Fraud charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center are part of a “farcical” and “retributive” White House campaign to silence political opposition, the civil rights group said in a motion to dismiss filed May 26. SPLC, which monitors and reports…
SPLC pleads not guilty to feds’ fraud charges
The Southern Poverty Law Center pleaded not guilty to 11 fraud-related charges and is tentatively set to face trial Oct. 5 in an Alabama federal court. SPLC Interim President Bryan Fair entered the plea May 7 to the indictment handed…
Criminalizing truth
I have spent much of my life working at the intersection of faith and public life, often in rooms where people insist religion should stay out of politics. I understand why. Faith has been used to divide, to dominate, to…
SPLC fights back claiming Blanche lied to grand jury
The Southern Poverty Law Center filed two motions in federal court in response to a federal indictment accusing the civil rights organization of fraud. The U.S. Department of Justice claims the group, which tracks and reports on hate groups, misled…
Focus on the Family, Turning Point protest ‘hate’ listing by SPLC
The Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest annual “Year in Hate” report documents 1,371 hate and antigovernment extremist groups in the U.S., including three new groups beloved by conservative evangelicals: Focus on the Family, Turning Point USA and PragerU. Focus on…
Evangelical groups cheer layoffs at Southern Poverty Law Center
“Do not gloat when your enemy falls,” advises Proverbs. “When they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice.” But conservative Christians couldn’t help gloating over layoffs and program cuts at the Southern Poverty Law Center, the $117 million nonprofit that has…
America’s hard right is fine-tuning hate tactics, SPLC warns
The far right dedicated 2023 to fine-tuning and expanding hate-spreading tactics to fuel one of the most bitter and dangerous presidential contests in U.S. history, according to a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center. “Extremists and those opposing…
Disinformation campaign uses ‘phony science’ to discredit trans people, researcher says
Right-wing political and religious groups are waging a disinformation campaign based on phony science to dehumanize transgender people and deny them full political and religious status, said Royal G. Cravens III, senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center….
When hate speech meets the First Amendment, what should Christians do?
Hate speech, like an erratic stock market, rises and falls. The primary instigators of the last two jumps in hate speech have been Donald Trump (beginning in 2015) and Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter. In Trump’s case, there…
Good news and bad news on prevalence of hate groups
There’s good news and bad news about hate groups in America today, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The good news is that the SPLC tracked 105 fewer hate groups and 78 fewer anti-government groups last year than in…
Voting rights and the people who died for them: Jonathan Daniels et al.
A March 11 article in the Washington Post began with these two paragraphs: “The GOP’s national push to enact hundreds of new election restrictions could strain every available method of voting for tens of millions of Americans, potentially amounting to…