Julie Quist receiving the Dr. Judith Reisman Award recognizing 50 years of protecting children.
September 28, 2026
Being a founding member of the Child Protection League and serving as Board Chair since 2015 has been the greatest of privileges. Members of the CPL Board of Directors are some of the smartest, most dedicated, knowledgeable and committed people I have known, people fully committed to protecting children in these perilous times. While the time is right for me to retire from the CPL Board, I look forward to working supportively with CPL as they continue to provide invaluable resources and leadership to protect children, strengthen families, and restore our nation.
-Julie Quist, Co-Founder and Past Chairwoman of Child Protection League
It is challenging to describe Julie Quist ‘s profound impact on the Child Protection League and all who have served with her on our Board. It is nearly impossible to quantify her far-reaching impact in our mission to protect children. Julie’s unique ability to dig into and discern the core problems behind policies and issues and then explain them in clear terms to others is dwarfed only by her extraordinary insights into the Culture War and the forces determined to undo the principles upon which this country was founded. Such a combination of intellect and insight is uncommon. Above all, Julie’s leadership, friendship and steadfast care for her colleagues will be remembered with great fondness and appreciation. We will greatly miss her day-to-day involvement with the organization, but look forward to her new advisory role with CPL. God is not finished with Julie yet and will continue using her many talents for the work to which He has called her.
-CPL President, Michele Lentz regarding the Judith Reisman Award recipient, Julie Quist
Julie Quist: “A Woman of Magnitude and Faith”
By Renee Doyle
Regardless of your vantage point – liberal, conservative, intellectual, mainstream, Christian, atheist, political, nonpolitical – the life of Julie Quist has undoubtedly touched yours.
Julie Morse grew up in a conservative Catholic family with her six siblings on their family apple orchard near the small southeastern Minnesota town of Dakota. Following her two older sisters, she attended an all-girls’ Catholic boarding high school, Villa Maria Academy. But during the 1960’s and following the lead of her older brother who travelled to the state of Mississippi as a civil rights worker, most of her family, including herself, abandoned their faith as they were drawn into the highly charged leftist political movement of that era. As a student at the University of Minnesota, she found like-minded activists and began her career of organizing for social change. She co-founded a first-ever Minnesota Women’s Liberation group with Marxist, abortion rights, anti-marriage and anti-family, and feminist goals. As part of a women’s “collective,” she spearheaded the first feminist bookstore in the country – the Amazon Bookstore.
In her early 30’s Julie experienced a deep spiritual transformation, and it was no small occasion. A series of powerful life experiences led her back to her youthful faith in Jesus Christ. That change completely redirected her focus and talents, allowing her to lead on and understand the issues most Americans face every day. Her marriage to Republican legislator Allen Quist eight years later at age 40, her adoption of his nine other children due to their mother’s untimely death, and the birth of their son became her new center. It was the life she would write about and model in her new Biblical worldview and fearless support of the family and the unborn. The left took note. In a 2012 article, Mother Jones described Julie as a “pro-choice feminist reborn as a Republican.” What an understatement! They had no idea.
As an outspoken supporter of life and family, she came alongside Allen in his service as a Minnesota representative and in his two runs for Governor. Allen, a farmer and college professor from southern Minnesota, was a well-known intellectual writer and speaker. Together, they are a powerful team that often exposed the state of education in America and specifically in Minnesota. In the mid-1990s, during Allen’s second run for governor, they produced a documentary about what were the new federal Goals 2000 education standards being imposed on all schools in Minnesota, titled “The Profile of Learning.” It was an eye opener.
A southern Minnesota public school board member, Renee Doyle, learned about the video from a concerned parent so she contacted Julie and Allen Quist. They would meet on a Sunday afternoon in a vacant bar to discuss the future of education for all children in America. And that is where the movement to protect children from educational indoctrination was born.
Doyle was stunned by the information. She researched for herself every piece of available information from the Minnesota Department of Education state office, and after that, the Maple River Education Coalition (MrEdCo) was born around a kitchen table. Its first board consisted of just three mama bears: Renee Doyle, President, Julie Quist, Vice President, and the informing parent, Colleen Wogen, Secretary. The grassroots organization quickly grew statewide to over 33,000 members and changed its name to EdWatch.
Julie spent countless hours researching and writing materials for interviews, publications, and speaking presentations. Her deep knowledge of the political world, insight of all viewpoints, and an uncanny ability to boil down issues into concrete, understandable terms were second to none. Having lived the life of a Marxist activist, she was uniquely equipped to translate progressive ideology, their terminology and woke-speak into their real meanings and intent for public consumption. EdWatch, under her behind-the-scenes brilliance, launched the careers of some of the most influential Minnesota activists that we have ever known: Michele Bachmann would go on to be a Minnesota Senator, a U.S. Congresswoman and a candidate for president. Julie herself would go on to be Congresswoman Bachmann’s District Director, Renee Doyle would serve in Washington D.C. as Bachmann’s Legislative Director and later start a classical education school. EdWatch Director Dr. Karen Effrem would go on to found Education Liberty Watch in 2010 out of EdWatch, former EdWatch Director Michael Chapman would found American Heritage Research, and Michele Lentz would become the President and Co-Founder along with Julie Quist, Renee Doyle and Barb Anderson of the nonprofit Child Protection League (CPL).
The research, position statements, presentations and activist engagement of MrEdCo, EdWatch, and CPL were, and still are, used all over the United States. Their materials have equipped families to become active and vocal and to make better education decisions for their children. Their work has been the springboards in the formation of innumerable grassroots groups and movements and a foundational precursor of the parents’ rights movement.
It is impossible to list the countless number of lives that Julie Quist has directly impacted. Under her mentorship, people learned to see through double-speak, read between legislative lines, and paraphrase the issue. Her intensely accurate research, wisdom, encouragement, stamina, clarity of thought, and love for the Lord and her family are descriptors she is known for. So are her laser-like exposures of cultural movements, political events, education, and particularly the multitude of harms impacting the welfare of children.
But nowhere can the impact of Julie Quist be better seen than in the lives of the people she has personally touched. As she retires from her role as Chair and Research Director for CPL and moves into an advisory role, let it go on record that she redeemed her time on behalf of our country and children. Future generations will reap the benefit of the countless hours of sacrifice she gave in defending and protecting our lives, freedom, and minds.
–Renee Doyle – Founding Member of Child Protection League