You know those websites listing celebrities you thought were dead but are still around? The Southern Poverty Law Center might as well have been on such a list.
The “civil rights” group has been lying low for some time, since the eruption of multiple humiliating scandals involving racism and sexual harassment that led to the firing of most of the group’s leadership, including founder Morris Dees.
The appearance of its annual “hate map” was months late, raising suspicions that there were changes afoot. No such luck — the latest anathema was just pronounced. (Google it yourself, if you want to see it.)
The Center for Immigration Studies is still there, of course; after operating for three decades, we graduated to “hate group” status right after Trump’s election in 2016 — coincidentally.
The other usual targets are still there as well: Alliance Defending Freedom, Center for Security Policy, Family Research Council, etc.
But in what I assume is a bid to goose donations (and add to its half-billion-dollar hoard of cash), the SPLC has added parents’-rights groups like Moms for Liberty to the hate map. (Tyler O’Neil, author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Daily Signal’s indefatigable SPLC-watcher, is on the case.)
But the SPLC may be facing an unprecedented challenge. Earlier this year, a defamation lawsuit against it for a “hate group” designation was, for the first time ever, not dismissed and has made it to the discovery stage. The Dustin Inman Society — run by immigration-enforcement dynamo D. A. King in Georgia — was classified as a “hate group” in 2018, right after the SPLC registered as a lobbying organization to oppose a bill King supported in the state legislature. (Coincidentally.)
Defamation is hard to prove under U.S. law. D. James Kennedy Ministries tried and failed. We at CIS tried a different tack, filing a civil RICO suit against SPLC, but also failed. (The multimillion-dollar settlement SPLC paid to Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz meant his lawsuit never went to trial. The reasons for the settlement have never been revealed.)
But SPLC was sloppy in smearing the Dustin Inman Society, and King saw an opening. So last year he filed suit. The first case was dismissed and so King filed suit again, and this time, in April of this year, the judge allowed the case to proceed to discovery, with discovery due by April of next year.
No one has ever gotten a look at SPLC’s internal machinations, and staff communications and other files regarding the plaintiffs could well turn over rocks that SPLC would prefer to keep in place.
But discovery can be expensive — masses of emails and other documents to go through, opposing counsel obstructing at every turn — I shudder to think of the cost.
King doesn’t have deep pockets — he’s had to take out two mortgages just to keep going. Which is why he needs the support of anyone who wants to see some sunlight shed on the SPLC’s shenanigans. To help fund its fight for justice, the Dustin Inman Society has a GoFundMe page, and one at GiveSendGo. I’ve donated myself; this is not a grift. It’s not every day that an opportunity like this comes along to get accountability from one of the worst actors on the left. Don’t squander it.