Nawaz, a liberal Muslim reformer, sued for defamation for being named to the SPLC’s “Hate List.” Things started unraveling Dees and the SPLC in 2018, when the organization was forced to settle with Maajidd Nawaz for more than $3 million. Immigration policy groups and religious freedom organizations all fell into the SPLC’s sights at the same time those issues became increasingly a focus for conservatives.įor its efforts the SPLC was richly rewarded, posting nearly half a billion dollars in assets, including more than $120 million in offshore accounts. Following 9/11, national security organizations concerned with Islamic terrorism (including this author’s employer) were targeted. Pro-life and pro-family religious groups were targeted beginning in the 1990s. The SPLC expanded its list of “hate groups” to include not just the shrinking numbers of vile KKK and neo-Nazi groups, but groups that were merely controversial and even harmless. To do this, an ever-widening definition of hatred was required. Money flowed into the SPLC, driven by Dees’s brilliance for direct-mail campaigning and the hope of white liberals that a strong SPLC would mean the end to racism and hatred in America.īut to keep the money flowing, the SPLC kept insisting hate groups and white supremacy were expanding. In the earliest days of the SPLC, the Alabama-based civil rights law firm did target truly racist and hateful groups, most famously the United Klans of America, which the SPLC devastated in a successful lawsuit it launched in 1984.
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