Did the Southern Poverty Law Center Actually Fund White Supremacist Groups?
Inside a viral scandal.
This week, the Department of Justice indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center for soliciting donations in the name of racial justice, while secretly spending some of that money on payments to members of white supremacist groups.
Did one of the most prominent civil rights groups in America secretly fund neo-Nazis and the KKK? Let’s examine the facts.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was founded in 1971 as a civil rights law firm, and has evolved into a nonprofit that does many things, from legal advocacy to publishing information on the activities of white supremacist organizations. The group’s 2024 revenue was ~$129 million, making them one of the best-funded civil rights advocacy groups in the US. Most of this revenue comes from donations. They have been criticized by the right for, among other things, equating far-right organizations with white supremacist organizations.
First, the reactions on X/Twitter:
The loudest interpretation is that white supremacist organizations are being funded by the SPLC so that it can solicit more donations. This fits into a popular right-wing narrative in which left-leaning nonprofits are at best wasting money, and at worst, actively doing bad things.
The X/Twitter reaction misses the real story, which is about a network of paid SPLC informants.
Since the 1980s, the SPLC has been secretly paying members of white supremacist groups, ostensibly for information. This was not publicly known until this week, but law enforcement had long received information that was gained from SPLC informants. The indictment almost entirely focuses on the funding of this informant network.
Key information from the indictment:
The SPLC’s stated mission includes the dismantling of white supremacy in the US.
Unbeknownst to donors, some of their money was going to leaders/members of white supremacist groups, including the KKK and the Aryan Nation, who were acting as paid informants.
Between 2014 and 2023, the payments totalled over $3 million.
During the same period that they were receiving payments, many of the informants were also participating in or organizing the activities of the groups, including one informant who helped coordinate the transportation of several people to the 2017 Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally.
In order to pay its informants, the SPLC covertly opened bank accounts using the names of companies that did not exist.
Some of the examples of informants’ activity read like something out of a spy novel.
Note that there are legitimate reasons why the SPLC might have wanted an informant at the rally, including just to keep tabs on it (perhaps they were “monitoring the situation,” in the parlance of our times). The indictment does not allege that the SPLC was responsible for the organization of the rally, or that its money was used for the rally. It is also unclear what they mean by the word “supervision” here.
This one is kind of awesome. It’s also a clear example of an informant actively gathering information for the SPLC. Maybe the indictment is implying that because F-9 was involved in fundraising for the National Alliance that the payments to them from the SPLC may have been part of that? The fact that the informant was genuinely gathering information suggests otherwise, though.
This example is a little more suspicious; the SPLC seems to have used the profile of one of their paid informants to solicit donations. But the indictment doesn’t specify whether they paid the informant for this reason, or if they were also just a legitimate information source.
The implication here seems to be that this informant was participating in a highly public stunt, which the SPLC could have used to fundraise. The indictment doesn’t specify whether the informant was just providing information, or if there was something more going on.
Summary of the statement from SPLC CEO Bryan Fair:
The SPLC is being targeted by Trump’s DOJ.
The informants were necessary because of the history of violence by white supremacist organizations against the SPLC, and have probably saved lives.
Information from their paid informant program was shared with law enforcement/FBI.
They previously did not publicize the existence of this program out of concern for the safety of their informants.
They no longer work with paid informants.
They probably are being targeted to some extent, and it is clear that the informants were often just being used to gather information. This statement does not comment directly on the fraud allegations or whether the paid informants played some other role.
Has the SPLC been funding white supremacist groups?
The DOJ doesn’t directly claim that the purpose of the SPLC informant money was to support the activities of these organizations. Though some of these examples are a little suspicious, they may well have been payments for information. Without more evidence, it is a big stretch to infer that the SPLC has been supporting these groups, which would go against their stated mission and past actions.
Did the SPLC mislead their donors?
If I were a donor to the SPLC, and I learned about their paid informant network, I would not feel misled. However, if it was more than a paid informant network, and they were in fact propping up white supremacist groups, I would feel betrayed, and would want to take legal action. Again, we need more evidence before making a judgement.
Did the SPLC commit financial fraud?
The SPLC admitted to opening FDIC-insured bank accounts under fake names. They also sent incorrectly-labelled payments to informants. I’m not a lawyer, but this seems like financial fraud to me, and I would not be surprised if they are convicted for this.
What would change my opinion?
If we get any evidence that the SPLC was paying informants to do things beyond gathering information, especially if that was tied to specific donation solicitations, that would change things. I expect that the communications between the SPLC and their informants would contain lots of relevant information here, so we’ll see if that comes up in court.
Why is the political narrative so different from the accusations in the indictment?
The narratives that have been embraced by the right on this issue are self-serving and not based on the actual material in the indictment. Paying a network of informants through fake bank accounts is very different from funding the operations of white supremacist groups. Even if the scope of the legal case is tiny, the potential for political damage is significant. This indictment and the narrative being pushed around it fits into a pattern of the Trump administration targeting its political opposition. While the DOJ has been used to target opponents in the past, the scale of the current targeting is unprecedented in modern US politics.
This post was published as part of the Inkhaven residency, for which I have to publish a blog post every day for a month or else I get kicked out.
Wow, digging into this issue was near the top of my too big list of things to research. I LOVE how much time you just saved me.
Nice analysis Leo. My late father spent over 10% of his modest minister's salary on contributions to liberal causes. He wrote a small check to SPLC every month. I'll see if I can get a seance going to ask how he would feel about paid informants. Will get back to you if I hear anything.