The federal government’s move against Southern Poverty Law Center is also an attack on religious pluralism, freedom of conscience and First Amendment safeguards for all American people and religious communities, said Amanda Tyler, executive director of Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.
Amanda Tyler
“A thriving civil society is not incidental to religious freedom — it is the condition that makes religious freedom possible,” she said.
SPLC, a civil rights group that tracks hate groups, has been charged by Donald Trump’s U.S. Justice Department with numerous accounts of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and making false reports to a federally insured bank.
DOJ claims the organization supported white supremacy by paying undercover sources to infiltrate hate groups to spread racial hatred. The charges stem from an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Montgomery, Ala., April 21 following FBI and IRS investigations.
“The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.
Todd Blanche
Blanche is Trump’s former personal attorney who defended him against accusations of concealed hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. Blanche later defended him in the federal classified documents and election obstruction cases. He also led Trump’s defense in his criminal trial.
SPLC President Bryan Fair said the charges are false and DOJ’s actions “will not shake our resolve to fight for justice and ensure the promise of the civil rights movement becomes a reality for all.”
Conservatives have disdained SPLC for decades because of its efforts to call out racism and other forms of discrimination.
But organizations that hold power accountable by defending civil rights and monitoring extremism are a core part of the foundation that enables pluralism to thrive, Tyler said, adding BJC will stand with the center in its legal fight.
“When the government uses its prosecutorial authority to target civil society organizations with which it disagrees, it does not merely threaten those organizations, it narrows the civic space in which all of us — every faith community, every person — is free to operate.”
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights scoffed at the premise of the indictment, describing the charges as part of the Trump administration’s wider campaign of intimidation against civil rights groups.
“SPLC is a leading authority on organized hate groups and undertakes the complex and often dangerous work of investigating and exposing these networks. Its outstanding record of tracking and addressing hate belies the misguided premise of the indictment — that SPLC was somehow supporting the very hate groups it has long helped to discredit and dismantle. “
The center has opposed Trump’s voter suppression efforts and continues to fight racism with targeted efforts in states including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. It also spearheads work to combat poverty, mass incarceration and white supremacy.
The organization “helped to bring a clear warning about Christian nationalism to the American people, giving it the institutional weight of more than half a century of research on extremism,” the Freedom from Religion Foundation said.
“The center has continued to document how white Christian nationalism stokes anti-immigrant hate through false claims of ‘Christian persecution’ and ‘white genocide,’ and how the movement seeks to dominate American political and cultural life.”
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