Why SPLC's days may well be numbered

Photo by Kyrie kim on Unsplash

The Southern Poverty Law Center was, for quite a while, the absolute definitive source for hate groups in the United States. They typically focused on actually racist organizations like neo-Nazi groups or the KKK.

However, a while back, they slowly began broadening out. They started labeling any group with conservative values as hate groups.

And they got away with it, too, because the courts seemingly protected the SPLC.

Now, though, it looks like that’s not happening anymore.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s famous list of “hate” groups is under fire in a courtroom in Alabama, where a judge has opened the door for a group that opposes illegal immigration to challenge the SPLC for slapping it with the Scarlet H.

The Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society and founder D.A. King say they work against illegal immigration but have no problem with legal immigrants. Indeed, some legal immigrants are on the organization’s board, and Mr. King’s adopted sister is an immigrant.

He says it’s defamation for the SPLC to call him an “anti-immigrant hate group.”

The SPLC asked a judge to toss the case, but U.S. District Judge W. Keith Watkins refused in a ruling last week. He said Mr. King should have a chance to develop his case and seek more evidence against the SPLC through discovery.

“Plaintiffs have ‘nudged’ their defamation claims — premised on SPLC’s designation of DIS as an ‘anti-immigrant hate group’ — ‘across the line from conceivable to plausible,’” Judge Watkins wrote.

Now, this is big. No case has gotten to the point of discovery, which means the opportunity presents itself to see how the SPLC sausage gets made.

Moreover, though, the SPLC defended its classifications by saying that it’s opinion, thus it cannot be considered defamation. While opinions are protected speech, the SPLC has never presented its categorization of groups as “hate groups” as opinions before, and I’m unconvinced that they viewed it as such, either.

I’m not saying that DIS will win this lawsuit, but I find the defense of hiding behind the declaration of organizations as hate groups merely being opinion interesting.

Much of what the SPLC does is track hate groups. They identify and declare organizations as hate groups so others can utilize those resources as needed.

If it’s really just a bunch of lefties’ opinions, then what good does the group actually do?

How many donors have given money to the SPLC because they thought there was some degree of rigor to the classifications? How many will simply stop donating?

Without that perception of accuracy and objectivity, the SPLC may well find itself unable to maintain the facade they’ve long projected to the world.

Or, perhaps, nothing will happen. The leftist supporters of the SPLC simply won’t care because it’s not their groups getting labeled as hate mongers. So they’ll keep feeding the beast and the media will continue using their categorizations as if they’re anything but the opinion of people who don’t like the group in question.

Either way, what just happened in court matters. It will be interesting to see just what happens with the SPLC going forward, but I know what I’d like to see.

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