The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a controversial watchdog of extremist groups. It has been criticized for its financial practices and for characterizing non-violent conventional conservative organizations as equivalent to violent extremists.

SPLC was co-founded in 1971 by Morris Dees, a lawyer and direct marketing expert and fellow Alabama attorney, Joseph Levin, Jr. ¹ They appointed civil rights activist Julian Bond as SPLC’s first president. In its first two decades, the SPLC won high-profile civil rights cases and filed lawsuits credited with breaking the Ku Klux Klan. The SPLC combined its legal successes with Dees’ direct mail marketing expertise to raise millions of dollars. In later years, the SPLC leveraged its influence to collect and create widely-circulated reports about “hate group” activity around the country.

Dees was fired from his position as SPLC chief trial counsel in March 2019 for unspecific conduct violations. ² On April 2, 2019, the SPLC announced that attorney Karen Baynes-Dunning would replace Cohen as interim president. ³

Since its victories over the Klan in the 1980s, the SPLC has been widely criticized by both right-of-center and left-of-center observers for its excessive fundraising and controversial methodologies. SPLC’s labeling of political opponents as has resulted in mainstream conservative individuals and groups, as well as anti-extremist Muslims, being conflated with neo-Nazis, the KKK, and other actual extremist elements. The SPLC uses its former credibility to smear its political foes; despite this, SPLC is cited by left-leaning mainstream media outlets as a credible source for information about the mainstream right, to widespread criticism. ⁴

Mainstream technology companies such as Google and Amazon have enlisted SPLC to help compile, track, and vet organizations based on alleged extremist activity. For a short time, charity aggregator Guidestar used SPLC’s hate group listings to apply so-called warning labels on 46 nonprofit organizations, but later removed the labels amid a heavy public backlash against its reliance on SPLC.

In 2012, Floyd Lee Corkins attacked the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the social conservative advocacy group Family Research Council (FRC). In his guilty plea agreement, Corkins claimed the SPLC’s labeling of FRC as a hate group for its opposition to same-sex marriage as the reason he singled out FRC. ⁵

History and Mission

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was co-founded as a civil rights litigation group in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1971 by Morris Dees, a lawyer and direct marketing expert, and lawyer Joseph Levin, Jr. The SPLC received nonprofit status in 1971. ⁶ Activist Julian Bond, who later chaired the NAACP, is also mentioned as a co-founder. ⁷

Dees and Levin spent much of their early years conducting pro bono legal services in death-penalty appeals and suing to desegregate the then-all-white Alabama Highway Patrol. ⁸ In 1979, the SPLC shifted its legal strategy and began suing violent white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and its affiliates for hate crimes committed by their members. Large settlements and other legal sanctions bankrupted some of the groups and scared off many others; by the late 1980s, these groups had declined significantly in activity and influence. ⁹

The demise of the KKK and Aryan Nation prompted Dees to shift the SPLC’s mission from traditional civil rights issues to fight purported right-wing extremism. The SPLC broadened its scope from litigation to lobbying for hate crime laws and laws targeting supposed right-wing terrorism. ¹⁰ The change was so drastic that in one instance, the entire legal staff resigned in 1986. ¹¹

SPLC litigation today includes the areas of immigrant rights, prison reform, and gay and lesbian issues. ¹² The group is better known, however, for tracking alleged hate groups and extremists in the U.S. through its “Intelligence Project” publication. ¹³ SPLC also maintains information on these groups on its website with a Hatewatch vertical, a Hate Map, and offers a glossy magazine titled The Year in Hate and Extremism. ¹⁴ As the SPLC expanded its scope of activity, it also broadened its definition of hate groups to include groups with no propensity for violence, but whose peaceful political activities SPLC opposes, a decision for which the group has been criticized. ¹⁵

Organizational Overview

SPLC is headquartered in a 150,000 square foot, eight-story building in Montgomery, Alabama, designed by The Harmon Group, a New York-based architecture firm. ¹⁶ The building cost $15 million and construction was completed on March 31, 2001. ¹⁷

SPLC has offices in four other southern cities and a total of 302 employees. ¹⁸ In May 2017, Dees told the Colorado Springs Independent the SPLC had 48 lawyers who litigate across the country. ¹⁹ The “Intelligence Project” employs 15 full-time and two part-time staffers. ²⁰

Funding

In 2017, the SPLC reported revenues of $121,975,162, expenditures of $74,970,297, and net assets of $492,493,365. ²¹ The SPLC’s 2017 Form 990 IRS filing is available here.

In its 2016 tax documents, SLPC reported $136,373,624 in revenue, $59,784,321 in expenses. It also reported net assets of $449,834,593 and endowments totaling $432,723,955. ²²

In 2017, the SPLC paid $1,028,324 in canvassing fees to Grassroots Campaigns, Inc., a for-profit canvassing services firm; and $258,192 in telemarketing fees to Telefund. Both companies are associated with the Public Interest Network. ²³

Direct Mail

Early funding for SPLC came through direct mail solicitation. Morris Dees was a multi-millionaire by the late 1960s, gaining his wealth through direct mail sales. ²⁴ He used his direct mail expertise to raise money for the 1972 presidential campaign of left-wing U.S. Senator George McGovern (D-S.D.) in exchange for the candidate’s 700,000-name campaign donor list as his payment. This list served as the basis for what became SPLC’s lucrative direct mail fundraising program. ²⁵

SPLC’s direct mail program is reported to solicit funds primarily through multi-page alarmist solicitation letters. ²⁶ This has led to criticism both for exaggerating threats and raising more money than the organization spends on its legitimate activities. Alexander Cockburn, former columnist of the left-wing magazine The Nation, wrote in 2009 that the letters have been “scaring dollars out of the pockets of trembling liberals aghast at his lurid depictions of hate-sodden America, in dire need of legal confrontation by the SPLC.” ²⁷

According to IRS tax filings, SPLC raised $136,373,624 in 2016 and spent $59,784,321 or 54.8 percent of its revenue. Of its total expenses, $23,869,485, or 39.9 percent went to employee salaries, other compensation, and benefits. Fundraising expenses accounted for $12,626,830, or 21.1 percent of total expenses. ²⁸

Profiting from Lawsuits

The SPLC developed another revenue stream in the 1980s by suing violent white supremist groups. In 1984, Dees sued the United Klans of America (UKA) in Mobile, Alabama on behalf of Beulah Mae Donald, whose son was killed by two UKA members. Dees won a $7 million judgement against the UKA, $50,000 of which went to his client. SPLC raised another $9 million by leveraging the case with direct-mail solicitations. ²⁹ Former SPLC staffer Deborah Ellis, who quit SPLC in the 1980s, said of this legal strategy of grabbing headlines and exploiting verdicts through fundraising appeals, “I felt that Morris [Dees] was on the Klan kick because it was such an easy target — easy to beat in court, easy to raise big money on.”³⁰

Foundation Support

In addition to settlements and fundraising appeals, SPLC’s fortune has amassed contributions from corporations and foundations. The table below lists the largest contributors to SPLC as recorded by Foundation Search and the Center for Public Integrity. ³¹

SPLC Top Twelve Contributors 2000 - 2015
Contributor	Amount	Years
Picower Foundation	$3,793,112	2001-2008
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund	$2,307,330	2003-2015
JBP Foundation	$1,918,589	2011-2013
Cisco Systems Foundation	$1,620,000	2001-2004
Grove Foundation	$1,275,000	2003-2015
Public Welfare Foundation	$1,150,000	2008-2015
Americas Charities	$956,454	2011-2014
Unbound Philanthropy	$850,000	2006-2013
Rice Family Foundation	$785,000	2000-2015
Schwab Charitable Fund*	$758,540	2009-2014
Vanguard Charitable Endowment*	$747,980	2006-2014
W.K. Kellogg Foundation	$700,000	2010-2015
Source: Annual IRS Filings compiled by Foundation Search & the Center for Public Integrity		*Donor-Advised Fund Provider

The SPLC received a number of prominent pledges from liberal celebrities and corporations after an outbreak of violence between neo-Nazi and left-wing extremists in Charlottesville, Virginia. In August 2017, actor George Clooney and his wife, Amal, announced their foundation would donate $1 million to SPLC³² Apple CEO Tim Cook sent an email to employees in August 2017 that the company would begin accepting donations for the Southern Poverty Law Center, and that Apple would donate $1 million each to the SPLC and the Anti-Defamation League. Apple also launched a donations app for the SPLC in Apple’s iTunes digital store. ³³

Offshore Fundraising and Investments

SPLC keeps an undisclosed amount of money in offshore bank accounts in the tax-sheltered U.K. territories of the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. ³⁴ SPLC also engages in fundraising activities in Africa, South America, Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, Iceland, Greenland, Europe, Central America and the Caribbean. ³⁵

 $162 Million investment in Offshore Accounts

The organization’s recent tax forms reveal that while the fundraising contributions and grants provided to Southern Poverty Law Center have decreased, the organization has received a large increase in assets. In 2019, it received $97 million in annual contributions while in 2017 it received $132 million in annual contributions. However, the forms also show that in 2019 the organization accumulated $570 million in assets spread between its main organization and action fund. A $52 million increase in the organization’s assets from the previous year may be attributed to Southern Poverty Law Center’s investment portfolio that now includes $162 million in offshore accounts. ³⁶

Initiatives

Intelligence Project

Intelligence Project started in 1981 as a KKK-focused effort called Klanwatch. ³⁷ It rebranded as the Intelligence Project in 1998 to include a large variety of other allegedly extreme-right individuals, groups, and movements. ³⁸ Its primary product is the Intelligence Report, a quarterly magazine given for free to law enforcement officials, journalists, and news outlets. ³⁹ Intelligence Report identifies and tracks groups and incidents the SPLC characterizes as hate-based. As of July 2017, Intelligence Project had 15 full-time and two part-time staffers. Its reports are regularly cited by left-of-center mainstream media outlets. ⁴⁰

The Intelligence Report features alarmed articles, often written by former USA Today reporter Mark Potok. The articles bear alarming titles such as “Rage on the Right,” “The ‘Patriot Movement’ Explodes,” “For the Radical Right, Obama Victory Brings Fury and Fear,” and “Strange Bedfellows Snuggle Under White Sheets.”⁴¹

In February 2018, the Poynter Institute’s Poynter’s News University held a SPLC-funded webinar called “Covering Hate and Extremism, From the Fringes to the Mainstream: An Overview from the Southern Poverty Law Center.” The webinar featured SPLC research and was presented by Intelligence Project director Heidi Beirich. ⁴²

Hatewatch, Hate Map, and Extremist Files

SPLC maintains on its website its Hatewatch blog, Hate Map, and Extremist Files all of which purport to track and expose people and groups that hold positions and engage in political activities SPLC opposes. ⁴³

The SPLC Hatewatch blog contains news and headlines about groups it considers hate groups. ⁴⁴ SPLC sends its own reporters into the field to interview and research for the blog. ⁴⁵ The Hate Map keeps track of its so-called hate groups on an interactive map of the United States by geographical region, ideology, or group name, and currently lists 954 such groups. ⁴⁶ The map is compiled using information from organizations’ publications and websites, and news and law enforcement reports. SPLC circulates and promotes its map to journalists and academics since it began publishing the map in 1990. ⁴⁷

The Extremist Files database contains profiles of what it considers prominent extremists and extremist organizations, including histories and core beliefs. ⁴⁸

The SPLC Hate Map is regularly criticized for exaggerating its numbers. Most of the “hate groups” are chapters of nationwide organizations like the Nation of Islam. When this is taken into account, the total is much smaller. It also counts many organizations that are not obviously “hate” groups, but hold non-extremist right-wing political views. ⁴⁹

In August 2017, SPLC joined ProPublica and the Google News Lab as part of a coalition called Documenting Hate to build the Hate News Index, a national database of hate crime-related news stories. In addition to SPLC, the coalition includes Univision News, the New York Times, WNYC, BuzzFeed News, First Draft, Meedan, New America Media, The Root, Latino USA, the Advocate, 100 Days in Appalachia, Ushahidi, and the University of Miami School of Communications. ⁵⁰

On October 8, 2020, the SCLP issued a statement on its website announcing that the ideology category of “Black Separatist” would be removed as a listing on its “Hate Map.” According to Raven Hodges, “Black separatist groups land on the SPLC’s hate map because they propagate antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ and male supremacist views, not because they oppose a white supremacist power structure.” ⁵¹ The statement continued that Black Separatist-linked groups would still be monitored, but current and future groups that may have been placed in that listing would instead be transferred, “to hate ideologies, including antisemitism, that better describe the harm their rhetoric inflicts.” ⁵² The SCLP defended this move by claiming the organization, “recognizes the common language shared by our Black Separatist listing and federal attempts to criminalize Black activism,” and that, “Contributing to a false dichotomy does not serve SPLC’s mission of racial equity.” ⁵³

2012 Family Research Council Shooting

SPLC’s classification of “hate groups” has been cited by at least one violent left-wing extremist for helping to inspire him to attempt a terrorist attack on a mainstream social conservative advocacy group. In 2012, Floyd Lee Corkins II carried a pistol and nearly 100 rounds of ammunition into the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the Family Research Council (FRC), a social conservative group that opposes same-sex marriage and supports the right to life. Corkins shot one employee non-fatally and intended to kill as many FRC staff as possible. Corkins later told law enforcement that he targeted FRC after discovering the group on the SPLC’s online list of anti-gay groups. ⁵⁴

The FRC is still listed on SPLC’s “Hate Map” and described at length in its “Extremist Files” as of April 2019. ^{55 56}

“Teaching Tolerance”

SPLC began its classroom education project, called Teaching Tolerance, in 1991. ⁵⁷ The curriculum recommends educators talk about tolerance “as a basic American value, talk about it early, talk about it often, and talk about it in a lot of different contexts, so that when the context does seem a little bit political, it’s part of a bigger picture.”⁵⁸

Teaching Tolerance and its companion website, Tolerance.org, have promoted the work of controversial academic Bill Ayers, the founder of the Weather Underground extremist group and former domestic terrorist. ⁵⁹

Perspectives for a Diverse America is a new project of Teaching Tolerance which “marries anti-bias social justice content with the rigor of the Common Core State Standards.” The program is designed to teach “Identity, Diversity, Justice and Action” themes, providing course materials and ideas that meet Common Core standards. ⁶⁰

In February 2018, SPLC circulated results of its “Teaching Hard History: American Slavery” survey. The survey of high school seniors concluded many young people know little about slavery’s origins and the government’s role in perpetuating it. The survey also suggests educators and textbook-makers are avoiding slavery’s hard truths and lasting impact. ⁶¹

2018 Supreme Court Nominee

Following the Trump administration’s nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, the SPLC lobbied against the nomination, claiming that Kavanaugh and the organizations that supported him are “committed to a hard-right agenda.” The SPLC engaged in weekly call-ins, reaching out to Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Susan Collins (R-ME), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Doug Jones (D-AL). ⁶²

“Hate-Free Philanthropy”

On March 10, 2020, SPLC, along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the American Muslim Fund (AMF), released a white paper discussing how philanthropic nonprofits can deny funding to organizations classified as hate groups. Titled “Hate-Free Philanthropy,” the white paper discussed areas including the issue of “hate-funding” for philanthropies, understanding the role of donor-advised funds, the role of private sectors like Big Tech in pushing anti-hate policies, and how the philanthropic community can develop a framework for “greater reform.” ⁶³ The white paper itself was a product of a symposium in August 2019 which included CAIR, SPLC, and the AMF along with several dozen like-minded advocates. ⁶⁴

Criticism and Controversies

Morris Dees Fired and Allegations of Racism and Sexual Harassment

On March 14, 2019, Morris Dees was fired from his position as chief trial counsel for unspecified reasons. Among allegations reported was the need to improve the SPLC’s office culture and treatment of its employees. According to internal documents and reports from staff, Dees demonstrated racist sentiments to the point his black employees “felt threatened and banded together.” ⁶⁵ Over twenty employees reportedly voiced concern to management about internal allegations against Dees of sexual harassment and gender discrimination. SPLC president Richard Cohen, who resigned shortly after Dees’ termination was announced, himself said that the group will bring in an outside evaluator to improve its workplace environment. ⁶⁶

On March 18, 2019, the SPLC board of directors announced that it would be retaining Time’s Up Foundation then-president, Tina Tchen, to lead “a comprehensive review of the SPLC’s workplace culture and its past policies.” ⁶⁸

Left-leaning journalists employed by the SPLC during the time of Tchen’s investigation later claimed that the investigation suffered from a lack of transparency and that its findings were never put into writing that SPLC employees were shown. According to the former SPLC employee, once Tchen’s investigation began “it became abundantly clear to many of us that she had been hired to protect the reputation of the SPLC, and not to enact or recommend changes that would benefit staff—changes that we desperately needed.” ⁶⁹

On August 26, 2021, Tchen resigned from Time’s Up after it was revealed that she had aided in the suppression of sexual harassment allegations against disgraced New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo. ⁷⁰

Ignoring Left-Wing Extremism

SPLC has faced criticism for failing to track leftist political violence. When five Occupy Wall Street members were arrested for attempting to set bombs at a Cleveland, Ohio bridge in 2012,⁷¹ National Review reporter Charles C.W. Cooke questioned an SPLC representative to determine if SPLC would track left-wing extremism as it purports to track right-wing extremism. ⁷² The SPLC representative responded, “They were Anarchists…  We’re not really set up to cover the extreme Left.”⁷³

Attacks on Mainstream Figures

In April 2018, SPLC removed its “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists” from its website after Maajid Nawaz, a British Muslim who defected from Islamist extremism to become a Liberal Democratic Party politician and advocate for reform within Islam, threatened legal action over his inclusion on the list. Published in December 2016, the report purported to list promoters of hateful propaganda. ⁷⁴ The guide also listed Somali-born former Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an author and former member of the Dutch parliament for the liberal People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) who stridently opposes Islamism and the practice of female genital mutilation, as an “anti-Muslim extremist.”⁷⁵

On February 14, 2019, Gavin McInnes, the founder of the right-wing group called the Proud Boys, filed a defamation lawsuit against the SPLC. The lawsuit was in response to the SPLC’s labeling of Proud Boys as a “hate group.”⁷⁶ McInnes argues that by calling him and his group misogynistic and Islamophobic, the SPLC has personally cost him economic opportunities and prompted various social media platforms to ban him. ⁷⁷

The SPLC once listed U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and Ben Carson, a surgeon and Republican activist who would later serve as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Trump administration, among the neo-Nazis and white supremacists on its extremist lists. SPLC backed down after putting Carson on the list in 2014, removing his name and apologizing. ⁷⁸

In August 2017, CNN published an article entitled “Here are all the active hate groups where you live,” using the SPLC’s list of hate groups and supposed hate groups. Following criticism of the article (which lumped actual hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan together with mainstream and right-of-center organizations), CNN changed the title of the article to “The Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of hate groups,” in order to identify the source of the information as SPLC and not CNN. ⁷⁹ An editor’s note accompanied the change, which read:⁸⁰

Editor’s Note: The headline on this story has been changed to more closely align with the content of the piece, which clearly indicates that the data on hate groups is from the Southern Poverty Law Center. This story has also been updated to provide direct links to the full list from the SPLC as opposed to publishing the entire list here, and context has been added regarding some groups who oppose their inclusion on the SPLC list.

Associations with Ostensibly Nonpartisan Organizations

In June 2017, the online charity clearinghouse Guidestar added “warning labels” to 46 charitable organizations accused by SPLC of spreading hate. Less than one month later, Guidestar removed the labels amid immediate outcry by conservative groups, which objected to listing groups targeted as hateful for opposing same-sex marriage. Representatives of conservative organizations sent a letter to Guidestar describing the SPLC’s hate group list as a political weapon and “ad hoc, partisan, and agenda-driven.”⁸¹

In June 2018, the Daily Caller revealed that SPLC is among the 300 non-governmental organizations and government agencies in YouTube’s “Trusted Flaggers” program, helping YouTube identify extremist content. ⁸² The SPLC is the only participant in the program given the authority to determine the eligibility of other organizations. ⁸³

SPLC is currently used by Amazon to vet charitable organizations allowed to take part in its AmazonSmile program, which donates 0.5 percent of eligible purchases to organizations chosen by customers. ⁸⁴ Amazon removed the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a prominent social conservative public interest law firm which has won cases before the Supreme Court, from its AmazonSmile program in May 2018, citing SPLC’s listing of ADF as a “hate group.”⁸⁵

Facebook and Twitter have also confirmed that the SPLC is a member of their respective “hate speech” policing groups. The social media companies have made a point to say that the SPLC is only one of many organizations consulted. ⁸⁶

Vast Wealth

The SPLC has been criticized by conservatives and liberals as hypocritical for seeking millions of dollars in donations instead of the alleviation of poverty. In 2012, the Daily Kos, a left-of-center website, criticized the SPLC for “pimping out the word poverty” in order to solicit millions of dollars in donations. In particular, the article pointed to the organization’s $238 million in assets reported for 2011 and offshore bank accounts, writing: “Folks living in poverty across America must feel so empowered to know this organization is fighting to lift them up from their poor economic status, by shipping unknown of U.S. dollars (thousands? millions?) to two tax havens abroad.”⁸⁷

Criticism of Trump Administration

The SPLC signed a letter condemning the immigration policy of the Trump Administration and urging American CEOs not to employ anyone involved with the policy. It accused these officials of being directly guilty for physical abuse, sexual assault, and even the death of illegal immigrant children. The letter was titled “An Open Letter to America’s CEOs” and was dated April 6, 2019. ⁸⁸

Offshore Accounts

According to its financial statement covering the period between November 1, 2018 and October 31, 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center stored $41 million in offshore accounts, bringing the total to $162 million when added to the financial information disclosed in the previous release period. ⁸⁹ This comes after 2018 tax forms revealed a decrease in contributions to the organization, from $132 million in 2017 to $97 million in 2018. The same tax forms also showed a $52 million increase in total assets between the SPLC and the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund from the previous year, now totaling $570 million. ⁹⁰

In addition, the records showed that over $1 million had been provided to SPLC co-founder and former chief trial counsel Morris Dees, former SPLC president Richard Cohen, and former SPLC legal director Rhonda Brownstein. ⁹¹ Dees had been fired from his position in March 2019 due to complaints of racial discrimination and sexual harassment within the workplace, with Cohen and Brownstein resigning from their positions shortly after. The latter two had also received a six-figure severance package following their resignation, according to financial records. ⁹²

Labeling Dustin Inman Society as a Hate Group

On March 31, 2023, U.S District Judge W. Keith Watkins rejected a motion filed by the SPLC to dismiss a lawsuit filed by advocacy group The Dustin Inman Society, which had been labeled a “hate group” under the SPLC’s “Hate Map” in 2018. ⁹³ Founded in 2005 by D.A King, the Society, named after a 16-year old boy killed in a car accident in 2000 caused by an illegal immigrant, was formed to, “honor our immigration system and the real, legal immigrants that we bring into the country every year by enforcing our immigration laws.” ^{94 95} The SPLC had initially labeled the Society a “hate group” in 2018 by claiming the group, “denigrates immigrants and supports efforts to make the lives of immigrants so hard that they leave on their own.” ⁹⁶ The lawsuit was filed to challenge the SPLC’s labeling of the Society as a hate group, which the former claimed was protected under the First Amendment as they claimed it was a “non-actionable opinion.” D.A King commented on the motion rejection in an interview with the Washington Examiner by stating, “We’ve overcome what I am told is the biggest and most often interjected hurdle when people try to fight back against the well-funded Southern Poverty Law Center.”⁹⁷ As of April 2023, King stated that he and his team are now seeking a trial as well as, “compensatory damages, punitive damages, and an injunction requiring the SPLC to remove its label, issue a public retraction, and publicly apologize.” ⁹⁸

SPLC Attorney Charged with Domestic Terrorism in Atlanta

In March 2023, Tom Jurgens, a staff attorney with the SPLC, was one of 35 activists arrested for taking part in a violent protest against the city of Atlanta’s proposed Public Safety Training Center, commonly nicknamed, “Cop City.” ⁹⁹ Of the 35 arrested during the attack, 22 were charged with domestic terrorism including Jurgens. ¹⁰⁰ Jurgens’ deleted Linked profile showed that he joined the SPLC in 2021, while previously studying at the University of Oxford and then earning a degree in law from the University of Georgia. ¹⁰¹ According to the SPLC, Jurgens had been present at the site serving as a, “legal observer” for the National Lawyers Guild. ¹⁰²

According to a statement released by the Atlanta Police Department, on March 5, “violent agitators” used, “the cover of a peaceful protest of the proposed Atlanta Public Safety Training Center to conduct a coordinated attack on construction equipment and police officers.” ¹⁰³ The statement continued explaining that activists, “entered the construction area and began to throw large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at police officers.” ¹⁰⁴ The attacks resulted in the destruction of, “multiple pieces of construction equipment by fire and vandalism.” ^{105 106} Atlanta police chief Darin Schierbaum called the riot a, “very violent attack” and an, “attempt to destabilize,” while Georgia Governor Brian Kemp labeled it as “domestic terrorism.” ¹⁰⁷

On March 7, Jurgens was the only one of the 22 charged activists to be granted consent bail at $5,000. According to DeKalb County Court Magistrate Judge Anna Davis, “Given the fact that he is a [barred] attorney, his claim at this point, he’s a legal observer. I can’t stand here and say there’s evidence he threw something.” ¹⁰⁸ The SPLC issued a statement on Jurgens’ release on bail, claiming, “Tom was performing a public service, documenting potential violations of protesters’ rights…we are outraged that police officers present at the protest refused to acknowledge Tom’s role as a legal observer and instead chose to arrest him.” ¹⁰⁹

Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund

In late 2018, the SPLC started an advocacy group called the SPLC Action Fund in order to engage in lobbying for legislation and ballot initiatives. ¹¹⁰ While donations to the Action Fund are not tax-deductible (suggesting that the Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization), there is no official record of the new group in the IRS database as of early 2019. ^{111 112}

Leadership

SPLC is governed by a 15-member board of directors. ¹¹³

Until March 2019, the SPLC’s full-time staff leadership included president Richard Cohen. Morris Dees, a co-founder and SPLC chief counsel, was fired from his position on March 13, 2019 following what were initially unspecified conduct violations; Cohen resigned the following day. ^{114 115}

It was later revealed that the organization’s leadership was accused of conducting sexual harassment and racial discrimination against its minority staffers.  These allegations resulted in the employment termination of co-founder Morris Dees, president Richard Cohen, and the organization’s legal director Rhonda Brownstein. Financial records demonstrate that despite these allegations, Dees, Cohen and Brownstein received over $1 million in severance packages. ¹¹⁶

On April 2, 2019, the SPLC announced that attorney Karen Baynes-Dunning would replace Cohen as interim president. ¹¹⁷

Margaret Huang

Margaret Huang is currently the chief executive officer and president of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Prior to working at the Southern Poverty Law Center, she worked as the executive director of Amnesty International USA where she organized campaigns to support the human rights of migrants and refugees, survivors of torture, and victims of gun violence. Previously, she also worked as the executive director of the Rights Working Group, director of the U.S. program at Global Rights, director of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights, program manager for the Asia Foundation and as a committee staff member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. ¹¹⁸

Morris Dees

Morris Dees is co-founder of the SPLC and served as chief trial counsel for the group until March 2019, when he was fired from his position. While still in college, Dees and business partner Millard Fuller created the Fuller & Dees Marketing Group. ¹¹⁹ His former partner admits the pair shared an “overriding purpose of making a pile of money” and becoming “independently rich.”¹²⁰ The company grew into one of the largest publishers in the South and the largest cookbook publisher in the U.S. ¹²¹ Fuller and Dees parted ways with the sale of the company to Time Warner in 1969. ¹²² Fuller went on to found Habitat for Humanity, and later the Fuller Center for Housing before his death in 2009. ¹²³ Dees went on to join lawyer Joseph Levin, Jr. to found the SPLC. In 1998, Dees was named to the Direct Marketing Association’s Hall of Fame. ¹²⁴

Dees’ total compensation in 2017 was $416,948. ¹²⁵

On March 14, 2019 the SPLC announced that it had fired Dees for unspecified conduct violations. Internal documents reviewed by Newsweek allege charges of “racism against Dees,” where staffers claim that black employees “felt threatened and banded together.” ¹²⁶ A series of sexual harassment allegations against Dees were also reported to SPLC management from employees shortly prior to his dismissal. ¹²⁷

According to a local newspaper which spoke to Dees after his firing, over the past decade Dees had not tried any cases nor participated in the SPLC’s day-to-day activities—despite his role as the group’s chief litigator. While the specific reasons for Dees’s termination are unclear, the SPLC announced that it will call in an independent organization to assess its workplace culture and office environment. ¹²⁸

Joseph Levin, Jr.

Joseph Levin, Jr. is an SPLC co-founder and legal director. In 1976, he left SPLC to work on President Jimmy Carter’s transition team, then worked in the Carter administration as Chief Counsel of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. After leaving government, he worked in private practice until 1996, then returned to SPLC. He has served as board chair, president and CEO, and most recently, general counsel. He retired in 2016.

Richard Cohen

Richard Cohen served as SPLC president and CEO from 2003 until he resigned on March 14, 2019 following Morris Dees’ termination as chief trial counsel on March 13, 2019. ¹²⁹

Cohen joined the SPLC in 1986 and has led the group in numerous legal victories including a $37.6 million judgment in 1998 against the Ku Klux Klan for burning down a church in rural South Carolina. ¹³⁰ Cohen also spearheaded the SPLC’s ultimately successful efforts to remove controversial Alabama Supreme Court chief judge Roy Moore (R), both for his refusal to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments on the steps of his court and for attempting to preserve Alabama’s ban on same-sex marriages in defiance of a Supreme Court ruling mandating recognition of such unions. ¹³¹ Cohen’s 2017 total compensation was $390,686. ¹³²

Mark Potok

Mark Potok is editor-in-chief of SPLC’s quarterly Intelligence Report and HateWatch blog. Potok has worked for the SPLC since 1997 and is one of the SPLC’s most visible faces, appearing on TV news shows, making speeches and often serving as SPLC’s spokesman. In 2011, Potok claimed on CNN that far-right extremism was a greater threat than radical Islamist extremism. ¹³³ Potok’s total compensation in 2017 was $164,926. ¹³⁴

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    On April 2, 2019, the SPLC announced that attorney Karen Baynes-Dunning would replace Cohen as interim president. ⁶⁷Darran Simon. “Southern Poverty Law Center names new interim president and CEO.” CNN. April 2, 2019. Accessed April 10, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/02/us/southern-poverty-law-center-leadership-change/index.html

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103. Richardson, Valerie. “Judge denies bail to all suspects in ‘Cop City’ attack — except Southern Poverty Law Center lawyer.” Washington Times, March 7, 2023. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/mar/7/thomas-webb-jurgens-southern-poverty-law-center-la/
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