Southern Poverty Law Center: Difference between revisions

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The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a non-profit legal, educational, and intelligence-gathering group for the purposes of advocacy for civil rights and against racism. The center is based in Montgomery, Alabama, in the Southern United States. It was founded in 1971 by Morris Dees and Joe Levin as a civil rights law firm. It is known for its "tolerance education" programs, its legal victories against white supremacist groups, and its investigations of alleged hate groups. The Center publishes a quarterly Intelligence Report which lists groups it accuses of political extremism and hate crimes in the United States. The center also sponsored the creation of a Civil Rights Memorial in downtown Montgomery designed by architect Maya Lin. Its activities have long generated controversy.

History

The first case the Center took on forced the local YMCA to racially integrate their athletic offerings. In 1979 the Center brought its first of its many cases against the Ku Klux Klan. In 1983, the Klan responded by burning down the Center's offices. The SPLC claims that several other attempts to bomb the center and kill Morris Dees have been thwarted.[1]

Controversy

Because of its targeting of specific organizations as being "hate groups" and its financial status, it is not surprising that the SPLC is controversial. Some criticisms have focused on its fundraising methods. For example, a 1996 USA Today article claimed that the Southern Poverty Law Center is "the nation's richest civil rights organization", with $68 million in assets at the time (in the fiscal year ending in 2003, its assets totalled $156 million [2]). A 2003 article in the Fairfax Journal (of Fairfax, Virginia) claimed that 89% of income was spent on fundraising and administration.

In 1994 The Montgomery Advertiser published an investigative series alleging financial mismanagement, poor management practices, misleading fundraising, and institutionalized racism at the Center. Black former employees asserted that the Center was run like "a plantation" and complained of discrimination by white supervisors. The Center threatened legal action against the newspaper during the publication of the series, and lobbied against its consideration for journalism awards. Nonetheless, the investigative series was a finalist for a 1995 Pulitzer Prize.

Myles Kantor of the anti-Castro Pureplay Press alleges that the group engages in fear-mongering and the smearing of legitimate, non-racist groups in pursuit of profitable financial contributions and ideological goals.[3]

The Southern Poverty Law Center, and Morris Dees himself, have engaged in a dispute with conservative intellectual and activist David Horowitz over material written by Chip Berlet related to Horowitz's campaign against slavery reparations, which the SPLC claims constitutes "hate speech". Horowitz writes:

The effect is to multiply the number of racial hate groups, to scare well-meaning citizens into the belief that mainstream civil rights organizations like the Center for the Study of Popular Culture are really fever swamps of hate that deserve to be lumped alongside the Ku Klux Klan. The purpose of this fear-mongering is transparent. It is to fill the already wealthy coffers of your organization by exploiting unsuspecting donors into helping you promote leftwing agendas under the guise of civil rights.[4]

The Center has asserted that all of these claims are attempts to smear its reputation and alleges that the accusers are extremists.

Hate groups

A continuing source of controversy is the identification and monitoring of organizations that the SPLC labels hate groups. The SPLC further categorizes these groups as Black Separatism (such as Nation of Islam), Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazi, Christian Identity, Racist Skinhead, Neo-Confederate, and Other. Some organizations described by the SPLC as hate groups object strenuously to this characterization of them, particularly those in the Other category. They protest that such designations are politically motivated, and do not accurately reflect their beliefs. Organizations on the list in 2004 categorized as Other included:

External links

Southern Poverty Law Center official site
SPLC Internet-based activism project from Tolerance.org
'The Church of Morris Dees' - A critical look at the SPLC and its founder from Harper's Magazine, posted in the Free Republic
Harvard University's Nieman Foundation for Journalism- Panel discussion with the investigative reporter/editor who helped cover the SPLC for The Montgomery Advertiser
Briefing Paper on SPLC from Learning to Give

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 Myles Kantor of the anti-[[Fidel Castro|Castro]] [http://www.pureplaypress.com/english/index.html Pureplay Press] alleges that the group engages in fear-mongering and the smearing of legitimate, non-racist groups in pursuit of profitable financial contributions and ideological goals.[http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=10009]
-The Southern Poverty Law Center, and Morris Dees himself, have engaged in a dispute with [[right-wing]] [[intellectual]] and [[activist]] [[David Horowitz]] over material written by [[Chip Berlet]] related to Horowitz's campaign against [[Slavery#Reparations|slavery reparations]], which the SPLC claims constitutes "hate speech". Horowitz writes:
+The Southern Poverty Law Center, and Morris Dees himself, have engaged in a dispute with [[conservative]] [[intellectual]] and [[activist]] [[David Horowitz]] over material written by [[Chip Berlet]] related to Horowitz's campaign against [[Slavery#Reparations|slavery reparations]], which the SPLC claims constitutes "hate speech". Horowitz writes:
 :''The effect is to multiply the number of racial hate groups, to scare well-meaning citizens into the belief that mainstream civil rights organizations like the Center for the Study of Popular Culture are really fever swamps of hate that deserve to be lumped alongside the Ku Klux Klan. The purpose of this fear-mongering is transparent. It is to fill the already wealthy coffers of your organization by exploiting unsuspecting donors into helping you promote leftwing agendas under the guise of civil rights.''[http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/Readarticle.asp?ID=9830]
-The Center has asserted that all of these claims are attempts to smear its reputation, and dismisses them as being brought forward by extremist groups.
+The Center has asserted that all of these claims are attempts to smear its reputation and alleges that the accusers are extremists.
 ==Hate groups==