Unwanted Endorsement Spotlights Anti-Queer Group on Fringes of New Jersey Politics
Running for school board, a candidate is mysteriously endorsed by an anti-LGBTQ+ group.
by Mira Lazine
Matthew Schneider announced his candidacy for the Jersey City, N.J., school board last summer on a platform of fiscal transparency and accountability. An unaffiliated candidate with a background in management and engineering, he had never run for public office before and his campaign was low key. He made few public appearances, instead relying heavily on his many connections as a community volunteer.
And yet this fall he found his candidacy caught up in a swirl of controversy: the endorsement of a statewide group known for its anti-LGBTQ+ positions. It was an endorsement he never sought and did not want.
The episode sheds some light on the group, the New Jersey Project, which has operated on the fringes of New Jersey politics for several years, claiming thousands of supporters and dozens of electoral victories.
The group has taken unabashedly anti-LGBTQ+ positions, pushing the debunked “social contagion” theory, which posits that children are becoming trans out of a trend, and urging use of conversion therapy, a widely discredited process outlawed in many states. They have advocated for book bans in public schools and the forced outing of queer kids, opposed anti-discrimination measures in schools, and pushed the idea that transgender women are no more than fetishists.
None of which are positions shared by Schneider, who caught wind of the group’s backing only when a statewide list of its endorsed candidates began circulating online.
Schneider, who ultimately won a seat on the school board, was quick to push back, writing in an undated public statement that he was “added to their list without my knowledge or authorization,” and that he does “firmly disavow any association with the New Jersey Project or its values.”
“I stand in unwavering support of the LGBTQIA+ community, and I am committed to ensuring that every student has access to a safe, inclusive learning environment where they can thrive without fear of discrimination or harm,” he said in his statement.
The New Jersey Project maintains a minimal public website, describing its founders as moms frustrated by “the tyranny their children were subjected to by the state.” But most of its activities appear to be coordinated through a private Facebook group known as “NJ Schools,” which had previously campaigned against mask policies during the height of the Covid pandemic. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated it as an anti-government group.
The group’s endorsement process appears to be unusual. Rather than talking to candidates and evaluating their positions, the group crowdsources suggestions for endorsements from its private Facebook group, which counts 14,500 members.
Its 2024 endorsements soon began to spread more widely online. The New Jersey Project claims to reach more than 100,000 people through a network of texts and private groups, which they call a “mom chain.”
The endorsement list became public in full about a month before the election, when it was scraped and published by a user on Reddit. Many of the candidates on the list had never made public statements regarding LGBTQ+ rights or book bans, leaving it unclear why they were included.
Still, the New Jersey Project has claimed plenty of successes, saying last spring that 151 of its endorsed candidates had been elected. In some cases, its endorsed candidates swept local elections, filling school boards with elected representatives who aligned with its values.
The core of the group’s strategy is gaining sway over New Jersey’s public school districts. “We need to have more control over what happens to our kids and how our children are educated and what goes on in the schools,” its executive director, Nik Stouffer, told the Gothamist in 2023.
The New Jersey Project, which claims to be operated entirely by volunteers, is registered as a nonprofit though not as a political action committee.
Assigned Media tried to contact the New Jersey Project for comment through the email link provided on its public website, but did not get a response. Assigned Media also sought to speak with members of its private Facebook account, but the page’s administrators did not grant permission to enter the group.
The group appears to be effective in its online advocacy. In adjacent, public-facing Facebook groups, many members state their intent to run for office, with parents connected to the group working to gain influence in right-wing state politics.
Michael Gottesman, founder of the nonpartisan New Jersey Public Education Coalition, expressed concerns about the group’s tactics in comments to NJ.com, “Groups such as New Jersey Project,” he said “its sister organization NJ Schools, and Moms for Liberty, all of which represent a statistical minority, use social media and blogs to harass, intimidate and bully individuals and organizations in an attempt to silence anyone who disagrees with them.”
“They claim to stand for ‘parents rights’ but their definition of the term is that only parents who agree with them have rights. The majority of parents who don’t agree, have no rights.”
Mira Lazine is a freelance journalist covering transgender issues, politics, and science. She can be found on Twitter, Mastodon, and BlueSky, @MiraLazine