student who was studying to be an early childhood educator, said, he was our teacher, but he was our friend, too. you could talk to him about anything. and students did. when i visited horn's home, a ranch house in kingsport, tennessee, was jammed with vinyl records, posters of rock bands, books and family photos. the dining table was crowded with artwork and notes from students. one thanked him for being the one teacher i can imagine being a real person outside of school and joked that i'll remember you when i start cult. some notes were humorous or flip. one student with a difficult home life wrote that he was a blessing. you were truly a role model in curly black ink letters long

story short, thank you for positively impact my life. it means more than you know. another thanked him for always being the one to invoke important conversations to help everyone understand each other a little bit more conversations i had with students about horns class reminded me of a conversation i had a decade, decades earlier, with walter beavers, the head of the english department, and a beloved teacher at western high school in massachusetts since after watching him conduct a class like a piece of music leading an experience that was fun and fizzy, it also layered. i interviewed him as he explained his philosophy. my job is to have a relationship with the students, he said. shakespeare is what comes up in conversation. hemingway is what we talk about. but my job is the relation and ship. it is one of the most true things i've ever heard about how education should work.

learning happens in the context of relationships with may look like the trust in a teacher, in a culture that she builds among students in a class. it is within the shared time and space. that understanding evolves. it lets students test ideas and even to change their minds, which is what kyle simcox, who graduated from sullivan central high school in 2018, did in her class. simcox, raised in a conservative christian household where he sat with his grandmother each night and watched bill o'reilly on fox news as she drank decaf instant coffee. when simcox took klein's class, he'd joined the tennessee army national guard. in class, they discussed president donald trump's fascination with a display of french military hardware during bastille day. trump then sought to have a really great parade to show our military strength down pennsylvania avenue. simcox liked the idea, but hard pressed him to notice which countries north korea, china,

russia embrace such displays. as simcox grew furious and stormed out of class, i end up leaving class and calling a snowflake, and to get the hell away from me, simcox recalled. then he said, i did a little research and found that it was not very customer free for democracies to do military parades. now, he said, he and hohn look back and laugh. but that is the whole point of having that kind of class. in fact, as someone who grew up in sullivan county, which is nearly all white, where 75% of voters in 2020 cast ballots for trump, horn believed a class that exposed students to varying perspectives was valuable. it prepare them for college and life. after all, as a high school student himself, a haunted embrace, the confederate rebel flag and listened every day to rush limbaugh and then parroted his far right views. he this that changed as he became friends with people different than him, including black students in his dorm at

college. he heard fresh perspective on life in history, racism and racial equity, and even the black experience in the united states wasn't anything i had ever. he said he'd grown up believing the lost cause interpretation of southern history in the civil war, including the myth that slavery benefited both blacks and whites by the time he graduated first as a finance major and then a few years later, after earning a teacher certification, he was eager to return to sullivan county and teach students like himself. in 2005, he began teaching at sullivan central high by by he. i'm skipping a little bit. by the time in 2008, he began teaching contemporary issues. it had priests prescribe syllabus or standards and standards and tech, no syllabus or standards and tackled current hot button issues, which is

what, in 2021 became a problem he was teaching both online and in person and the things he was teaching about, including racism and white privilege, were the very animating far right activists in tennessee. this showed up in the state legislature in the form of a law regulating the teaching of quote unquote, divisive concepts in k-12 public schools around race and sex including limiting teaching about institution and racism. it like similar laws being passed around the country, was widely described as an anti crt law. it passed both houses of the legislature on may 5th, 2021. it was signed into law by governor bill lee on may 25th. horne had felt the charged climate all year long, but on the day the bill was signed law, he was called into a meeting district leaders. it was handed a draft of a document dismissing him. in the document he was charged with, quote, unprofessional conduct and quote, in subordination at the june 8th, 2021 school board meeting, trustees voted 6 to 1 to proceed

with dismissal, marking the start of a long and painful legal battle. dozens of horne supporters stood outside the june 8th meeting with signs, then packed the room, clad in light blue t shirts with hashtag. i stand with horne in white lettering after the director of schools, dr. david cox, detailed the charges, he addressed the anger around horne's firing the had expressed online. he insisted that he did not oppose discussion of white privilege, that horne's dismissal was unrelated to the new law and had no relationship to that bill or that language. yet it was hard to see how the claims of unprofessional conduct and insubordination suddenly arose. this academic year, wholly independent of a heated political environment and coincidentally, i was actually just texting and emailing with him before i came here today. he is going to be at south by southwest edu and he is still battling for his job and his

hearing is on april 23rd. so i chose that because it specifically is the kind of thing that we are seeing happening around the country and you do such a great job in the book of using you know, stories and interviews to sort of exemplify so many of the issues that many communities across the country are facing. and when i read that chapter, i took some notes and if i could just read a few things that you you said that i think will really apply to our community as well. and you say regarding crt, instead of inquiring about why and how racism persisted, the focus was on how talking about it was divisive and how that might make white children feel. and then you say suddenly history was not about history,

but about how history might be received by those with the most power. and that is really what feels like took hold in so many communities, was not about looking at the issue, but really more about how it would those who had the most power and then you go on to say that it really you know, this whole issue left teachers across the country afraid of talking race and class, which we call soft censorship. the chilling effect. and and again, it's something that for those of us who are familiar with this, that is pervasive nationally at the moment, whether you have policies in place or not, actually, you were the one who said to me when i was here in fall of 2020 to you, was it? yeah. and you said and we were talking books. censorship was starting to catch on. and you said, well, you don't

actually need any laws or policies if in place because when people become afraid it's de facto happening. and then i was looking at the library journal which you know, did an anonymous survey of librarians and at that time 42% of libraries admitted kind of preemptively removing books from the library. and is 2022 the latest one that was out looking at 2023, had gone up to 47%. but one of the very cool things i found about that survey was that this year a third of librarians said they had considered leaving the profession because of all of the, you know, trauma, fault, froth, whatever you want to describe it around book banning. but then two thirds said that that only made them more determine not to stay involved and fight. and i think that's kind of what we're seeing, you know,

happening is that that pushback that determination, thank goodness so we didn't really hear this in the introduction. but you have been an education for how many years? 20, 30, 33 plus. it's actually even more. but i'm trying to like, pretend. i'm like little younger, but needless to say, a long time are very experienced in the field. so why this book and why this moment for this book so exactly? i, i did not plan to write this book. i didn't even want to write. i wasn't like looking to write book, but after covering education, k-12 and higher ed for 30 plus years for the new york times, hechinger report, watching a whole boston globe, i i saw so much happening in schools that was not about education. and in fact, there is a part of

the book towards that. in the last chapter where i actually go into a classroom because i missed it so much doing all my reporting because i was not doing the kind of reporting that was accustomed to doing. i was accustomed to saying, okay, why are we you know, someone's got a new idea for teaching math or reading or and is it working. and what are the things that people said were going to happen? are they really happening? i would dig into pedagogy i mean, a cool study out of harvard in which i learned that if you can't decode fast enough by the end of the sentence, you've forgotten which at the beginning a set. there's so much cool stuff in education that we need to dig into and think about. but none of that was happening. and so i felt absolutely compelled to connect the dots. and not only were we not talking about the stuff we needed to talk about, but the stuff that we were talking about that i was hearing about was complete misinformation, social learning. i had written about that when it

was first becoming a thing and i was at the moms for liberty summit in july 20, 22, and i learned from them that it was actually marxist indoctrination. and i was like, no, no, no, no. that is not how this is not how it works. and the things that i was hearing were just complete misinformation. and that led that led me to hit the and hit a road right interview. so we can credit the moms for liberty summit in july. 2022. and i was there in tampa and i registered under my name and laura pappano and i. but i decided i wanted to not a lot of attention to myself. so i wore a red blazer with it, lapel pin, the american flag lapel pin. and i did buy two moms for liberty t-shirts. and i attended. and as a journalist, i've been in a lot of settings in which, you know, things were not the

way i might think about them, but i would listen. i'd be okay. i hear where you're coming from. when i went that summit, i was completely stunned by how extreme it was within the first period of time. james lizzie was on the stage telling us that for if you're sending your to public schools for 30 to 35 hours a week was like sending them to a maoist reform prison camp, i had not expected that. and not only did i not expect that, i did not expect four days of really the same message. one of the curious kind of things that was happening the same time. so, you know, when i check into the marriott hotel, the woman at the desk says, oh, i'm with you all, i'm upgrading everyone. so i suddenly found myself with a high floor water view, which was quite a treat that i had not expected. and but more to me was that

kitty at the tampa convention center at the same time was florida's largest anime convention. so imagine the surreal experience of going to the mom's liberty summit and, then going out onto the street or in the lobby, and you're seeing horns and wings and, glitter and cologne neil garb. it was just it was it could not have been more perfectly scripted. do want to talk a little bit now about that emotional appeal that you saw taking place. yeah. okay. so, you know, kate and i were talking right before this. i know we were talking about the emotional piece of it. and i guess the thing that surprised me then and got me to then go up to harvard and look into the history of red scare on the education side, was that the message that the moms about the 500 mostly moms in that room

were the message was that your children are in danger, your children are in grave danger, are being harmed and it may be uncomfortable for it may feel like a stretch or a reach, but you to defend them and that means taking slings and arrows. it means speaking up at school board meetings. it means running for office there were moms who were running for school board and repeatedly throughout the summit were asked to rise and receive applause when ron desantis was speaking at the podium, he said, he said for the first time ever, i'm going to endorse school board candidates. and you think, okay, governors and boards endorsing a school board candidate is different. and and and then and and the moms seemed just very glowy about the idea that this was happening. and yet it's very clear. it was clear to me then what

desantis was doing was actually creating support for him and for a whole far right agenda. and we saw that in texas, where at cpac when steve bannon, after those races and many of you are nodding your head when patriot mobile spent more than $400,000 on 11 school board races and flipped for boards, he school boards, the key that picks the lock. this is how we take over district by district, town by town. and the the frustrating and kind of troubling thing me when i was sitting in that room was that nobody was question winning what they were hearing and i felt that particularly when there was a conversation about the don't say gay law that had just recently passed and one of the moms liberty board members, a

lawyer, stood up to describe the law and in terms of a metaphor, and he said it's like if you have an ak 47, we need to do more. it it's like if you need a flashlight, if you need a laser on it, this is not done. this was a number of weeks after evolving and i just couldn't believe that. i just heard a metaphor that an ak 47. but even more stunning to me was the fact that there was nobody in the room reacted. so i felt and and saw over the course of the four days it is if the moms entered this room and on this kind of crazy conveyor that kept sharing the same distraught id message and groupthink and never any questions raised about why social how how do you get that social emotional learning is

marxist indoctrination. i mean, a lot of this stuff just doesn't make sense. you know, today i was at a class at swarthmore and we were having a conversation and one of the students asked like, what is gender ideology anyhow? what is ism? and i said, fantastic question. so you take something like gender identity and you just change the words a little bit and it becomes this scary thing that really knows what it is. and i think that that is, you know, what we have seen and because we get very fast and sloppy with language. i mean, who knows what woke means? i mean, i certainly don't really know what it means. so we have this we have these kind of boogeymen that we are that people are and we're and it's lagging we're lacking a clarity of conversation. and that's why i wrote the book to just connect these dots and say, well, this really this is social, emotional learning. this is the red scare.

this is this is what crt actually is. right. mm hmm. and you're looking at those in different communities across the country. so you're in texas quite a bit. texas, tennessee. she florida, pennsylvania, sylvania, new hampshire. and i have my approach as a journalist is. i've continued to write about this. and my strategy is really pass this law. what are the consequences? what are the. that's my question. okay. we're going to pass this law. how does this out? so one example is in keller, texas, the you know that when the school board took over and they decided that one of the things they were going news rather than have librarians be in charge of curating their collections and choosing the books, which i my reporting for this book i had several librarians just walk me through

how you're trained, what you learn, and what you do in keller, texas, this far right school board decided, they were going to be in charge. and the new policy was that they would approve every purchase of every book and that it would be 30 days out in the community. and then they would address it. i watched one five and a half hour school board meeting in which at one point a library, a middle school library stood up, walked to the podium. and i just, you know, librarians are just like twirly hair, like propped up and, you know, lots of scarves and all this kind of stuff. and she said she was very kind of respectful. but she said we are feeling that you don't trust us. she said, i buy i cannot a book about camels or squirrels or football. i cannot get the latest diary of a wimpy kid. i cannot get new guinness book of world records.

i cannot get a cat for my beginner readers in a timely manner because you must approve all of the purchases. she said, i have children walking up to me in the library asking, where are the new books? and she said, i don't tell them that it's political. that's that's very soul crushing to hear, especially for the young, because i think it's sort of like some of the impact of the censorship that we're seeing in the country is for children sort of fearing reading books. what's in there. you know, we no idea what that how will play out over the years. now you're like begging kids to read right. and now they're like, i don't know, is this is this okay? i mean, it's a second guessing. well, i mean, and one of the the

language that, you know, i think we need to be clear school boys are not collecting pornography. yeah. teachers are not trying to change the gender of your child. there is so much misinformation that i mean, and we're in a kind of an a moment culturally where you repeat the misinformation enough times and assume it's truth and i think the consequences are you know, we're seeing the consequences over and over. i'll give you an example from some reporting did in north idaho. you know that for a vanity fair and hechinger piece that was out in december, the this the school board had approved that this rural district they had approved a new english language arts curriculum. it had the old curriculum was out of print. fourth grade teacher had just a few workbook in her class. so there were no new materials available. they bought this curriculum. it was sitting in the hallways.

it gone through the approval process. everyone voted for it, and then because it involved sesame street workshop, there was a feeling there was and that there was social emotional learning and the, you know, who knew that this was bad thing. but suddenly petition and a whole group of far right activists in the community got the curriculum rescinded it was sent back. so this september began with another year where children had reading materials and the crazy thing was that the on election day, this there's a very heated school board election. what is really striking is you appreciate the value of public schools. these moms mostly republican christian religious moms in north idaho battled to keep their public schools and take

them back from this group of far right folks. they recalled two of the people. one of them had won a seat with. you know, he was said he was called by god to serve. he had no involvement in the schools ever. and he lost. he won by eight votes to mom, who i sat down with, and she said everyone just assumed i would win. so they didn't show up. and what happened, though, is these moms all organized the entire community and they recalled those. and then on election day, i'm out in on dirt roads and, you know, masonic temples and voting places. and i am listening to and i read the literature that was being out by the far right candidate about transgender ism. i can tell you that was not the main issue in this district. the main issue was that the levy had failed idaho's funding is 50th in the nation. it required it relies on local

levies for a third of their budget so that didn't pass. so suddenly we have no curriculum for english language arts. we have, or i should say no new curriculum whatever it was sitting on the shelves, they were not able to clean the buildings at one of the school board meetings, a principal was describing mice running over children's feet, and there was a lot discussion and concern about eliminating after school sports and extracurricular activities. so what you have and i think this was a striking example of that, is you have national level rhetoric, political rhetoric, the stuff that steve bannon gets. so about being used on the local level because it's just picked up and used wholesale without thinking about does this even apply in my community. and i think that that's the worrisome thing is that we are lose that kind of local texture and control of, you know, our

communal to run it through our brains and think about does this apply maybe this would a good time for you think we're sort of going all around but can you talk about go back to bannon maybe a little bit about larger political agenda and how like, what is it what is the end goal here? well, the end goal in some ways is extremely puzzling to me because if you look at the fact, you know, as i stated before, that 90% of children in america attend public schools and that, you know, in 1986, 70% of them were white and that is no longer the case. you and inclusion should not be political. you know, 46% of our kids are students color. we need to include all of them. and yet the politico agenda seems to be to be pressing to

the side and not including them. and i am. and the denigration the public schools makes it. there is a small leap from saying, you know, there's pornography in the libraries. the teachers are teaching you divisive content, teaching children to hate themselves. i mean, a lot of this language, it's a very quick leap to say, well, do we even really need public schools? shouldn't we just have vouchers? and then everybody can just, you know, use their $8,000 or whatever they get and as they wish? well, that is what you're seeing happen. and you're this happen in legislatures. each legislative session seems have its theme. we've done the obscenity library books. they're still coming up every year. but and then we had parental rights last in this year. i bet we already seeing a lot of voucher bills. you have groups like the goldwater institute, alec, and these far right groups that

basically just write the legislation. so local legislatures just pick it up and look like geniuses. sometimes those. i have heard that they forget change the state name of the state so that not so good. but the point is the push right now is really is being sold as educational freedom. parental choice and yet. sure, it's a choice for the parents who could already afford to send their kids to private school. i mean, in arizona, most of the people who are getting the $8,000 vouchers because they average private school in arizona at the time, and i know that some have raised it since the average has probably gone up was $12,500. you get $8,000 and it costs 12,500. many many families, that just does not math does not work. so you are creating this situation where some people are getting educated, some people are getting money and some people are able to then purchase

a christian education for themselves or whatever they choose which is not unlike the segregation academies, the brown versus board of education. the fundamental with it is that it changes our relations and chip with one another and with our communities. and what i mean by that is that education has been one of those things that somehow we decided a very long time ago that we as a group as a whole would educate all of our children and that a collective responsibility. when you move to vouchers, it becomes an individual responsibility. and it's one of the reasons why education has been such a critical piece of democracy, a you know, a key building block, because you go to school with people that are very different. you. i mean, i can tell you the

people i went to school with, they know that is how. and john dewey made that point. he said the value of public education and as civic training ground is not the classes in democracy or the civic courses, it's the experience of school. and that what i do worry about that we're losing. this would be a great time to ask you how you arrived the title school moms because i think the school moms that you met very much believe in a public education and that that's absolutely and i did not want moms for liberty to own moms. i did have a very prominent person very upset that i chose this title. but i was very clear that there is a lot of mom labor female labor. there's a long history of moms being involved in schools. and for the good of before women

even had the right to vote and got the right to vote in an august 1920, women. we're often in different district. it's a be given the ability to vote for school board or even in some rare cases run school board. and in fact, it led to a whole controversy which i don't think i go into in much detail about whether or not those moms thwarting the 19th amendment. but the idea was that these moms and i love the i looked at old like 1920s, you know, magazines. some of them are little much, but they the idea the concept was that moms were experts in home and children. so the idea was that i'm going to extend my home and make schools home like extend that power. and there's one very ambitious leader in wisconsin who said moms should extend it to the whole world. well, guess what we're seeing

now? that's why i wrote this book and it school moms, because moms have been providing all of this invisible, powerful labor. the idea when if you are working, not working outside home, that this is a blank spot in your resume and this is you know, there is nobel quality research as of this year that supports the the the the the income the mom you know, the mommy motherhood tax that it's not a it should it is not a blank space on your resume. there is organizing network motivating. i mean moms have forever ever been doing this but have not gotten credit. it's been this invisible work. so one of the things that i found really powerful was that when i was seeing on the ground in the hot spots here, texas, tennessee, people starting organize and.

they were moms who started facebook groups. and then these facebook groups became 5013 cs, and then, oh my gosh, i read this newsletter every week. and i mean, the amount of work and detail, i mean, that is high level expertise. so we need to recognize and talk about school moms because school moms are going to change this world a. i i know we had a conversation about feminine style of power and organizing and leadership, which i think fits in with the title of school moms. and i think that that what we experienced here in central bucks and in penkridge and council rock and so many neighboring communities in our state, lehigh. are they here? oh. she was this. so someone us i think at a public meeting they were very

sort of accusatory. well who is your leader? you know, who's who's leading this movement and we're all just sort of like, yeah, no, it's we're all very passionate and we all work in our own ways. we don't need to have this sort of hierarchical. we just sort intuitively know what we are good at, what we want to do and how we want to work. and it kind of took in every everybody harnessing their own skills and style, not their people who worked here. i have never met. they've never been in public, they've never been a public meeting. but they have done tremendous work. and that is what i think women are quite good at is i think they call it sort of the underground route, you know, networking, energy and that's what it takes. it takes all of that. do you know, it's interesting.

when i was driving, i up from new haven and i was listening, jennifer berkshire is if you ever listen to the have you heard her? because i was listening she had interviewed me weeks and weeks ago and i finally got the chance to listen to and what i. i love her, by the way, but was talking about how this book is really helpful. and i was like you know what? you're right. this is a hopeful message. it is a hopeful message. and and the hope her description of the hope was rooted in the moms. and one of the beautiful things that i've seen come out of this is that as much as this has divided, it is also energizing communities. it is connected people to one another. and when i went up to croydon, new hampshire, where there was a kind of a crazy situation where in the middle of a snowstorm, only 6% of voters showed up and somebody, a free state or cut slashed the budget by 60%, which

would have eliminated the local school and it required everyone coming together to to you to have a revote in, a required of getting more than 50% of voters to come and vote to remain true to, you know, reinstitute the budget they got 6%. but the power of that coming togetherness and when i was meeting with them up in new hampshire, i said, like, have you guys enjoyed this? they're like, yes, we have. and it was across the political spectrum. and they said, we we feel like we have a purpose. and one of the people ran for state legislature and won one of the dads who was kicking himself because he wasn't at that snowball sound. you know, that's that snowstorm meeting started recording every meetings that people could see or watch, even if they couldn't

be there. and he started posting on facebook every time there was a zoning by every meeting possible. and he already worked three jobs and the beauty was is then he ran for selectman and he won. i mean, there are three posts and and so, and then i just got a text like two weeks ago from, one of the moms who had been out collecting signatures and getting people show up to vote. and she said, i'm running that last school board seat. so the idea of the kind of re the kind of reengage judgment that this battle has occasioned, i think a really incredibly hopeful thing. and i hope that we can find ways to continue it. i do, too. i think we have really is that we are the ones that have to take charge and make the world that we want. and i know i to see my schools thriving like i live very close

to three schools and i love them all and so, yeah, let's get back to arguing like, you know what, how many times can you retake the and is it the same at every school? i mean that let's get back that sort of conversation. i can't wait for that. so so should we do would you like to, take some questions? yes. let's i think we have we have a moderate. okay. if you have a question, raise your hand and i'll you just like in school, please. a question about the first step moms from the brady campaign that you attended. i like to be helpful that there's most people are pretty i've seen that. that's not always true. but when you saw those people attend that first conference, do you think they all went in with the ideas of moms for liberty and were already very engaged in the moms for liberty about process, or were they being fed it and indoctrinated it and kind of like you said, they just kept

saying the same things over and over again. so you think they entered maybe with an open mind, but when they came out, they had already been like. great question. so what i because, i also went to the moms for liberty conference july. so i got to see that the contrast what i felt that first time like from day one in the opening like cocktail reception walked up to the to the rooftop and i was chatting and i did happen upon the group from brevard county who were very excited that they were the first chapter. and i said, you know why did you come? why did you get involved with this? and, you know, one of the moms said, because i didn't want mass to ruin my daughter's junior year of high school. and i thought to myself, wow. i mean, that's interesting. so i felt and then other conversations i during, you know, just casual conversation and i felt that people came being angry and exhausted from

covid i mean, did covid go well for? anybody? i don't think so. so there was a kind of emotional just just on, you know, just, you know, unfurling that allow i think, for this message. like, you're angry. i've got it. you know, let's gather over in this corner. and i very much felt that that first column, that first summit, people were like, wow, this isn't my child's actually being doctrinaire with marxist ideas. and i didn't know. i mean, there were worksheets about how schools were trying to change the gender of your child. and there was a mom there who was arguing that that was the case so this was a revelation to many of the people. by the time i went into the philly.com parents. everybody was all on board. so i felt like that conference was really and i, as a former theater board chair of a long wharf theater in haven, connecticut, i am very familiar

with you know, it was like a script. it i was watching this, even costumes. i mean, there's one point where the three co-founders were sitting on the high chairs being interviewed one was wearing red. one was wearing white and one was wearing a blue dress with dots. it i was like, wow. and by the time we got to sun tina desk, which was wearing a lemon yellow a a line cotton dress, that could have been right out of the 1950s. and that constant messaging was that you're still feminine, but we got to be warm moms. we got to fight. we got to be really tough. but you're still feminine. you're not sacrificing your as this this your womanly identity. and there were so many times from the stage anyone who got up to speak was introduced as by their and marital roles. you know how many children or grandchildren or how many who they waving to husbands in the

audience. so there was a very very clear message it is safe to be a war mom and to embrace language. we're going to walk you every step of the way. yes, i know that some areas have made laws where younger, younger than people like i think usually at 16 to 18 can vote specifically school board elections. and i was wondering you thought about that? well, i i run a school newspaper for children grade 3 to 8 who are constantly to get the right to vote. so i think one of the things two things. number one, i think kids are smarter than we give them credit for. and do believe there are many informed children. do some kids just want to play video games and not pay attention? absolutely. but guess what? some adults just want to play video games and not pay attention. so i don't i have great faith in children. and one of the things that i

think is damaging about this moment that we're in is that i think we are ruining the psychological space of school for children. i feel that children need to mistakes in school. they need to do dumb stuff. they need to, as i've said, be goth one year and prep the next. they need to be able to try out who they think they are or might with their peers and their teachers without lot of judgment. because i there is nothing more powerful than self-correction. we've all been there where we do something, we step a little over and we're like, oh, i'm not going to do that again. so i think we're taking that away because we are. we are. monae uttering or pretending to monitor children in a way that i think is going to be profoundly damaging to their development. right on.

i know we got to talk a little bit before something you said at the end. really stuck with me. is that sense of purpose. and i think for those of us who are involved this election became so much like so such a sense of purpose. and now that it's over, know a lot of us talk about like now that's what i want to talk like now what you know without that we were so in it and so involved and we don't still have that energy, but we don't exactly what to do with that anymore. and i think so. i mean, it is not over and kate reminded me of that when i interviewing her for a piece that i wrote a couple weeks ago. but i actually felt that like i was first mad because i finished book a while ago and i was like with the publishers guys, get this out there. but they wanted it to come out in 2024. and last thursday i was invited to speak to the house democratic in dc. so is that the and i was told that, you know, maybe a few people come and people wander in and out. the room is packed.

standing room only. nobody left. tons of questions. i was the one that had to leave because my school newspaper i was running was having a publication party. but what i realized at that moment was that there are there are a lot of people who need to hear the things that you all know and that and, and of the you know, one of the questions when the key point of emphasis was that these congresspeople wanted to know parental rights like because they last year a national bill did come up around, parental rights did not pass, but they were confused about whether or not parental rights meant supporting parents, which they absolutely wanted to do, or whether parental rights was a fake way of getting control of, you know, correct alarm. and what teachers are saying and what they're putting on their walls and one of the so there is a lot of confusion.

so excuse me the work is not done. and i did have a congresswoman come up to me afterwards from georgia who said, oh, i've been redistricted to gerrymander three different times. i'm concerned about reelection. and one of the points of emphasis when i was talking was that, you know, you guys have problems. moms are powerful. you need to know who they are. and likewise, moms, this this is this is the launch pad to all of your national ambitions. and i can tell you that one of the moms in the book is now running for her account commissioner. i ironically against, the former state legislator who in texas created the list of 850 books that were being wheeled of libraries. she's running him and i think that your work is not over. huge sense of purpose.

and you know what? you have authority and you know, things that people need to hear. okay, we've met earlier i'm both red, white and blue. one of the most important things i've learned far with red, white and blue is the difference between disinformation and misinformed nation. and are you saying that to be misinformation? is somebody you're not nefarious? they're just repeating something they heard and they got sucked into it, whereas disinformation is intended arsenal intended to give, you know, it's nefarious, it's intended to harm. and are you did you feel that between two moms for liberty conferences that the first time people were hearing and then spreading misinformation and then once they were fully indoctrinated, they jumped into the disinformation spread? i think that's a lovely way of framing it, because i did very

much feel like the first time this was all information, like people were, you know, very like, oh, wow, this is happening. by the time i got to philly. and i can tell you that the philly was a very different experience because. you know, everyone was, you know, you didn't have they didn't you didn't have to say anything. they were all on cue. and but interest only in tampa, there were a few protesters, an island across in the hotel and the moms for were different chapters were them on twitter by. the time we got to philly, we were told as registrants for the for liberty conference that we should not wear our lanyards on the street. so i was also i was doing this. i was doing a story for slate about the you know, about the summit and i was registered at the and at the hotel. so i found myself you know, with

my red blazer going up, changing into black t-shirt and jeans, going out, interviewing protesters, coming back, going up, changing back my red blazer and outfit in order to go back to the conference. and i mean the first day, the opening reception was the one of the, you know, historic american museums of american history. and it wasn't very far. i like to walk and exercise, so i was going to walk in there like, no, no, no. everyone will be on the busses and get off the bus. and there are police and guard because there were so many protesters. things happen. germany well, i can tell you that i was puzzled as to the choice of philly because i thought to myself you were choosing one of the most diverse welcoming cities to hold this

in, and you've picked a hotel in the neighborhood. yeah, it did not make sense to me. and then i was at the opening and tiny desk, which said was evoking patriots walking these streets. and i thought to myself, that is such a curious blind spot, but that is very easy to just pretend that we're still living in, you know, 1776 or so or, you know, and there's nothing wrong. i love history. i love american history. but we also have to pay attention to, you know, the pragmatic what who's here, who's in the room, who do we to educate, you know, who do we need to include, i.e., everyone? so, yes, it was a very curious difference. i wanted to go back to your comments how these policy issues, especially book banning, how it really affects the kids, their education and just last

night i saw the short documentary that's up for an academy award called the abcs of book banning. oh, my gosh, what impactful movie? you know, it's short. yeah, but they actually interviewed the children and young who were so well-spoken and, you know, they address why can't we learn about rosa parks? why, you know, why can't we learn about history? it was it was fascinating. so i wonder if you had any comments about that, about that particular movie, assuming seen it? i have not seen it. so that one of one of the people who is a moderator at one of the events was an old editor that i had ages ago when i was 24 years old, which is a long time ago. and and he had sent me that and i was, oh, my gosh, i want to see that. i just haven't had 2 seconds to watch it. but i've heard it is spectacular. and my i always one of the reasons i love my job, that i

love interviewing kids of all ages about things, it's why i run a school newspaper. i mean, we just put out a paper with opinion pieces in which we had one student writing about don't ask siri, ask ask, ask an adult, ask a parent, ask a friend. and he started off by saying, why do people ask siri where mcdonald's is? people just ask the person next you where mcdonald's is. everyone knows where it is. and another student wrote this beautiful thing about tick tock addiction and she was talking about how, you know, people can't can't put it down and my husband is one of those thing people who had to you know, he's a cancer center director, but he has a tick tock addiction. but he is now limiting himself. but kids are wise. and that was to my earlier point. we need to let them be wise. we need to give them voices to tell us the things that should be listening to. you know, they want to read. we don't want them to not read books. we want who is scared of books?

honestly, how does that happen. any other questions? yes. one word. how do you feel about. 2025 and what they're trying to do with that? with education? yeah, i mean, i mean, are we surprised? i mean, basically the far right has had the gift of moms and it's like, it's as if they have been trying to have this agenda. and now have people who are so organized and so ready that know. i mean, i mean project when to go to any of those websites and there are a whole, you know, marching orders and volumes and almanacs about to you know fight any number of things it it's it's very concerning and it's not and the thing that bothers

me to you know an earlier question it's i don't truly think that if the mom moms who are doing this deeply thought about and considered i'm not you know some of them maybe would have signed on, but i'm not sure all of them would have signed on. i think there's a lot of, you know, talk about brainwashing. you know, i think that there's a lot of deception to the far right using, women and moms traveling and life on a big believer in the younger generation being asked and and feeling motivated to make change so. wondering in your travels when you talk to kids what's their reaction what's going on the last of years. yeah well i mean one of the cool things is that we've seen, especially at the high school level, kids walking out in protest, you know, we saw that in virginia. in texas, i interviewed a group

of students who started that south like anti racist coalition, sarc and aligned with some part of some moms. there was a mom, durrant, who started love dragon to support lgbtq students in the district, and she a lot of heat for that when she ran school board she was called a groomer the parking lot and all of this but it was impactful for the students to feel that they had adults on their side. and i think that, you know, i was in the yale classroom yesterday and in a swarthmore classroom today, and somebody asked like, you know, will gen z, you know, different. and i said, i love gen z, gen z, our problem solvers. i said, i have two millennial daughters. i go to them for skin care and recipes.

i said, but it's the gen z kids. it's true. am i right? yes. okay. and all cool things that we need to know. and you know, they but but the gen z's to solve problems. and i think even the ones behind them want to solve problems. and i see that with the students i work with. i mean, i had the pleasure of meeting some of the students here in central bucks when i was here, and we went to the that great jules pizza and i'm the bravery and the intensity when you know when you're a student and adults are telling you you can't do certain things and you've been a good kid it's really hard defy that and yet we are seeing children and young adults have the courage to defy and to speak up. and i think the more that we can support them in doing that, the better off we are. but i also think need to protect them. we need to protect schs spaces where they can try stuff

out. okay, there are numerous questions. we'll go at front for the book signing. there are books available for purchase. but first let's give them a big hand. thank you.