The Southern Poverty Law Center, despite having a noble origin story, has become an authoritarian leftist hack job of an organization. It has gained prominence by deceptively adding conservative organizations to its list of “hate groups.”
Over the years, the group has faced much criticism for brazenly lying about conservative individuals and organizations to score cheap political points. Nevertheless, they continue trying to deceive the American public.
A conservative organization, the Dustin Inman Society, has achieved a significant legal victory against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in a defamation lawsuit, according to a report from the Daily Signal. The SPLC has a history of branding mainstream conservative and Christian organizations as “hate groups,” often resulting in dismissed defamation lawsuits due to the high legal threshold of proving “actual malice.”
However, in this case, District Judge Keith Watkins denied the SPLC’s motion to dismiss the defamation claim, allowing the case to move forward to the discovery phase. This marks the first time an organization accused by the SPLC has reached this stage in challenging the “hate group” accusation. Despite the importance of this development, most left-leaning legacy media outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, have ignored the story.
The SPLC’s credibility has faced previous challenges, including a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal years ago that led to the firing of its co-founder and the resignation of its president. Former employee Bob Moser described the SPLC’s “hate” accusations as a “highly profitable scam.”
The organization has apologized for previous smears, such as wrongly labeling former neurosurgeon and U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson as an extremist. Despite having a significant endowment of over $730 million, the Dustin Inman Society has struggled to raise funds after being labeled a “hate group” by the SPLC. The society is seeking $25,000 in donations to support its legal effort against the SPLC.
The lack of media coverage of this groundbreaking legal victory extends beyond left-leaning outlets, with even Fox News failing to cover the story. The Daily Signal reached out to several media outlets, including The New York Times and Fox News, for comment on the apparent media blackout but received no response.
D.A. King, founder of the Dustin Inman Society, told The Daily Signal that “a New York Times reporter contacted me almost two weeks after the motion to dismiss was denied and was rather adamant that the denial was a ‘front-page story.’”
However, the reporter said “he would hold off on approaching his editors” about the story until another noteworthy development came up in the court proceedings. “It was confusing to me. Is the SPLC finally losing on a motion to dismiss a lawsuit against their false and malicious smears not news?” he said.
Despite the media ignoring this situation, this is a significant story. The SPLC has managed to falsely label run-of-the-mill conservative organizations as being akin to the Ku Klux Klan for years. It has almost certainly damaged the reputations of many of these groups, and the group will probably continue as long as it is not being held accountable. Perhaps this lawsuit might just lead to that outcome.