Key Takeaways:
- Despite beginning with honorable intentions, the Southern Poverty Law Center has become a discredited and disgraced organization.
- The organization’s co-founder, Morris Dees, has similarly found himself mired in scandal.
- The SPLC now finds itself accused of funding the very extremism it purports to fight.
When a pair of attorneys named Morris Dees and Joe Levin founded the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) over 50 years ago, they did so with the stated intention of ensuring equal rights for everyone in America, particularly racial minorities. Unfortunately, the fruit of the SPLC’s work has shown something quite different.
For years, the SPLC has spent its time attacking political opponents, falsely accusing them of bigotry in an attempt to silence them. The organization accuses those who do not subscribe to its views of engaging in “hate,” and it uses false accusations to demonize its opponents rather than engaging in civil discourse. And now, as a federal grand jury has indicted, donations to the SPLC meant to combat hate groups like the KKK may have ended up funding them instead.
What is the Southern Poverty Law Center?
The SPLC is a nonprofit legal organization based in Montgomery, Alabama. It was founded in 1971 by two lawyers, Morris Dees and Joe Levin.
But in the decades that followed, the SPLC shifted from legal action to politicized fearmongering. Instead of engaging in civil debate, the group now attempts to smear those with differing views.
How has the Southern Poverty Law Center changed?
In the 1980s, the SPLC began focusing its attention on the Ku Klux Klan. It created the “Klanwatch” project in 1981 to “monitor Ku Klux Klan activity across the country.”
Journalist John Egerton wrote that “Dees saw the Klan as a perfect target” because he “perceived chinks in the Klan’s armor: poverty and poor education in its ranks, competitive squabbling among the leaders, scattered and disunited factions, undisciplined behavior, limited funds, few if any good lawyers.”
Despite Morris Dees’ claims about his goals, former SPLC staffer Bob Moser suggested in an article for The New Yorker that Dees had another motive. As Moser put it, “the only thing easier than beating the Klan in court … was raising money off Klan-fighting from liberals up north.”
At one point, the SPLC’s entire legal staff quit to protest Dees’ constant focus on the KKK. They accused Dees of using the Klan to raise money and ignoring lower-profile cases that they believed were more important.
The SPLC later rebranded “Klanwatch” to “Hatewatch” to monitor other so-called “hate groups,” and the organization continues fundraising on this project today. The problem is that the SPLC wields the “hate group” label as a cudgel to beat its political and ideological opponents.
The SPLC regularly labels organizations as “hate groups” simply because they hold political views different than its own. Cornell Law professor William Jacobson told Politico that he believes the SPLC is dishonestly using the “hate group” label to shut down debate.
“Time and again, I see the SPLC using the reputation it gained decades ago fighting the Klan as a tool to bludgeon mainstream politically conservative opponents,” Jacobson said.
“For groups that do not threaten violence, the use of SPLC ‘hate group’ or ‘extremist’ designations frequently are exploited as an excuse to silence speech and speakers.”
What is the Southern Poverty Law Center’s goal?
Given its focus on groups like the KKK, it’s perhaps unsurprising that, according to its website, the SPLC wants to “dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of all people.” But some high-ranking employees have made statements that contradict these stated goals.
SPLC Senior Fellow Mark Potok, who formerly served as the editor-in-chief for the SPLC’s Intelligence Report, said, “Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate crimes and so on…. I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, to completely destroy them.”
The SPLC has never renounced this statement.
If the SPLC truly sought to dismantle groups that promote violence and reprehensible ideas, that could be an honorable goal. The problem is that often, the “hate-group” label simply refers to a group that disagrees with the SPLC on political issues.
Instead of engaging in meaningful debate with groups like ADF and FRC, the SPLC just wants to “destroy” groups with differing beliefs.
This goal is not helpful for our society, which desperately needs institutions that will foster real dialogue about important issues. It also represents a lack of respect for the human dignity of those who disagree with the SPLC.
And it appears many of these issues may have very well started at the top of the SPLC.
What happened to Morris Dees?
In 2019, then-SPLC President Richard Cohen announced the firing of co-founder and former chief litigator Morris Dees.
The news came as a shock to many, as Dees had been the de facto face of the company for decades. In a statement, Cohen did not detail the exact reasons why the company decided to fire Dees, only noting that he “failed to meet” the organization’s standards.
Reports soon suggested that Morris Dees’ firing stemmed from anger inside the organization about the mistreatment of minority and female staffers.
Some staffers even signed letters alleging that multiple reports of sexual assault by Dees had been ignored and that female employees sometimes faced retaliation for making the claims. Dees said these allegations were false.
One week after firing Morris Dees, Cohen himself announced he would be stepping down. In an email to the company, Cohen said he took responsibility for “whatever problems exist at the SPLC.”
What is the Southern Poverty Law Center doing now?
Today, the SPLC still engages in a small amount of litigation. But by its own admission, its influential victories have become scarce. From 1980 to 2000, the SPLC formerly claimed to have 17 “landmark cases.” From 2000 to today, it boasted just three, with the latest one as far back as 2016.
Instead, the SPLC spends most of its energy identifying and maligning opponents by accusing them of hatred. Its “Hatewatch” project “monitors and exposes the activities of the American radical right.”
The SPLC website also advertises a “Hate Map,” which points to locations of hundreds of so-called “hate groups” around the country.
Each year, the SPLC releases a list of these “hate groups.” News outlets cover the publication of the list—often uncritically—ensuring that the SPLC is thrust into the national spotlight at least once a year.
Some groups, like the KKK, are certainly reprehensible and deserving of the label “hate group.” But the SPLC uses those groups as a cover for others on the list, including a number of religious nonprofits like Alliance Defending Freedom. The SPLC has labeled ADF as an “anti-LGBT hate group,” but this accusation is plainly false.
Tellingly, the SPLC has also been forced to publicly disavow several of its erroneous “hate” and “extremist” labels.
- In 2014, Ben Carson (then a prominent neurosurgeon) was added to the SPLC’s “Extremist Files.” The SPLC later apologized and removed him from the list.
- In 2018, the SPLC issued a retraction of Maajid Nawaz as an “anti-Muslim extremist” that cost them over $3 million.
For this reason, multiple federal courts have described the SPLC’s labeling system using words like “entirely subjective” and “not one ‘of fact.’”
Most recently, the SPLC has ended up in the crosshairs of a federal grand jury in Alabama. In late April, the SPLC was indicted by a grand jury on 11 charges, including wire fraud, false statements, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Perhaps more alarmingly, the SPLC was accused of effectively putting money into the hands of the very extremist groups—like the KKK—that it purports to combat.
“The SPLC allegedly engaged in a massive fraud operation to deceive their donors, enrich themselves, and hide their deceptive operations from the public,” FBI Director Kash Patel said when he announced the indictment. “They lied to their donors, vowing to dismantle violent extremist groups, and actually turned around and paid the leaders of these very extremist groups – even utilizing the funds to have these groups facilitate the commission of state and federal crimes. That is illegal – and this is an ongoing investigation against all individuals involved.”
If convicted, the SPLC may have to forfeit any financial gains from this alleged scheme.
The Southern Poverty Law Center’s labels have led to violence
Even before these events, the SPLC had been embroiled in controversy beyond what had happened to its founders. The “hate group” label carries extreme connotations, and it should not be thrown around lightly. Sadly, the SPLC has flippantly misused the label without considering the possible consequences.
In 2012, a gunman entered the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Family Research Council (FRC), a Christian group dedicated to defending life and family values.
The gunman would later tell investigators that he “planned to stride into the building and open fire on the people inside in an effort to kill as many as possible.” He did shoot an unarmed security officer, but the officer survived and heroically subdued the gunman before he could harm anyone else.
Regarding his motivations, the gunman said he “had chosen the research council as his target after finding it listed as an anti-gay group on the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
He was ultimately charged with three felonies, including a terrorism offense. It was the first conviction under the Washington, D.C., Anti-Terrorism Act of 2002.
Jessica Prol Smith, a former FRC employee who was working in the headquarters on the day of the attack, wrote that she was both fearful and frustrated as she sheltered in place. But she made it clear that violent attacks and threats will not change her commitment to Christian beliefs.
“I’m lucky—blessed, really—that I didn’t take a bullet for my beliefs back in 2012,” Smith wrote.
“But the center’s ugly slander and the gunman’s misguided attack have sharpened my resolve and deepened my faith in my Savior, who commands my destiny and shields me from the schemes of man. The same is true for my colleagues.”
Conclusion
While the SPLC claims to be a bastion for civil rights, the reality is and has been much more sinister.
- The organization does not want to engage in meaningful debate but instead wants to silence its opponents by labeling them “hate groups.” This label has led to violence against these groups.
- Former employees have alleged that organizational leaders fostered a toxic culture and directly contradicted the organization’s stated goals with their actions.
- Morris Dees, the man who was synonymous with the SPLC for decades, was fired for unspecified violations of the organization’s standards.
- And now a federal grand jury has indicted the SPLC on 11 counts, including accusations of funding the very hate groups like the KKK they purport to be fighting.
Our pluralistic society needs organizations with a variety of different views, but we must be able to engage in civil debate about the most pressing and important issues we face today. The SPLC is advocating for the opposite, which poses a threat to the freedoms we hold so dear in this country.
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