These are the remarks Tyler O’Neil plans to deliver before the House Judiciary Committee in his opening statement Wednesday morning. The text may change between publication now and the testimony then.
Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Raskin, members of the committee, I am honored to testify before you today.
I will argue that the Southern Poverty Law Center does not merely track hate—it systematically inflates it, profits from it, and, according to a federal indictment, may even have helped create it.
The first thing to know about the SPLC is that it has nothing to do with poverty. The “Poverty Palace” has an endowment of $822 million. That’s more than three times the assets of the national YMCA, and almost twice the sum of Planned Parenthood.
That’s why former employees have suggested mocking mottos for the SPLC, such as “Making Hate Pay.”
How did the SPLC become so wealthy? Co-founder Morris Dees set up a lucrative fundraising engine by suing the Ku Klux Klan into bankruptcy.
When the SPLC ran out of grand dragons to slay, the center needed to find more “hate” to justify the fundraising. It has a financial incentive to juice the numbers.
The SPLC began to publish a “hate map” that plots mainstream conservative and Christian groups alongside Klan chapters. The map includes Moms for Liberty, PragerU, Turning Point USA, and even Focus on the Family. The SPLC says the map reveals the “infrastructure upholding white supremacy.”
The “hate map” kills two birds with one stone: it silences conservative dissent from the SPLC’s agenda, and it exaggerates “hate” to keep the money flowing.
The map also includes groups that barely exist, like a Confederate memorabilia shop and a convent. In 2023, I analyzed the map and found that it exaggerated hate by at least 267%, by including mainstream conservatives, double-counting groups, and mentioning defunct organizations.
Given this track record, is it really so farfetched to think the SPLC might be propping up some of the very white supremacist groups it claims it exists to oppose?
A federal grand jury indicted the SPLC on fraud charges because it had funneled $3 million to members of the Klan.
The SPLC didn’t deny the payments but said it was funding “informants” who would tip the center off to violent threats before they happen.
But that’s not what happened in Charlottesville in 2017. According to the indictment, the SPLC paid an organizer—and directed this person’s “racist postings.”
This so-called informant didn’t prevent Charlottesville from happening. In fact, the indictment suggests the SPLC made Charlottesville larger than it otherwise would have been.
After Charlottesville, the SPLC’s annual fundraising doubled. Social media companies volunteered to start silencing hate groups. CNN plastered the hate map on its website.
Charlottesville was a payday for the SPLC, and this so-called informant may have been the SPLC’s most cunning investment.
Of course, if it became known that the SPLC had paid a Charlottesville organizer, that would be a massive scandal. No wonder the SPLC allegedly lied to a bank, setting up shell companies to fund these “informants.”
Why does this matter? SPLC staff have briefed DOJ prosecutors. Big Tech companies have used the SPLC to blacklist conservative nonprofits. School districts across the country have adopted the SPLC’s curriculum. Hundreds of companies systematically exclude conservatives from their charity programs because of the SPLC.
The SPLC also has offshoots that engage in similar efforts against conservatives. The Change the Terms coalition banded together to pressure Big Tech to deplatform conservatives, and former SPLC staff have founded the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.
If an organization can inflate threats, influence federal policy, and conceal its role in allegedly fueling the very extremism it condemns, then Congress has a duty to investigate it and its offshoots.
