The New York Post editorial yesterday is entitled:
The SPLC’s terrible year just got worse
It’s been a rough year for the Southern Poverty Law Center — deservedly so. And it just got more difficult, thanks to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
The SPLC, formed in 1971 as an aggressive civil-rights nonprofit law firm, has become the left’s go-to arbiter of what constitutes a hate group. Its pronouncements are quoted without challenge by the news media, and it has an endowment of $300 million, enriched by major corporate donors.
Yet its overly broad definition of “hate” often goes far beyond truly vile outfits to include people and groups that simply don’t toe a politically correct line. That’s why the SPLC two months ago had to pay $3.4 million and publicly apologize to Maajid Nawaz, whom it had falsely labeled an “anti-Muslim extremist.” (He’s actually a practicing Muslim who opposes extremism.)
But that didn’t stop the Star-Ledger last week from devoting an editorial to denouncing New Jersey’s ICE spokesman, Emilio Dabul, for his “links” (as supplied by the SPLC) to “anti-Muslim fanatics.” This, even though the Star-Ledger admitted that Dabul’s own writings “showed no anti-Muslim bias.” It was all guilt by association — right from the SPLC playbook.
Now Sessions has ordered a review to ensure the Justice Department no longer partners with the SPLC and other groups that “unfairly defame Americans.”
[….]
…Sessions charged, it uses its hate-group designations “as a weapon” to “bully and intimidate” organizations of which it simply doesn’t approve.
[….]
As Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who’s also been smeared by the SPLC as an “anti-Muslim extremist,”*** has noted, the group these days is invested more in “profiting off the anxieties and white guilt of Northern liberals” than in actually upholding civil rights.
Sessions’ review is long overdue, and follows other government agencies that have backed away from the SPLC. It’s time for those who still merely parrot its smears to start taking a closer look.
If you are looking for something to do, you need to complain to your local paper or TV station any time they use the SPLC as a credible source to define “hate groups.”
***The SPLC was forced to remove its now infamous Anti-Muslim Extremist list that included yours truly, see here.
Targeting Refugee Resettlement Watch and anyone questioning refugee resettlement for their towns and cities was initiated by a Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society study in 2013 which explicitly asked that the SPLC investigate us. Here is a quote from that study (my post is here). Earlier in the report they mentioned RRW by name.
Conduct Research on Local Anti-Refugee Leaders: The national refugee agencies should partner with groups such as Center for New Community and Southern Poverty Law Center to learn more about individuals and groups leading local efforts to resist resettlement, to determine if they belong to organized anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim organizations or networks.
Remember that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, as one of nine federal resettlement contractors, is dependent on your tax dollars for more than half of the group’s income!
