Bias Busting–Know Your Disinformation Source: The “Independent” Women’s Forum
- Vanessa Hall
- 3 hours ago
- 8 min read
The Stealth Anti-Women’s Group that Despises Your Public Schools (and Possibly your Children)
Nowhere are disinformation campaigns more common than from Project 2025 groups like Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), an anti-feminist group that partners with other hate groups to conduct well-funded disinformation campaigns against: LGBTQIA rights, masks and school closures during COVID, food safety, gun control, global climate change, paid parental leave, and women’s rights.
It receives significant funding from far right individuals and organizations, including Leonard Leo, Koch, Scaife, Bradley Foundation, and Lambe Foundation. It has also received funding from Altria, Phillip Morris International, and vaping giant Juul. As Sourcewatch points out, “IWF has defended the vaping industry using Juul's own talking points” without disclosing its funding sources. In fac, IWF's Senior Policy Advisor Julie Gunlock (who also works for WMAL) has written opinion pieces, devoted podcasts, and testified before Congress in 2025 to "dispel myths" about e-cigarettes and Juul products, specifically.
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.
IWF Culture Warriors
The name “Independent Women” helps IWF and its sister organization (Independent Women’s Voice) fly under the radar, because who would suspect independent women–empowered, independent women–to support issues that harm children? As usual, dark money created another stealth moniker because “Independent Women” makes IWF sound like a feminist, woman-positive movement; rather than a movement that works against the Equal Rights Amendment, gun safety, public schools, unions, etc.
In a wildly ironic turn of events, IWF was spawned in 1991 by "Women for Judge Thomas," created to defend Clarence Thomas against allegations of sexual harassment and other improprieties, while casting the victimized Anita Hill as an angry, lying, Black woman, during Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination.
More recently, IWF has helped foment culture wars and fund right-wing candidates and in 2021 IWF and IWV created the ToxicSchools.org website to target Virginia schools in advance of the 2021 gubernatorial election. Since then, IWF employees, including IWF president Carrie Lukas, Julie Gunlock on WMAL, and others have been laser-focused on Fairfax County Schools, so it is no surprise that the Daily Signal opinion piece by IWF’s IWN Chapter Lead Stephanie Lundquist-Arora is targeting FCPS for the more than one hundredth time in the last three years.
In 2022, in front of the School Board, IWF President Lukas stated, “It’s time for Virginia to give parents like me the ability to just leave this school system.” Of course with her six-figure IWF salary, one would think she could afford to leave FCPS if that was what she really wanted.
IWF’s War on Public Schools: School Choice Week
In 2022 IWF launched the Education Freedom Center (IWF-EFC) with the primary goal to advance School Choice, or as True North Research states, IWF-EFC “is used to peddle the majority of IWF’s anti-public school, pro-school privatization content.” Of course, this includes privatizing public funds to be used by private groups with little to no oversight, accountability, or track record. IWF-EFC has received grants from the notorious Donors Trust.
Initially, IWF-EFC was led by Ginny Gentles, lobbyist and former IWF president, who was also a senior political appointee in the U.S. Department of Education under President George W. Bush. Formerly, she both led Florida's school privatization programs and formed her own school privatization consulting firm, so no conflict of interest there….
Much of their website leverages culture war fearmongering about CRT, trans kids, and indoctrination to discourage public education with little facts or expertise. Gentles hosts a “Students over Systems” podcast for IWF-EFC. She also hosts events on Capitol Hill to “educate” lawmakers on how to reduce power of school districts, and tries to influence lawmakers, including handing out nifty awards.
Since 2023, they have hosted National Choice Week events, advertised on WMAL, where IWN Chapter representatives like Stephanie Lundquist-Arora and Harry Jackson (see right) would “stand up” for school choice while sending their kids to public school.
Lundquist-Arora and Jackson collaborated on many actions in 2022 and 2023, most notably the Shadow Board Youtube videos funded by unknown sources where they mocked an autistic student, ridiculed parent speakers, misrepresented school policies, and endorsed IWF/IWN to their double digit viewers. Lundquist-Arora supported Jacksons failed 2023 Fairfax County School Board campaign 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.).
Web of Paid Parents and Dark Money
What was initially confusing was the timing of this recent hit-piece by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora: why go all out on March 2nd when school choice week is typically held the last week of January? Well, this year, due to inclement weather, school choice week was rescheduled for March 7th with special guest Winsome Sears, Virginia’s unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate. Of course, the timing and amplification of her commentary had nothing to do with the event emceed by Larry O’Connor, an IWF regular whose morning WMAL show has two IWF cohosts, at the Leadership Institute, an organization that trains conservative activists.
Before going much further, it is necessary to share the web of organizations that work together to create news and disseminate propaganda. As in March 2025 when Project 2025 groups decided to attack a Women’s History display created by students at West Springfield High School in Fairfax County, the same actors are involved in this disinformation piece. In short:
March 2, Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, a IWF (a tax-free anti-feminist charity with over $7 million 2023 revenue) employee, wrote (yet) another opinion piece that targeted the FCPS. It was published in The Daily Signal, run by the Heritage Foundation (a.k.a., author of Project 2025), a tax-free charity with over $100 million 2023 revenue.
March 3, WMAL advertised the Education Choice event.
March 3, Real Clear Politics republished Lundquist-Arora’s commentary, along with other pro-privatization media. Real Clear Politics, was once a trusted source, but has aligned itself with President Trump and “rag[es] against the left.”
March 4, EdReformVA, a “school choice” group (tax free charity with unknown revenue) run by Nathan Brinkman and former IWF President Ginny Gentles, and likely extension of IWF, amplified Lundquist-Arora’s opinion piece. See more about them below.
On March 4, Fairfax GOP republished Lundquist-Arora’s commentary, almost as if it was written for them.
March 7, the Education “Freedom” event was held at the Leadership Institute with Winsome Sears and O’Connor. On March 7, EdReformVA held an open house event for Fairfax County Republicans in Arlington at the Leadership Institute with speakers Larry O’Connor and Winsome Sears and a lovely barbeque for the 100 or so attendees. Lundquist-Arora was there with a table to hand out IWN Fairfax Chapter literature; however, it is unknown whether this chapter has more than one active member.
Brinkman’s EdReformVA seems little more than a pass-through organization for IWF-EFC that began in 2021, but without financials, it is hard to be sure. It also runs EdNews Virginia, a Twitter handle that reposts IWF opinions and a website that aggregates school privatization ‘’news.”
However, EdReform Virginia’s board is a who’s who of far right politicos, PACs, and anti-public school culture warriors: from its Executive Director Nathan Brinkman who is a communications coordinator at ALEC (a “corporate bill mill”) and has earned more than $160,000 from the Fairfax County GOP, to one of its most powerful trustees, Ginny Gentles, the former IWF and IWV President, who is a lobbyist for American Federation for Children (AFC) which promotes school privatization.
Gentles is also the current Education Freedom and Parental Rights Director at the Defense of Freedom Institute, and works directly with the U.S. Department of Education to host events on the Hill. In fact, On January 29, Gentles held school choice events, a briefing, and award ceremony in the Capitol building for hill staff and with the Secretary of Education.
Fake Grassroots Events for Paid Astroturf Operatives
All in all, these were fake grassroots (i.e., astroturf) events held by paid political operatives, who work together on a regular basis, to disrupt and harm the reputation of our schools. These astroturf groups and their surrogates do this with minimal transparency and absolutely no accountability to the parents of FCPS students. And yet, they are successful in pushing legislation through their movement that works to tear down our public schools. And right now, they have a direct line to the U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon.
They use flashy events and opinion pieces to encourage like-minded conservatives to be the mouthpieces for the movement. For example, Lundquist-Arora has written over 100 negative opinion pieces about LGBTQIA and immigrant students, parents, teachers, administrators, school board, and the superintendent of FCPS.
These opinion pieces rarely include sources, but as Marianne Burke points out in her associated analysis, IWF-driven opinions often use common disinformation tactics like cherry-picking data and gas-lighting. Each opinion piece by Lundquist-Arora seeks to persuade the reader that FCPS is failing in a myriad of ways; however, if she really thinks that FCPS is that terrible, why does she keep her three children in "unraveling" schools? If she is so worried about the “alphabet mafia,” indoctrination, “failing” scores, immigrants, masks, and equity why does she send her kids to FCPS day after day? Or, does she stick with FCPS to continue to have content for writing gigs on behalf of the IWF school privatization agenda?
One can't help but wonder: if this is what she says in public, what is she saying in private to her school administrators and teachers? How much time are her kids' schools spending dealing with her and her complaints or IWF research projects? Ultimately, if Fairfax County taxpayers are in any way supporting paid operative activities, including lawsuits, is that a good use of taxpayer funds? Someone should FOIA that kind of information, because there are a lot of paid operatives in Northern Virginia.
Additionally, why are these far right media sources so opaque about who Lundquist-Arora is and who she works for? Lundquist-Arora has been involved in at least two Project 2025 lawsuits against FCPS (COVID masking with IWF President Lukas and about misgendering students, represented by America First Legal), been a controversial Fairfax GOP School Board candidate, and worked with Sebastian Gorka, House Freedom Caucus, and Lauren Broebert. Yet, she is regularly quoted merely as a “concerned parent” or a "IWN Chapter Lead" on Fox News, NewsMax, and Fairfax Times? It seems like common sense that one is more than just a “parent” if one is paid for one's input or role, especially when one's role is more mouthpiece or agitator than parent.
Finally, it is concerning that neither she nor IWF, or other Project 2025 groups, are accountable to the parents and taxpayers of FCPS, most of whom are unaware of their pro-privatization, anti-public school parent agenda. Thankfully, more and more parents are questioning IWF's and Lundquist-Arora’s scathing criticisms of the school district where they send their kids.
On the other hand, here at 4 Public Education, we are grassroots parents, teachers, grandparents, and citizens. We are NOT paid, and we decide what we will write, say, and do. Although our goals may align with other groups, most notably civil rights groups, we are guided by the belief that quality public schools are the right of the families in the community.
We are honest about our agenda and we say it with our whole chest: We support public schools!
Please find companion pieces here by Marianne Burke and Vanessa Hall.
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