Back مركز قانون الحاجة الجنوبي Arabic Southern Poverty Law Center Catalan Southern Poverty Law Center Czech Southern Poverty Law Center German Sudusona Malriĉeca Jura Centro Esperanto Southern Poverty Law Center Spanish مرکز حقوقی فقر جنوبی Persian Southern Poverty Law Center Finnish Southern Poverty Law Center French המרכז המשפטי לדרום העני HE

Southern Poverty Law Center

"SPLC" redirects here. For other uses, see SPLC (disambiguation).

Southern Poverty Law Center
FoundedAugust 1971 (August 1971)
Founders
Type
  • Public-interest law firm
  • Civil rights advocacy organization
63-0598743 (EIN)
Legal status501(c)(3)
Focus
Location
Coordinates32°22′36″N 86°18′12″W / 32.37667°N 86.30333°W / 32.37667; -86.30333
Area served
United States
Product
  • Legal representation
  • Educational materials
Key people
Margaret Huang (President and CEO)
Bryan Fair (Board Chairman)
Revenue
$136.3 million (2018 FY)[1]
Endowment$471.0 million (2018 FY)[1]
Employees421 in 2021 [2]
WebsiteSPLCenter.org

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation.[3] Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white supremacist groups, for its classification of hate groups and other extremist organizations, and for promoting tolerance education programs.[4][5]: 1500  The SPLC was founded by Morris Dees, Joseph J. Levin Jr., and Julian Bond in 1971 as a civil rights law firm in Montgomery.[6]

In 1980, the SPLC began a litigation strategy of filing civil suits for monetary damages on behalf of the victims of violence from the Ku Klux Klan.[7] The SPLC also became involved in other civil rights causes, including cases to challenge what it sees as institutional racial segregation and discrimination, inhumane and unconstitutional conditions in prisons and detention centers, discrimination based on sexual orientation, mistreatment of illegal immigrants, and the unconstitutional mixing of church and state. The SPLC has provided information about hate groups to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other law enforcement agencies.[8][9]

Since the 2000s, the SPLC's classification and listings of hate groups (organizations that "attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics")[10] and anti-government extremists[11] are widely relied upon by academic and media sources.[12][13][14] The SPLC's listings have also been criticized by those who argue that some of the SPLC's listings are overbroad, politically motivated, or unwarranted.[15][16][17][18] The organization has also been accused of an overindulgent use of funds, leading some employees to call its headquarters "Poverty Palace".[19]

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference financial statements was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "2021 Form 990 U.S. Federal Tax Return" (PDF). Southern Poverty law Center. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 14, 2023. Retrieved April 8, 2023.
  3. ^ "Southern Poverty Law Center Inc - Nonprofit Explorer". ProPublica. May 9, 2013. Archived from the original on April 11, 2023. Retrieved March 8, 2021.
  4. ^ "With Justice For All". The Times-Picayune. November 5, 2006. Archived from the original on April 17, 2008.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Finkelman_Encyclopedia_2006 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Chebium, Raju (September 8, 2000). "Attorney Morris Dees pioneer in using 'damage litigation' to fight hate groups". CNN. Archived from the original on June 18, 2006. Retrieved May 15, 2017.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Chalmers_Backfire_2003 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Michael (2012), p. 32.
  9. ^ "What We Investigate: Hate Crimes: The FBI's Role: Public Outreach". www.fbi.gov. Archived from the original on May 19, 2017. Retrieved May 20, 2017. The FBI has forged partnerships nationally and locally with many civil rights organizations to establish rapport, share information, address concerns, and cooperate in solving problems....The FBI has forged partnerships nationally and locally with many civil rights organizations to establish rapport, share information, address concerns, and cooperate in solving problems. These groups include such organizations as the...Southern Poverty Law Center.
  10. ^ "Hate Map". SPLC. Archived from the original on March 17, 2015. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  11. ^ "What We Do". SPLC. Archived from the original on September 23, 2023. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  12. ^ "Does the Southern Poverty Law Center target conservatives?" Archived December 11, 2021, at the Wayback Machine The Christian Science Monitor, February 18, 2016
  13. ^ Chen, Hsinchun (2006). Intelligence and Security Informatics for International Security: Information Sharing and Data Mining. New York: Springer. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-387-24379-5. ... the web sites of the "Southern Poverty Law Center" [...] and the Anti-Defamation League [...] are authoritative sources for identifying domestic extremists and hate groups.
  14. ^ Swain, Carol (2002). The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 75. ISBN 978-0-521-80886-6.
  15. ^ Chokshi, Niraj (February 17, 2016). "The Year of 'Enormous Rage': Number of Hate Groups Rose by 14 Percent in 2015". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on June 19, 2018. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference politico was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Jonsson, Patrik (February 23, 2011). "Annual report cites rise in hate groups, but some ask: What is hate?" Archived December 22, 2017, at the Wayback Machine. The Christian Science Monitor
  18. ^ Graham, David A. (June 18, 2018). "The Unlabelling of an 'Anti-Muslim Extremist'". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on June 29, 2023. Retrieved July 5, 2018. While the fabled nonprofit has long had its critics, many of them hatemongers like Gaffney, the new chorus included sympathetic observers and fellow researchers on hate groups, who worried that SPLC was mixing its research and activist strains.
  19. ^ Moser, Bob (March 21, 2019). "The Reckoning of Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on September 10, 2023. Retrieved June 22, 2020. In 1995, the Montgomery Advertiser had been a Pulitzer finalist for a series that documented, among other things, staffers' allegations of racial discrimination within the organization.

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