False Allegations

 

When an agency makes false allegations about someone, and takes no action to immediately correct that error, it can cost the agency millions of dollars to settle the resulting lawsuit.

No fewer than 60 organizations branded "hate groups" or otherwise attacked by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) are considering legal action against the organization.

In 2016, the SPLC published its "Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists," listing Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz, a practicing Muslim, as one such extremist. On Monday, SPLC President Richard Cohen extended his group's "sincerest apologies to Mr. Nawaz, Quilliam, and our readers for the error, and we wish Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam all the best." In settling the suit, the SPLC paid Nawaz's organization $3.375 million.

The SPLC started as a group to oppose racist terrorism, and its first legal action targeted the Ku Klux Klan. In recent decades, the organization has begun marking mainstream organizations as "hate groups" on par with the KKK. In one egregious case the group actually quoted as hateful The Catechism of the Catholic Church.  (PJ Media, June 19, 2018)
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The SPLC has often been used as a reference by government and law enforcement. And while the work of the SPLC is no doubt well-meaning, by their own admission their designation of hate groups, and the allegations they make against individuals are often matters of opinion.