The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. It is noted for its legal victories against white supremacist groups, its legal representation for victims of hate groups, its classification of militias and extremist organizations, and its educational programs that promote tolerance. The SPLC also classifies and lists hate groups—organizations that in its opinion “attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” The SPLC’s hate group list has been the source of some controversy.
In 1971, Morris Dees and Joseph J. Levin Jr. founded the SPLC as a civil rights law firm based in Montgomery, Alabama. Civil rights leader Julian Bond joined Dees and Levin and served as president of the board between 1971 and 1979. The SPLC’s litigating strategy involves filing civil suits for damages on behalf of the victims of hate group harassment, threats, and violence.
While it originally focused on damages done by the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups, given the decline in such groups, over the years the SPLC has become involved in other civil rights causes, among them, cases concerned with institutional racial segregation and discrimination, discrimination based on sexual orientation, the mistreatment of undocumented immigrants, and the separation of church and state. Along with civil rights organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, the SPLC has provided information about hate groups to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). The SPLC has been criticized by conservative politicians and media, and by organizations that have been listed as hate groups in their reports.
The SPLC does not accept government funds, nor does it charge its clients legal fees or share in their court-awarded judgments. Most of its funds come from direct mail campaigns which have helped it to build substantial monetary reserves.
The Social Costs 