Southern Poverty Law Center has, despite its noble origins, become a leftist authoritarian hack. It gained popularity by adding conservative groups to its list.
The group has been criticized for lying brazenly about conservatives and their organizations in order to score cheap points. They continue to try and deceive Americans.
According to the Daily Signal, a conservative group, the Dustin Inman Society has won a major legal victory in a lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC is known for labeling mainstream conservative and Christian groups as “hate groups”, often leading to defamation suits being dismissed due to the legal requirement of proving actual malice.
In this case, however, District Judge Keith Watkins refused the SPLC’s motion to dismiss defamation claims, allowing for the case to proceed to the discovery stage. It is the first time that an organization has challenged the SPLC’s “hate group accusation” at this stage. The Washington Post and The New York Times, two left-leaning media outlets, have been ignoring this story despite its importance.
Credibility issues have been raised before, such as a scandal involving racial and sexual discrimination that resulted in the termination of the SPLC’s co-founder. It also led to the resignation of the SPLC president. Former employee Bob Moser called the SPLC’s “hateful” accusations a “highly lucrative scam.”
The organization apologized for past smears such as incorrectly labeling Ben Carson, former neurosurgeon and U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development as an extremist. The Dustin Inman Society, despite having an endowment in excess of $730 million dollars, has had difficulty raising funds since being labeled as a “hate group” by the SPLC. The society wants to raise $25,000 for its legal fight against the SPLC.
Even Fox News has failed to cover this story. The Daily Signal contacted several media outlets including The New York Times, Fox News, and others for comments on the apparent media silence, but did not receive a response.
D.A. King, the founder of the Dustin Inman Society told The Daily Signal, “a New York Times journalist contacted me nearly two weeks after a motion to dismiss had been denied and was rather insistent that the denial would be a front-page story.”
The reporter stated that he “would hold off” on contacting his editors about the story until another notable development in the court proceedings occurred. It was confusing for me. “Is it, not news that the SPLC has finally lost a motion to dismiss their lawsuit for false and malicious smears?” asked him.
This is an important story, despite the media’s apathy. For years, the SPLC has been able to falsely compare conservative groups to the Ku Klux Klan. The SPLC has probably damaged the reputation of many of these organizations, and it will continue to do so as long as they are not held accountable. Maybe this lawsuit will lead to the desired outcome.
