Project 2025 and IWF, Don’t Censor Our Students!
Project 2025 Tries to Silence Fairfax Schools (Part I)
March is Women’s History month, an opportunity to celebrate the successes and setbacks of women in our country. Schools, news media, and businesses have created displays and special events to acknowledge women’s contributions and their continued challenges. In a year when the President has declared women in the workplace to be unqualified “DEI hires,” it is nice to see women and the world celebrating women.
Except at West Springfield High School (HS) where a self proclaimed “boy mom,” who dismisses concerns about toxic masculinity, found a Women’s History display to be “highly inappropriate,” “leftist” propaganda that she likened to kindergarten work. Because she is one of the ever-changing horde of paid ultra-right activists in Northern Virginia, Stephanie Lundquist-Arora’s anti-free speech opinions were published by national media sources like the Daily Signal and the Ingraham Angle.
West Springfield HS students, particularly those associated with the Women’s History class, were frustrated and alarmed by Lundquist-Arora’s opinion piece. They were disturbed that Lundquist-Arora tried to link their thoughtful Women's History Month display with supposed “plummeting standardized test scores” and replacement conspiracy theory gibberish.
More importantly, it was clear to students that Lundquist-Arora’s opinion piece was an adult effort to silence them. Likely, their parents are unhappy at another parent trying to control their childrens’ free speech and curriculum, as well.
Lundquist-Arora is known for dozens of opinion pieces critical of FCPS, Superintendent Dr. Reid, Fairfax School Board members, schools her children attend, schools her children don’t attend, LGBTQIA+ rights, immigrants, etc. Typically, these opinion pieces are long on opinion and short on facts, yet they are published and amplified like clockwork by far right media, extremist groups, and the Fairfax GOP.
Unsurprisingly, Lundquist-Arora is known for multiple complaints about teachers, multiple lawsuits against FCPS, dropping out of a School Board race after mocking an autistic student, campaigning for a school board candidate with a known history of spousal abuse, advocating against LGBTQIA+ and immigrant rights, etc. But few know about her association with Project 2025.
The far right media outrage and coverage of Lundquist-Arora’s reactive views about the West Springfield student women's history display has been far from organic. In fact, it was entirely coordinated by Project 2025ers:
The Daily Signal, run by the Heritage Foundation, a tax-free charity with over $100 million 2023 revenue, published the initial opinion piece. (March 16)
Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, who works for Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) a tax-free anti-feminist charity with over $7 million 2023 revenue, wrote the Daily Signal opinion piece that targeted the Women’s History students’ hall display.
Laura Ingraham, a former IWF spokesperson and Justice Clarence Thomas law clerk, interviewed Lundquist-Arora on her show, the Ingraham Angle. (March 17)
Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending Education (regular attendees of IWF galas and known SPLC extremist groups) condemned the West Springfield HS student display in The Daily Signal, calling it “lunacy” and “regressive for women.” Neither spokesperson lives in the FCPS school district. (March 18)
EdReformVA, a “school choice” group and likely extension of IWF, also amplified Lundquist-Arora’s opinion piece. It is run by Nathan Brinkman whose Brinkman Media made over $84 thousand from the Fairfax GOP in 2022, with IWF Senior Fellow Ginny Gentles as a trustee. (March 19)
Chaya Raichek, IWF’s 2023 Resilience award winner, used her large and threatening Twitter/X platform via @LibsofTikTok to amplify Lundquist-Arora’s opinion piece. (March 19)
Carrie Lukas (President of IWF), Julie Gunlock (Program Manager of IWF and co-host on WMAL’s Larry O’Connor show), and their employer (IWF) further amplified co-worker Lundquist-Arora’s opinion piece on twitter, while “helpfully” providing West Springfield HS’s phone number for complaints. (March 19)
As of today, it just hit the Fairfax GOP social media to generate anger and disinformation to its base. The comments involve rants about "indoctrination of students" and the need to defund FCPS or homeschool.
But before discussing the dark money operatives further, this blog must focus on the students, because education advocacy should always be student focused. Please see Part II (coming soon) to learn more about the Project 2025 operatives targeting FCPS students.
Thoughtful Women's History Display by Students
For the month of March, young women in the elective Women’s History class created a display “celebrating and bringing awareness to what it means to be a young woman today at West Springfield High School and in the world.” They created A-Z artwork to represent full range of the experience of girls and women, including that they:
Are hopeful, independent, nurturing, qualified, triumphant, unique, and worthy.
Are leaders like Carol Mosely Braun, Kamala Harris, and Rosa Parks.
Can be athletes, dancers, educators, housewives, musicians, Olympians, queer, and scientists.
Have to suffer and work to overcome body image, catcalling, injustice, mansplaining, objectification, persecution, and the wage gap.
The display showed that students know their opportunities should be limitless and that they hope to be triumphant over challenges placed in their path. The full display avoided politics, but focused on the experience of women.
In truth, their full display challenges Project 2025’s intent to subjugate women through rolling back civil rights protections. Project 2025 wants to remove women from the workplace and leadership, police women’s bodies, penalize unmarried women, legalize sex discrimination, keep women and their children in poverty, penalize women who are not white and/or not cisgender heterosexuals. As such, it is understandable that Women’s History class students would create a slightly provocative display to provoke discussion, deep thought, and action. Most caregivers would applaud this display, but not Lundquist-Arora and her Project 2025 buddies.
Women’s History is often excluded from history books. A 2024 study of 1,255 English language textbooks revealed continuing under-representation and stereotypical language use in high school texts. Recently, the Trump Administration has taken to erase what he considers “DEI” from the Arlington National Cemetery website, thus erasing the history of Black and women veterans like Former United States Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell and U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Bea Arthur. Thus, the celebration of Women's History Month feels very relevant even in 2025.
A is for Attack
The picture which apparently incited Lundquist-Arora and far right media was called “A is for Abortion.” In truth, abortion may be debated as a political issue concerning legal rights; however, abortion is a fact and a right for women–one in four American women have an abortion by the age of 45. Ironically, Lundquist-Arora’s employer has a long history of undermining contraception access despite campaigns during the last election cycles to convince young women voters otherwise. Additionally, as a member of Project 2025, IWF has signed on to support “abortion surveillance” and undermine contraception access. These are odd choices for a supposedly non-political, charitable organization with tax-free status.
Over concern that the display would “alienate male students,” Lundquist-Arora appeared on the Laura Ingraham Angle to advocate for censorship of the women’s history display and applaud a male student who ripped down part of the display, even though that action was likely violation of the Students Rights and Responsibilities (SR&R) handbook. Not only that, but it is odd that a parent would support violence over discussion in school…against women.
Lundquist-Arora made dismissive comments about the Women’s History students, questioning “how could students come up with it”? Does she not know how young women in FCPS came up with such a dynamic display? Young women are smart and capable. They are independent thinkers who follow current events and frequently think about how those events impact their lives.
Perhaps, she doesn’t know many students outside of her own family? Most adults find that Fairfax County students are incredibly smart, capable, and creative. Likely, the parents of the young women who created the display have a very different view from Lundquist-Arora; however, their voices will not be heard because Project 2025 has the microphone.
On the Ingraham Angle, both Lundquist-Arora and Ingraham were indignant that the young, female West Springfield students would dare to admire the leadership of Democrats, including the revered former first lady, groundbreaking former presidential candidate, and a dynamic U.S. representative. Neither mentioned Lundquist-Arora’s recent quote supporting toxic masculinity in a Fox opinion piece from February, which seems awfully pertinent to her interest in eradicating a Women’s History display.
The fact that this Women’s History Month display was created by students in compliance with school guidelines and SR&R did not dissuade Lundquist-Arora from heaping disdain on their hard work, thoughtful presentation, and creativity. It’s as if she does not support the students’ efforts to bring “awareness to what it means to be a young woman today,” despite the fact that women’s voices are frequently silenced in the school and board room.
Most agree that young women's hopes and dreams should be cultivated so that they can reach their full potential. Instead IWF, a so-called “women's organization,” has tried to silence young women's voices at West Springfield HS.
Impact on Students’ Rights
Of course, students know that they and their school are the intended targets of the Lundquist-Arora’s “anti-woke” Daily Signal and Ingraham Angle pieces. The two media pieces and further amplification by other far right outlets intend to silence the young women of West Springfield HS, misrepresent their school, and possibly encourage the school to capitulate to outside force demands and take down the display in order to “protect students.” When in truth, the display and students are fine, it is the outside paid agitators causing the problems.
The intense disinformation campaign by Project 2025ers will bring unwarranted and unwanted attention to the West Springfield HS community. Multiple disinformation campaigns like this have played out over the last five years (e.g., the Commended Certificates “crisis” in 2023 by another IWF employee) so it is expected that there will be lots of angry messages (and possible threats) sent to West Springfield HS, some of which may reach students.
The students perceive this media hype and interference by a grumpy mom to be an assault on student free speech. Students know that their free speech does not end at the schoolhouse door, and they will not take this silently. (Please take a moment to applaud their tenacity and bravery.)
Since most high school students are knowledgeable of their rights and have mastered critical thinking skills at FCPS, it would be hard to “indoctrinate” them via colorful hallway displays. Thus, it is weird that Lundquist-Arora thinks that passing by a student display will upend years of her parenting, much less her publicized efforts to teach her children “how to be men.” Concerning to many is how often she is using her children to pursue a paycheck, as she shared that her West Springfield HS son took the photos of the Women’s History display. Did he do this of his own accord or at his mother’s urging for more material?
On the other hand, since Lundquist-Arora does not have a child in the West Springfield HS Women’s History class, yet she is exerting the power of Project 2025 over the Women’s History curriculum and class expression. All students, teachers, and families should be concerned about her increasing reach via Project 2025’s network. How much can one parent interfere in the education of other people’s children before enough is enough?
How much interference by Project 2025 operatives should Fairfax County Public Schools need to withstand, especially when each lawsuit, investigation, and complaint from them takes valuable time and money from the education of Fairfax County’s 180,000 other students? 4 Public Education has shown that political attacks on FCPS cost significant amounts of money. For example, there were $1.64 million in outside FCPS legal costs associated with IWF reporting on the manufactured “Commended Certificate Crisis” of 2023, which doesn’t even cover the disruption of education and threats against staff that resulted from the repeated accusations by an IWF employee and amplification by Project 2025’s network.
Ironically, Project 2025’s plan has backfired! More students are walking down the hall to view the supposedly controversial, but definitely inspirational Women’s History display. Now, that is something to celebrate!
If you would like to learn more about the forces behind this effort to target and censor Fairfax County students, please read Part II: Project 2025 Meets West Springfield High School coming soon.
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