Haha - Justice is Served again...

Or maybe "Hoisted on their own petard."

‘Hate’ Hustlers

[www.nationalreview.com]

In 1994, the Montgomery Advertiser reported that the Southern Poverty Law Center was a toxic atmosphere for its black employees, who said they “felt threatened and banded together.” At the time, SPLC co-founder Morris Dees pooh-poohed the report, claiming that the “most discriminated people in America today are white men when it comes to jobs.” This month, SPLC employees notified management that “allegations of mistreatment, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and racism threaten the moral authority of this organization and our integrity along with it.” Dees, 82, was fired.

By any fair or rigorous standard, it’s difficult to impugn Dees’s character based on either the old charge of racial discrimination or the current, still-vague allegations. But Dees’s leadership of the SPLC has done enough to impugn his character, and by the SPLC’s own standard, both incidents could be enough to designate the organization a “hate group.” Far from being a nonpartisan watchdog genuinely dedicated to exposing racism and extremism, the SPLC has spent recent decades stoking fear and hostility for fun and funds. That is Dees’s legacy as he departs.

The SPLC’s estrangement from its former moral authority is an open secret. Yale law professor Stephen Bright, former director of the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, told the Los Angeles Times that “Morris is a flimflam man and he’s managed to flimflam his way along for many years raising money by telling people about the Ku Klux Klan and hate groups,” he said. “He sort of goes to whatever will sell and has, of course, brought in millions and millions and millions of dollars.” SPLC assets reached $477 million in 2017.

Hate groups, in Dees’s junk-mail pitches, are forever on the march, always growing, always metastasizing in sinister new ways. These fears were built on smears: Dees would make ever more absurd claims about right-leaning individuals and groups, labeling scholars and intellectuals such as Charles Murray, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Christina Hoff Sommers soldiers of hatred to attract publicity, which in turn would stoke the fundraising furnace. The Center for Immigration Studies and the Alliance Defending Freedom were absurdly designated hate groups, as was the Family Research Council for its traditional views on gay marriage. In 2012 a shooter who picked his target off the SPLC’s “hate map” marched into FRC’s offices and shot an unarmed security guard.

The SPLC hustle has become so brazen, the group was lately starting to receive skeptical coverage even from left-leaning media outlets. Last year, liberal Muslim Maajid Nawaz sued the SPLC for calling him “anti-Muslim extremist.” It settled the lawsuit for $3.4 million and an apology, but its grift continued apace.

Lumping together neo-Nazis and distinguished authors is a vile, shameless tactic in which much of the mainstream media has been complicit for many years by treating the SPLC as a neutral umpire instead of a wildly and unabashedly partisan activist group. (“We’re not really set up to cover the extreme Left,” a spokesperson told NR in 2012). Dees’s SPLC took a nominal stance against hatred, but its true mission was to profit from hate-mongering. While we doubt new leadership will solve the SPLC’s problem, we’re nonetheless happy to see him go.

So why was he fired?

Harassment, discrimination...

"from sexual harassment to gender- and race-based discrimination"

SPLC fires founder Morris Dees; internal emails highlight issues with harassment, discrimination

[www.alreporter.com]

The Southern Poverty Law Center on Thursday announced that it had fired Morris Dees, the center’s co-founder and long-time public face of the civil rights organization, amid undisclosed allegations that Dees failed to meet the standards of the SPLC.

A statement sent by SPLC president Richard Cohen alluded to issues within the organization that made for a working environment that was lacking in “truth, justice, equity and inclusion.” It promised an internal review by an outside entity to clean up the issues and address employees’ concerns. Those concerns were made known to SPLC leadership in a series of emails sent to SPLC leadership and obtained by APR.

But internal emails obtained by APR related to Dees’ firing appear to show that the problems — which employees said spanned from sexual harassment to gender- and race-based discrimination — were more systemic and widespread, creating an atmosphere over several years in which female and minority employees felt mistreated. The employees also said that they felt their complaints were either not heard or resulted in retaliation from senior staff.

The spark that ignited the near-mutiny at SPLC appears to have been the resignation of senior attorney Meredith Horton, and an email she sent to senior leadership. That email noted the hardships women and employees of color faced at SPLC. It was forwarded by Cohen to all staff with a message that there would be a commitment within SPLC to address those concerns.

An email signed by numerous SPLC employees followed shortly thereafter and made numerous demands. It also laid bare many of the problems that employees have faced over the years.

Specifically, the employees’ email alleged multiple instances of sexual harassment by Dees, and it alleges that reports of his conduct were ignored or covered up by SPLC leadership. A subsequent letter from other SPLC employees demands an investigation into the alleged coverup of Dees’ alleged harassment.

The emails noted that multiple female SPLC employees had resigned over the years due to the harassment and/or the subsequent retaliation by SPLC leadership when they reported the incidents.

SPLC employees are more concerned with the overall atmosphere, which they specifically say goes well beyond Dees. To that end, they demand a number of internal investigations, training courses and new positions created — such as an ombudsman — to adequately protect employees who speak out about mistreatment and discrimination.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen...

Claims of workplace racism, harassment stretch back decades at Southern Poverty Law Center

[www.al.com]

Last week’s firing of Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, pushed the working environment of the civil rights organization into the national spotlight.

Recent reports in news organizations including the Los Angeles Times cite internal SPLC emails in which employees describe problems with alleged workplace sexual harassment, gender discrimination and racism.

Allegations of harassment and racism within the SPLC’s offices aren’t new, according to two former employees who spoke with AL.com on the record.

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