Project 2025: G is for Gaslight

Reproduction of the West Springfield Women's History Display, "G is for Gaslight."

Project 2025 Attacks West Springfield High School (Part II)

Women’s History Month is over, but the effect of Project 2025’s attacks on Fairfax County Public Schools are still ringing through the halls of one local high school. West Springfield High School (HS) became the center of far right enraged attention after a self proclaimed “boy mom” found a students’ Women’s History display to be “highly inappropriate,” “leftist” propaganda and her views were amplified quickly across far right, dark money media from the Daily Signal to Ingraham Angle to Fox News. Learn more about this in Part 1: Project 2025 and IWF, Don’t Censor Our Students.

The Women’s History Display was taken down one week after Stephanie Lundquist-Arora published her opinion piece attacking the girl students who created the unique, thought-provoking display. Was it taken down because boys were repeatedly tearing down the display? Was it removed because Project 2025’s disinformation campaign was interfering with education at West Springfield HS? Or, was it because Women’s History Month was coming to an end? 

The truth is likely somewhere among those possibilities. Nonetheless, the display is now empty, girls have been silenced and threatened by Project 2025 activities, and FCPS had to spend more money and time on culture wars started by paid operatives in our schools. 

The Project 2025 disinformation campaign attacked students, their free speech, their teacher, and their school. Ultimately West Springfield HS girls were silenced when their display was taken down, while Lundquist-Arora and her coworkers at Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) were invited to the White House to witness the signing of Trump’s Executive Order to dissolve the U.S. Department of Education. Of course, eliminating an entire agency would still require full approval of congress. 

“I am honored to be attending this historic event at the White House to witness President Trump sign the executive order to direct the elimination of the Department of Education.” –Lundquist-Arora

At West Springfield, there was violence as boys repeatedly ripped down the girls' Women’s History display following the Project 2025 media onslaught. Meanwhile Project 2025’s mouthpiece, Lundquist-Arora, seemed to celebrate this violence on the Larry O’Connor show on WMAL where she showed greater empathy for boys violently ripping down the display than she did for the West Springfield HS girls whose work was being destroyed. In fact, Lundquist-Arora, O’Connor, and Julie Gunlock all seemed to think that the school counseling these boys who broke the rules was akin to telling an assault victim that their “skirt was too short.” Astonishing.

Imagine how unsafe that made girls at West Springfield High School feel. Imagine other vulnerable communities who feared they could be next. 

For those who do not know O’Connor and Gunlock, here are their affiliations with Project 2025’s IWF:

• O’Connor is the host of a radio show on WMAL which seems to run on disinformation and political grievances, and platforms to far right operatives, candidates, and elected officials. O’Connor is a regular at CPAC and host of Republican events. Two days after the January 6th violent insurrection on the nation’s capital, he stated his view that there was “widespread fraud” in the election. He gave the 2023 IWF Resilience Award to the queen of stochastic terrorism, Chaya Raichick who runs the Libs of Tiktok. Her tweets have been linked to threats against individuals, as well as bomb threats, and even attacks againstFCPS teachers. In 2024, Raichick was added to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) hate watchlist.

• Gunlock is one of two IWF co hosts added in 2022 to the O’Connor and Company show on WMAL. She is program manager of IWF and director of Independent Women’s Network (IWN), a paid nationwide network for conservative women founded in 2021. She hosts the IWF Bespoke Parenting Podcast, and has even interviewed O’Connor to discuss how to “raise patriotic kids.” She uses the r-word. She is one of many “right-wing media figures [who] immediately claimed the student protesters were exploited” after nationwide walkouts one month after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, when hundreds of thousands of students walked out of their classrooms for 17 minutes, demanding stronger gun safety laws. (Note: Gunlock has falsely accused the author of abusing her own children and being a “complete mental case.” )

Because of Project 2025’s stochastic terrorism and media megaphone, students were deprived of their civil rights because of threats and disruption wrought by Project 2025 operatives. Student rights do not end at the schoolhouse door, but Project 2025’s influence should.

By the way, the total 2023 revenues of the dark money Project 2025 groups and affiliates who attacked the West Springfield HS Women's History students are $113 million (tax-free).

To learn more about how Project 2025’s IWF and their operatives are attacking free speech, read on.

Is this Advocacy or Terrorism? 

The technique described above used by the Project 2025 groups is called “stochastic terrorism” which is “political violence instigated by hostile public rhetoric directed at a group or an individual.” Often the rhetoric involves dog whistles or codes in order to grant “the instigator plausible deniability for any associated violence.” They use dehumanization, disinformation, fear, hate, and conspiracies to incite violence through “ideologically driven hate speech [which] increases the likelihood that people will violently and unpredictably attack the targets of vicious claims.” 

Scientific American provides many examples of this, including: 1) the Qanon Pizzagate conspiracy theory that Democratic leaders, including a former first lady, were running a child trafficking ring out of a Washington, DC pizza restaurant basement when Comet Ping Pong, the pizza parlor in question, didn’t even have a basement, and 2) Chris Rufo who has repeatedly stated that drag queen story times were intended to sexualize children. Pizzagate led to threats against democrats and a man traveling from North Carolina to open fire at Comet Ping Pong. Rufo’s grooming accusations have led to violence at drag shows and library events.

Mother Jones uses Donald Trump’s rhetoric as a prime example of stochastic terrorism in action where he encourages political violence against those he dislikes by “pinning a bull’s-eye on the back of an opponent in a volatile situation—perhaps suggesting the world would be safer without this supposed threat—knowing this could lead to violence against that target. It’s indirect incitement, inspiring someone else to do the dirty work.” 

In 2022, Axios compiled a list of Trump statements encouraging violence: by police when handling suspects, shooting migrants in the legs to slow them down, and using the military to quell peaceful protests. ABC News, Vox, and the New York Times have similar lists. Essentially, Trump has avoided consequences for his speech because he is not the one lighting the match, but he has been pouring gasoline for those who intend to start a fire. 

Who is IWF?

IWF’s funding is murky, but their far right politics are clearly political, despite their classification as a 501(c)(3), tax deductible charity. The tax code restricts organizations from qualifying as a tax deductible charity if they “directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.” The Heritage Foundation has been reported for violations of its 501(c)(3) status.

IWF has been identified as anti-feminist due to their advocacy against women’s rights and issues, including on their stances on the subjects of contraception, abortion, women’s sports, transgender women, domestic violence, violence against women, government funded healthcare, sexual harassment, income equality, gun control, chemical regulation, etc.

A 2013 New York Times editorial described the IWF as "a right-wing public policy group that provides pseudo feminist support for extreme positions that are in fact dangerous to women."

Of course, IWF is well-funded by some of the same dark money that funds other Project 2025 advisory board members like the Heritage Foundation and America First Legal. The latter of which is bankrolling Lundquist-Arora’s lawsuit against FCPS for the ability to deadname and misgender other FCPS students. 

Ms. Magazine notes that “IWF/V has received money from the Koch network, Leonard Leo’s network and funds from secretive donor-advised funds, like the Bradley Impact Fund, the National Christian Charitable Foundation and DonorsTrust.” In Fiscal Year 2023, IWF received at least $439,000 from Donors Trust and $175,000 from the Bradley Foundation.

In 2023, IWF had $7.1 million in revenues and spent over $2.5 million on salaries and wages above and beyond their leaders’ salaries ($245,951 for President Carrie Lukas and $116,403 for Executive Vice President Amber Schwartz). This means that their scholars and spokeswomen earned an average of about $60,000, up to $100,000 in compensation in 2023. 

IWF is a known signatory of Project 2025 whose alliances and goals mirror those of known SPLC hate groups like Parents Defending Education (PDE) and Moms for Liberty. In some cases, they even shared employees, executives, and board members. 

Local Coalition for TJ parents, Harry Jackson and Asra Nomani, were employed by PDE until their “antics” in 2022 (Nomani’s meltdown at the school board and Jackson’s online mocking of an autistic student) led them to be fired by PDE and hired by IWF. Similarly, current leaders of PDE and Moms for Liberty are directly connected to IWF and the Heritage Foundation as employees and frequent collaborators.

Project 2025’s Mom/Messenger

It is not often that just any mom gets the kind amplification that Lundquist-Arora has enjoyed. Most parents have opinions, but rarely are any listened to by the media, much less do any parents have a red carpet rolled out for half-baked political ideas. 

Click here for Part 1

Well, this is not just any mom, Lundquist-Arora is one mom among a network of moms on contract with a Project 2025 group, IWF, whose opinions were posted in the Daily Signal, which is produced by none other than Project 2025’s Heritage Foundation. IWF is a tax-free anti-feminist charity with over $7 million 2023 revenue, and the Heritage Foundation, a tax-free charity with over $100 million 2023 revenue! (Learn more about the other groups involved here.)

Never mind that both of these groups have tax-free designations and millions at their disposal from dark money donors like Koch Foundation, Bradley Foundation, Devos family, Adolph Coors, and Donors Trust. 

It is unknown how much a IWN Fairfax Chapter Lead like Lundquist-Arora makes or how she fulfills IWF’s stated goal of “improving communities and our country” by writing media pieces for the Daily Signal and appearing on the Laura Ingraham Angle to attack the hard work of young women at West Springfield HS. It is also unknown how many actual members besides her are in the Fairfax chapter.

Funding for IWN activities falls under IWF, per their tax forms, but it is entirely possible that Lundquist-Arora also receives payment from other associated organizations. This is common, for example in Lundquist-Arora’s most recent lawsuit against FCPS, her lawyer (Ian Prior) was compensated handsomely (nearly $400,000) by both America First Legal and Citizens for Sanity in FY 2023.

However, it is known that Lundquist-Arora and her children, along with a host of other IWF employees, were invited to witness President Trump signing the Executive Order to abolish the U.S. ED. While nearly all parents, educators, and school districts decried the move to abolish the U.S. ED. IWF refers to removing 45 years of centralized oversight of the nation’s schools as “The Beginning of The End of An Error.”

Locally, Lundquist-Arora has been busy over the last three years, popping up publicly in 2022 when in she hosted a July rally for GOP candidates with special guest Sebastian Gorka (known America First provocateur, podcaster, Trump advisor, and anti-trans activist) where she advocated for the right to bully trans students because she felt that the anti-bullying language in the SR&R was “compelled speech.” Lundquist-Arora is currently involved in the America First legal lawsuit against FCPS on that subject and the issue of excluding transgender and non-binary students from FCPS rest rooms, and she has written numerous anti-trans opinion pieces, some of which criticize FCPS for refusing to comply with Youngkins anti-trans model policies. In fact, she asked Youngkin to fine school districts like FCPS for failure to comply.

In 2022, she, Harry Jackson, and Jeff Hoffmann (all 2023 Fairfax County school board candidates) openly mocked a talented autistic musician at a School Board meeting. She dropped out of the 2023 school board race, but proceeded to regularly campaign with/for Jackson even after astonishing revelations about him in local media (e.g., history of spousal abuse, known association with Christian Nationalist Groypers, vicious attacks on local parents, sending controversial mailers to homes depicting sex acts, etc.).

In the last two years, she has written dozens of opinion pieces for the Washington Examiner, The Federalist, and Fairfax County Times. Unsurprisingly, most of those media sites coordinate with and/or are funded by Project 2025 and their funders. For example, The Federalist, is a conservative online magazine known to publish pseudoscience. Although it has been cagey about its funders, the New York Times has identified one funder as Dick Uihlein, a long-time source of dark money for nonprofits like IWF, the Heritage Foundation, and support for far-right candidates. The New York Times also identified that Conservative Partnership Institute provides funding to the Federalist, as well. It doesn’t take much review of any of these media sites to know who and what they politically support. (Hint: MAGA and support for the radical far right agenda.)

Of course Lundquist-Arora has the right to write whatever she wants and to say whatever she wants on the myriad of interviews on WMAL, Fox News, Ingraham Angle, and NewsMax. However, Lundquist-Arora’s opinion matters about as much as any parent’s opinion, which means that it does matter, but only as much as one voice in an entire community of hundreds of thousands of voices. However, if someone is advocating to violate the free speech rights of other students and families, every parent in FCPS should be concerned, particularly when that person has been handed a large platform by her employers. 

Project 2025 Gaslighting Free Speech

One panel of the students’ Women’s History display was “G is for Gaslight,” something far too many women experience at work, at home, and in the community. Ironically, Lundquist-Arora was guilty of gaslighting when she redefined mansplaining as a “derogatory term to indicate when men try to explain things to women.” Weird.

Why redefine a word that has inspired countless memes and charts, and when every woman, whether she has a PhD or is a high school student, has experienced a man with far less knowledge than her condescendingly explaining something to her? To gaslight us all, of course.

Oddly, Lundquist-Arora frequently advocates for free speech absolutism, which seems to be a component of her lawsuit against FCPS for supposed “compelled speech” regarding dead-naming and using anti-trans slurs against transgender students. Does she find it a bridge too far when young women are expressing honest fears and concerns about womanhood? 

Lundquist-Arora’s attempts to gaslight her audience to think it is acceptable to curb young women’s free speech is astonishing, considering her long history (and lawsuits!) advocating for free speech.

Where is the author who wrote an “An ode to the comedians who fight for free speech” this past January? Or do free speech protections only apply to comedians who have been lambasted for cruel jokes at the expense of transgender people? Do students and young women not have the right of free speech? Or, must they suffer the consequences when paid activists use them as a punching bag for far right messaging?

Where is the author who asked in 2022 “Why can’t we all get along?” Does Lundquist-Arora not really want to “live a peaceful life free of discord” while opposing “bullying”? It is a wonder because her constant conflict at her sons’ schools and attacks on the Women’s History students at West Springfield HS, seem to suggest otherwise. Using platforms provided by Project 2025 to attack the hard work of young high school women would fall under the definition of bullying, which is to “seek to harm, intimidate, or coerce (someone perceived as vulnerable).”

Where is the author who complained about school codes of conduct that enable students and staff to anonymously report violations of civil rights? Does she dislike civil rights or anonymity? If Lundquist-Arora was so concerned that a “tattling line” would end K-12 student speech, why does she suddenly find it acceptable to “prohibit not only free speech but free thought” for high school girls? In her own words, why is the author and IWF “spending its resources monitoring our children to shape them ideologically”? What is IWF’s purpose? Stochastic terrorism? Indoctrination of future students?

Unfortunately, Lundquist-Arora's anti-feminist musings were shared in the Daily Signal and on the Laura Ingraham Angle. It is truly odd that the Daily Signal, known for “free speech absolutism” ran this obvious attempt to intimidate students and silence their free speech and creative expression. However, once one realizes that Project 2025’s Heritage Foundation runs the Daily Signal, it makes more sense that it would run Lundquist-Arora’s opinion piece targeting young women’s free speech. On the other hand, this is not the first time that Ingraham has celebrated “free speech for we” but not for “thee” when it comes to non-right-wing speech. She is known to support free speech only if it is her kind of speech, so it is unsurprising that she would support the suppression of student free speech while amplifying the free speech of an IWF employee. 

Source: Fox News

Ironically, Lundquist-Arora is the same mom who dismissed concerns about toxic masculinity in a recent Fox News opinion piece. One can’t help but wonder if she considers women’s rights to be bad and toxic men to be good? She sounds a bit like a modern day Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative activist, commentator, and author, who successfully campaigned against the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s.

Which students have the right to speak in Lundquist-Arora’s opinion? Does she think that female students do not have the right to share non-political speech in schools? Does she believe that “discomfort” should squash free speech while at the same time suing the schools about “compelled speech” that violates the civil rights of another student? Does she believe that when boys want to exercise their rights, their rights should supersede anyone else’s rights? Does she believe boys are allowed to resort to violence because they cannot control their emotions?

Lundquist-Arora should not be in control of picking and choosing which students “deserve” to be heard, because “Public schools are for everyone.” Not just boys. Not just girls. Not just cisgender people. PUBLIC. SCHOOLS. ARE. FOR. EVERYONE.

Her employers have put a target on the back of public education; however, FCPS, is the only school district targeted for elimination by the architect of Project 2025, Kevin Roberts (President of Heritage Foundation) in his recent book. Thus, we must be vigilant and raise our hundreds of thousands of parent and guardian voices to advocate for the civil rights of our students in FCPS and beyond.