The Transformation of the Southern Poverty Law Center
The Transformation of the Southern Poverty Law Center
A Timeline of Organizational Drift
By Alexander Mills
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The Transformation of the Southern Poverty Law Center: A Timeline of Organizational Drift
Introduction
The Southern Poverty Law Center began as a beacon of hope in the civil rights movement. Founded in 1971 by Morris Dees and Joseph Levin in Montgomery, Alabama, it aimed to provide legal representation to those who couldn't afford it in the segregated South. But over five decades, critics argue the organization transformed from a civil rights law firm into something entirely different—a politically-motivated fundraising operation that labels mainstream conservative groups as hate organizations. This is the story of how that transformation happened.
1971-1979: The Early Years of Civil Rights Work
1971: Morris Dees and Joseph Levin formally incorporated the SPLC with civil rights activist Julian Bond as the first president. The organization began with genuine civil rights litigation, taking on cases few other lawyers would touch.
Early victories included desegregating Montgomery's YMCA facilities, forcing integration of the Alabama State Trooper force, and challenging prison conditions. The organization also fought against involuntary sterilization of women on welfare and won a landmark Supreme Court case requiring the Defense Department to provide equal benefits to servicewomen.
1974: The SPLC freed the "Tarboro Three"—three Black men wrongfully imprisoned and facing death sentences for allegedly raping a white woman. This represented exactly the kind of important civil rights work the organization was founded to pursue.
1979: Julian Bond resigned as president but remained on the board. This same year marked a pivotal shift: the SPLC began filing civil lawsuits against Ku Klux Klan chapters for monetary damages, moving away from traditional poverty law toward targeting hate groups.
1980-1989: The Fundraising Pivot
1981: The SPLC launched "Klanwatch" (later renamed the Intelligence Project) to monitor KKK activity. While fighting the Klan was legitimate work, this marked the beginning of what critics call a fundraising-focused strategy.
1984: Morris Dees won a major case against the United Klans of America on behalf of Beulah Mae Donald, whose son Michael was lynched by Klan members. The 50,000 went to the client. Meanwhile, the SPLC raised an additional $9 million leveraging the case in direct-mail solicitations.
Former staffer Deborah Ellis, who quit in the 1980s, later said she felt Dees was focused on the Klan "because it was such an easy target—easy to beat in court, easy to raise big money on."
1985: Internal documents revealed staff concerns about racism within the organization. In memos, Black employees reported feeling threatened and banding together. Despite being a civil rights organization, only one of eight department heads was Black.
1986: The entire legal staff of the SPLC resigned in protest. They had signed up to represent poor people in the South but found themselves working on what they viewed as a fundraising scheme centered on pursuing the already-declining Klan rather than addressing systemic poverty and injustice.
By the late 1980s, the Klan had been significantly weakened. But rather than return to poverty law, the SPLC broadened its "hate group" monitoring to include other organizations.
1990-1999: Expanding the "Hate" Industry
1990: The SPLC began its annual census of hate groups, releasing it as part of what would become the Year in Hate report. The hate map was born—a tool that would prove enormously profitable.
1994: The Montgomery Advertiser published a Pulitzer Prize-nominated series examining the SPLC. It revealed troubling details about racism within the organization and questioned whether fundraising had overtaken the civil rights mission. Staffers portrayed a culture where Black employees felt marginalized, and critics questioned Morris Dees' sincerity given the lack of minority leadership.
1995: Harper's Magazine published a critical investigation by Ken Silverstein, exposing the SPLC's massive wealth accumulation and questioning its fundraising practices.
Late 1990s: As traditional hate groups declined, the SPLC needed new "threats" to maintain donor interest. The organization began expanding its definition of hate groups beyond obvious white supremacists.
2000-2010: Mission Creep Accelerates
2000s: The SPLC increasingly labeled conservative and religious organizations as "hate groups," placing them on the same map as neo-Nazis and the KKK.
2001: Former staffer Bob Moser began working at the SPLC, later describing it as operating like "a marketing tool for bilking gullible Northern liberals."
2010: The Family Research Council, a Christian organization focused on traditional family values, was designated an "anti-gay hate group" by the SPLC. This marked a significant expansion—labeling a mainstream conservative organization with millions of supporters as equivalent to violent extremists.
During this period, the SPLC's assets grew exponentially. The organization was no longer primarily engaged in litigation but had become a wealthy watchdog organization with hundreds of millions in endowments, including offshore accounts.
2012: Violence Inspired by the Hate Map
August 2012: Floyd Lee Corkins entered the Family Research Council headquarters in Washington, D.C., armed with a gun and Chick-fil-A sandwiches, intending to commit mass murder. He later admitted to the FBI that he chose his target after finding FRC listed as an anti-gay group on the SPLC website.
A security guard was shot but survived, stopping Corkins before he could harm anyone else. This incident demonstrated the real-world consequences of the SPLC's expanded "hate" designations, yet the organization continued its practices.
2016-2018: The Trump Bump
2016-2017: Following Donald Trump's election and the Charlottesville violence, donations to the SPLC skyrocketed from 50millionto132 million annually. The organization's endowment grew to nearly half a billion dollars.
2018: The SPLC listed 1,020 organizations as active hate groups—an all-time high. Critics pointed out that the increase was driven largely by expanding definitions rather than genuine growth in extremism.
2019: The Reckoning
March 13, 2019: In a stunning development, the SPLC fired Morris Dees, its 82-year-old co-founder and long-time public face. The organization offered no specific reason but stated he "failed to meet" their standards.
March 14-15, 2019: Internal emails revealed the depth of the problems. Two dozen SPLC employees signed a letter detailing "allegations of mistreatment, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and racism" that threatened the organization's moral authority. Former employees reported that Dees had a "reputation for hitting on young women" and that the organization suffered from "systemic culture of racism and sexism."
One employee told CNN that the SPLC was ruled by "the unchecked power of lavishly compensated white men at the top" while Black and female employees faced harassment and discrimination.
March 21, 2019: Bob Moser published his devastating essay in The New Yorker, calling the SPLC "a highly profitable scam" that "never lived up to the values it espoused." He described feeling guilt about "the legions of donors who believed that their money was being used, faithfully and well, to do the Lord's work in the heart of Dixie. We were part of the con, and we knew it."
Moser revealed that within the organization, Black employees were almost uniformly relegated to "administrative and support staff—'the help,' one of my Black colleagues said pointedly"—while the professional staff remained almost exclusively white.
March 22, 2019: Richard Cohen, SPLC president since 2003, announced his resignation, saying he took responsibility for "whatever problems exist at the SPLC." Associate legal director Meredith Horton, a high-ranking African American woman, had already resigned, citing workplace culture concerns.
April 2019: Karen Baynes-Dunning was named interim president and CEO. The organization brought in Tina Tchen, Michelle Obama's former chief of staff, to conduct an external review of workplace practices.
2020-Present: Continued Controversy
February 2020: Margaret Huang, formerly of Amnesty International USA, became president and CEO.
December 2019: After a "tumultuous year," SPLC staff voted to unionize, with 142 in favor and 45 against. The organization had "long been dogged by accusations of internal discrimination against minority employees."
2023: The SPLC added Moms for Liberty, a parental rights group, to its "hate map." The designation drew criticism as another example of labeling mainstream political activism as extremism.
2024: The SPLC added Focus on the Family and designated a group of gays and lesbians as an "anti-LGBTQ+ hate group" because they opposed certain transgender policies. The organization also added Turning Point USA, the largest conservative youth organization, to the hate map.
June 2025: The SPLC's 2024 hate list included 1,371 groups, with numerous Christian ministries and conservative organizations listed alongside actual extremist groups.
July 2025: Margaret Huang resigned and was replaced by interim CEO Bryan Fair. The organization conducted layoffs affecting more than 60 union members and at least 20 supervisors, dismantling its Immigrant Justice team and Learning for Justice department—just months before union contract negotiations.
October 2025: Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, FBI Director Kash Patel terminated all ties with the SPLC, calling it a "partisan smear machine" whose "hate map has been used to defame mainstream Americans and even inspired violence."
November 2025: Major corporations including Salesforce began distancing themselves from the SPLC's hate map after pressure from conservative groups and shareholders. Companies that had used the SPLC to screen charitable donations faced backlash for excluding mainstream conservative nonprofits.
The Key Figures Pushed Out or Departed
Julian Bond (1979): Resigned as president, remained on board until death in 2015
Entire legal staff (1986): Mass resignation in protest of shift from poverty law to Klan-focused fundraising
Deborah Ellis (1980s): Former staffer who quit, later spoke about the fundraising scheme
Meredith Horton (2019): High-ranking African American associate legal director who resigned citing workplace culture concerns
Morris Dees (2019): Co-founder fired for misconduct after decades of complaints about harassment and racism
Richard Cohen (2019): President resigned taking responsibility for organizational problems
Margaret Huang (2025): President and CEO who resigned after several years
60+ union members and staff (2025): Laid off during organizational restructuring
How Political Ideology Replaced Civil Rights Work
The transformation wasn't sudden but gradual:
Revenue model shift (1980s): From poverty law to hate-group litigation and monitoring
Expanding definitions (2000s-2010s): Moving from obvious extremists to mainstream conservative organizations
Political targeting (2010s-2020s): Labeling Christian groups, parental rights activists, and conservative youth organizations as "hate groups"
Profit over mission (throughout): Accumulating massive wealth while the stated mission was fighting poverty and injustice
The pattern critics identify is clear: as traditional hate groups declined, the SPLC needed new targets to maintain its fundraising apparatus. Conservative and religious organizations opposing progressive positions on issues like marriage, gender, and immigration became the new "hate groups"—placed on the same map as neo-Nazis and the KKK.
The Financial Picture
By 2024, the SPLC had accumulated 822millioninassets,with162 million in offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. The organization received between $97-170 million in annual contributions throughout the 2010s and 2020s—far more than needed for actual civil rights litigation.
Former employees consistently described feeling like pawns in a "highly profitable scam" where donor money wasn't being used for its stated purpose but was accumulating in vast endowments.
Conclusion
What began in 1971 as a legitimate civil rights law firm representing poor people in the South transformed into what critics call a partisan political operation. The shift accelerated in the mid-1980s when Morris Dees focused on the declining Klan for fundraising purposes, continued through the 1990s and 2000s as definitions of "hate" expanded, and culminated in the 2010s and 2020s with mainstream conservative and religious organizations being labeled as extremists.
The 2019 internal crisis—marked by the firing of Morris Dees and resignation of Richard Cohen—exposed decades of hypocrisy: an organization preaching anti-racism while fostering a racist internal culture, accumulating massive wealth while claiming to fight poverty, and labeling peaceful Americans as hate groups while reportedly harboring harassment and discrimination within its own walls.
Today, the SPLC faces declining credibility, with the FBI severing ties, major corporations abandoning its hate map, and ongoing questions about whether it serves civil rights or political partisanship. The transformation is complete: from civil rights champion to what many now see as a left-wing advocacy organization using the language of "hate" to target political opponents while enriching itself through donor appeals.
