Not the Headlines--Southern Poverty Law Center

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The listening tube presents not the headlines.

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The Southern Poverty Law Center has been in the news a lot lately, so I went to their website to see what they do. I assumed, based on their name, that they operated south of the Mason-Dixon line and helped poor people with legal advice. That's not what I found. The first subhead on their Google listing was a hate map. I started with the homepage. I was almost trapped on the homepage by a very intrusive demand for money. So much so that it took an old guy like me a moment to figure out how to make it go away. When the first thing a nonprofit organization does is trap you in a donation window, it's not a good sign. We all know that nonprofit organizations often rely on donations, but maybe you could tell us a little bit about yourself first. You know, like what is it you promote and what are your values? The history of the Southern Poverty Law Center goes back to 1971 as a legal clinic. So I was right about that part. They also focused on racial discrimination and death penalty laws. Thanks to racism, you might be surprised to learn that the Southern Poverty Law Center was founded by two white guys, Morris Dees and Joe Levin Jr. Levin eventually moved on and played a role in the federal government. Dees stuck with the organization and eight years later sued the Ku Klux Klan and hit them where it hurts most. The bank. The KKK went bankrupt, as did other organizations targeted by the Southern Poverty Law Center. At the same time, the organization was starting to be accused of stifling free speech, or at least making people pay for legal expenses to have free speech.

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Well, that can't be right.

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Today, that's the hate map, prominently featured on the organization's Google listing. A search on their website for the hate map reveals other options like extremist files, hate watch, report hate, and the year in hate and extremism 2025. A look at the map of my state, Pennsylvania, lists 44 local and eight statewide hate groups. Among them are organizations with such names as Audit the Vote PA, Constitution Party, Free PA, Gun Owners of America, Moms for Liberty, and No Left Turn in Education. The Southern Poverty Law Center found a reason to call each of these groups hate groups. I don't know if they are or not, but there is a group on the list called American Defense Skinheads. Sure, yeah. They probably belong on the list. Keystone United is also considered a skinhead group, so go ahead and put them on the list too. That's the kind of groups two white guys wanted to fight against with the SPLC. Their current CEO, a gentleman named Brian Fair, recently testified before a congressional subcommittee because of some disturbing accusations against the Civil Rights Organization. During his testimony, when asked if there are any Muslim groups included on the hate map, Mr. Fair claimed that the SPLC doesn't include groups on the hate map because of their religious beliefs. Yet, plain as day, among the groups listed on the Pennsylvania hate map are Independence Reformed Bible Church, Mid-Atlantic Reformative Society, and St. John's Reformed Church, all three of which it accuses of Christian supremacy. Other groups are listed for being anti-LGBTQ. Despite the fact that Islam condemns homosexuality and transsexuals would be executed in a Muslim country, the Southern Poverty Law Center won't list them as a hate group because, as their CEO claimed, they don't list religions on the hate map. But they do if it's a Christian religion. He lied to Congress. Other than that, Mr. Fair didn't say too much, basically pleading the fifth because the Department of Justice is investigating the organization as I speak. Before we hear why, I just want to point out that the hate map has ruined personal lives and legitimate businesses because of the stigma that comes along with being listed. The Southern Poverty Law Center knows the power it has and uses it to stifle speech and persuade companies to take actions through intimidation and the threat of being put on the list. As for the DOJ investigation, it's been alleged, and I only say alleged for legal reasons instead of discovered, the Southern Poverty Law Center, in order to maintain relevance, has been funding the very organizations it claims to be fighting. To the tune of millions of dollars for what they claim are inside informants. Why they would claim to need inside informants of hate groups can be debated, I guess, but the SPLC isn't the FBI. The very thought of the SPLC monetarily supplementing hate groups would seem to me to be, at the very least, outside the original objectives of the organization. The National Law Review says the SPLC faces some serious charges brought by the Department of Justice. Those charges include bank fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. The DOJ alleges that the use of donated money to pay informants inside the hate groups the SPLC is committed to fighting is fraud. So who did they pay? The Deseret News has a list. The National Alliance got a million dollars. They're a West Virginia-based white supremacist and neo Nazi group. Aryan Nations got $300,000. And remember the Unite the Right event in Charlottesville, Virginia, during which a woman was killed and many injured as neo Nazis marched in unison chanting Jews will not replace us. As it turns out, the Southern Poverty Law Center gave two hundred seventy thousand dollars to the people who planned the event. That's right, the SPLC actively donated to an anti-Semitic event. A former Nation Alliance chairman got one hundred forty thousand dollars. Former KKK members got seventy-three thousand dollars. California-based American Front's president got nineteen thousand dollars. Unspecified amounts of money also went to the National Socialist Movement and the National Socialist Party of America, which are basically Nazi organizations. The SPLC says it needs to have informants inside these organizations in order to fulfill its mission. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch says the SLPC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence.

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Back in October, FBI Director Cash Patel ended the FBI's relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center, calling the organization a partisan smear machine that had been used to defame people and inspire violence. Funding the United Right Rally in Virginia supports that assertion. But is giving money to hate groups against the law, even for the SPLC? Not exactly. What the government alleges is that the SPLC deceived its donors, banks, regulators, and the public about what they were doing with the money that was donated to the group. Some of the allegations include funding of white robes and hoods for KKK members, reimbursing hate groups for the cost of materials used in crossburnings, such as lumber and flame accelerants. And the latest allegation is that a woman named Heidi Bayrick, who was the top SPLC intelligence director, was living with and sharing a bank account with an active member of a neo-Nazi group. He reportedly got $1.2 million of donations that were funneled through their joint bank account. So what happens when an organization started by two white guys runs out of racism to fight? They create it. This could be the end of the Southern Poverty Law Center. It may continue to exist for a while as it has an endowment of nearly eight million dollars. But if the donations dry up because of this scandal being exposed, the SPLC will have to scale back operations to the minimum. Perhaps then they'll rediscover their roots and go back to giving legal advice to poor people south of the Mason-Dixon line. Perhaps they'll discover that without them bringing attention to what they call hate, without them facilitating the groups that they call hate groups, without the struggle to perpetuate the need for what they now consider their mission, there might be less hate. I'm not saying racism is going away anytime soon, but it's sure to linger when organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center keep looking for ways to promote it simply to keep themselves relevant.