Tillman in 2022 on the Southern Poverty Law Center

Why are you [Dean Ruger, at Penn Law] sure the Southern Poverty Law Center is an entirely reliable source [and so list a SPLC publication as a source in your ‘indictment’ against Professor Amy Wax]? Cf. Penn Law Civil Rights Fellowship at the Southern Poverty Law Center (application deadline May 8, 2017), <https://tinyurl.com/4duvpax7>. Nevertheless, there is a substantial, continuing, public critique of that organization. See, e.g., Maximillian Alvarez, ‘Why Workers Picketed the Southern Poverty Law Center,’ In These Times (Mar. 30, 2022), <https://tinyurl.com/2p8kvr4d>; ‘SPLC denounced as “thoroughly disgraced” after labeling pro-life, family organizations as “hate groups”,’ Catholic News Agency (Feb. 2, 2021, 9:45 AM), <https://tinyurl.com/hyn695bp>; Tyler O’Neil, Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center (New York: Post Hill Press 2020); Bob Moser, ‘The Reckoning of Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center,’ The New Yorker (Mar. 21, 2019), <https://tinyurl.com/yc7bj6we>; Jessica Prol Smith, ‘The Southern Poverty Law Center is a hate-based scam that nearly caused me to be murdered,’ USA Today (Aug. 17, 2019), <https://tinyurl.com/yk478xxk>; Marc A. Thiessen, ‘The Southern Poverty Law Center Has Lost All Credibility,’ The Washington Post (June 22, 2018, 8:00 AM EDT), <https://tinyurl.com/4b5m3c38>; Ben Schreckinger, ‘Has a Civil Rights Stalwart Lost Its Way?,’ Politico Magazine (July/Aug. 2017), <https://tinyurl.com/y3authr9>; David A. Graham, ‘How Did Maajid Nawaz End Up on a List of “Anti-Muslim Extremists”?,’ The Atlantic (Oct. 29, 2016), <https://tinyurl.com/mryzdpkk>; Lee Smith, ‘A New Blacklist From the Southern Poverty Law Center Marks the Demise of a Once-Vital Organization,’ Tablet (Oct. 31, 2016), <https://tinyurl.com/ydm296kf>; see also, e.g., ‘Morris Dees,’ Brittanica, <https://tinyurl.com/56srkcw9> (“[C]ritics outside the SPLC accused Dees of drawing few distinctions between white supremacists and groups that support limits to immigration, controls on population growth, or the right to bear arms.”); cf., e.g., ‘SPLC Statement on Dr. Ben Carson,’ Southern Poverty Law Center (Feb. 2015), <https://tinyurl.com/3yy4cyf8> (“In October 2014, we posted an ‘Extremist File’ of Dr. Ben Carson. This week, as we’ve come under intense criticism for doing so, we’ve reviewed our profile and have concluded that it did not meet our standards, so we have taken it down and apologize to Dr. Carson for having posted it.”). One “defense” of the SPLC in regard to the imbroglio between it and the Family Research Council concluded: “On the culture-war battlefield, calling someone a ‘hate group’ is a political move—and so is whining about it.” David Sessions, ‘Is the Family Research Council Really a Hate Group?,’ Daily Beast (Aug. 16, 2012, 9:35 PM ET), <https://tinyurl.com/smctx933> (emphases added).

The above is an extract from: Seth Barrett Tillman, A Response to Dean Ruger’s Letter to Professor Gadsden, University of Pennsylvania Faculty Senate Chair, Calling for the Imposition of a Major Sanction Against Professor Wax (Aug. 2, 2022), <https://ssrn.com/abstract=4168694>. 

Seth Barrett Tillman, Tillman in 2022 on the Southern Poverty Law Center, New Reform Club (Apr. 23, 2026, 8:43 AM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2026/04/tillman-in-2022-on-southern-poverty-law.html>;