Some People Love to Call Names

At the end of 2016, the Chronicle of ­Philanthropy published an article headlined “Dozens of ‘Hate Groups’ Have Charity Status, Chronicle Study Finds.” The “study” took at face value a list of 900 entities pinned with the “hate” label by a notoriously partisan attack group—the Southern ­Poverty Law Center... But “hate groups” and “extremist organizations” are great copy, especially for fundraising (more on that below). So the SPLC list of stormtroopers-in-our-midst is catnip for journalists looking for dramatic stories...

Let’s start with the Alliance Defending ­Freedom—which is listed as a “hate group” along with 916 other organizations in the latest SPLC list released on February 15. The ADF has a network of 3,100 ­American attorneys all around the country who’ve donated more than a million pro bono hours to its work in recent years...

SPLC’s utter lack of any reasonable criteria for who goes on its list of crazies combines effortlessly with careless reporting, and spreads stigma just by innuendo...

Want more examples? According to the SPLC, leading social scientist Charles Murray is a “White Nationalist” (more about that in a minute). His colleague at the American Enterprise Institute Ayaan Hirsi Ali, one of the world’s bravest voices for freedom and human dignity through her bestselling books, has been categorized as an “Extremist.” David Horowitz, another bestselling author, is also labeled as an “Extremist.”

Others branded with a scarlet E by the SPLC and many media enablers include former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio ­Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, think-tank president Frank Gaffney, Cliff Kincaid of the press watchdog Accuracy in Media, former Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin, ­WorldNetDaily journalist Joseph Farah, Rafael Cruz, a Cuban immigrant and father of a U.S. Senator, legal gadfly Larry Klayman, and immigration restrictionist Dan Stein. Philanthropist Ron Unz, bestselling author Dinesh D’Souza, regular Congressional testifier Mark Krikorian, former Senator and Governor George Allen, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former Congressman Tom Tancredo, former Congressman and Presidential candidate Ron Paul, and scores of other public-spirited Americans active in national debates have likewise been slurred and defined as beyond the pale by the SPLC.

So have charities like James Kennedy’s Coral Ridge Ministries, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the Center for ­Immigration Studies, the World Congress of Families, the National Organization for Marriage, Liberty Counsel, and hundreds of others... The largest category on the SPLC “haters” list is “anti-government groups.” (663 entries!)...

What is not part of an honorable American tradition is the course of action prescribed by top SPLC leader Mark Potok: “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.” (To see him say it, start at minute 1:35 of this video...

... Why do so many reporters cite the SPLC blacklist as if it were some kind of neutral Consumer Reports guide to what’s intolerable in cultural advocacy?...

The SPLC was founded as a civil-rights law firm in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1971, and scored some notable victories against the KKK in its early years. But in 1986, when the group broadened its mission to attack a wide range of right-wing organizations, the entire legal staff except founder Morris Dees resigned. Princeton professor Robert George, who remembers the group’s early work but has tussled with it in recent years, calls it “a once noble organization that has fallen into the ignoble role of being an enforcer of ideological orthodoxies.”

There are two chief reasons the SPLC lives on in its current irresponsible form: 

1) Its efforts to demonize political opponents make for useful drama if you’re a journalist looking for a social-justice story.
2) Raising the alarm about dangerous bigots on the loose is a potent way to raise money from concerned progressives.

... On the organization’s 2015 IRS 990 form it declared $10 million of direct fundraising expenses, far more than it has ever spent on legal services.

The SPLC is a cash-collecting machine...

We hope donors will think twice the next time some charity they are supporting or considering gets the side-eye from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

CAIRCO Research

Hate group: Southern Poverty Law Center Faces Federal Tax Complaint, Lifezette, April 6, 2017

Left-Wing ‘Anti-Hate’ SPLC Cheated Tax Laws, Says Legal Complaint, Breitbart, April 6, 2017

SPLC 2: The Search for More Money, Taki's Magazine, March 8, 2017

The Southern Poverty Law Center - A Special Report, The Social Contract, Spring, 2010

The SPLC exposed, The Social Contract

The Southern Poverty Law Center - SPLC - research on Discover The Networks

A compilation of rticles on the hateful SPLC - Southern Poverty Law Center hate group