Is the SPLC Being Used to Restrict Freedom of Speech?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is freedom of speech, a right guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech….” The problem is that it is not Congress who is trying to destroy freedom of speech. According to Tyler O’Neil in an article in The Daily Signal, it is possible that the Biden administration is conspiring to limit the right of Americans to speak freely.

President Joe Biden’s White House has hosted staff and leadership of the Southern Poverty Law Center at least 11 times, and congressional Republicans want answers about whether the Department of Education has used the SPLC to demonize concerned parents. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., Chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, sent a letter Monday to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona demanding all communications between his department and the SPLC, as well as all internal documents regarding the SPLC.

The Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC] is notorious for branding mainstream conservative and Christian organizations as “hate groups” and placing them on a

“hate map” with Ku Klux Klan chapters.

“The SPLC has a track record of labeling anything or anyone they disagree with as ‘hate’ or ‘hate groups,’ which ironically cheapens real hate they claim to want to root out,” Comer told The Daily Signal this week in a written statement….

“These false labels and claims have been used in the private sector as a basis to discriminate against certain groups and we need to know if the Biden administration is relying on them as well,” Comer added. “I wrote to Secretary of Education Cardona to understand how extensively federal employees are using biased information that discriminates against Americans for their First Amendment protected political opinions.”

“The First Amendment is not a suggestion, and the Oversight Committee will continue to hold the Biden administration accountable for ignoring the Constitution to further a political agenda,” Comer concluded.

In his letter to Cardona, Commer announces that his committee “is investigating the extent to which the Southern Poverty Law Center influences federal employees performing their duties on behalf of taxpayers as well as input from federal officials that could affect SPLC decisions to designate groups.”

Comer requests information to further the investigation.

As I wrote in my book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC has leveraged its track record of suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy to develop the “hate map” it uses to smear enemies and raise money. Earlier this year, the SPLC placed parental rights organizations on the map, branding them “anti-student inclusion antigovernment extremist groups.”

In 2012, a terrorist used the SPLC’s map to target the Family Research Council for a mass shooting in Washington, DC. The SPLC condemned the attack but kept the conservative organization on its map….

Comer’s letter notes that “the SPLC has weaponized its designation of ‘hate group’ to target conservative persons, organizations, and non-profits who hold opposing viewpoints or policy positions. In 2019, a federal judge concluded that the SPLC’s ‘hate group’ label does not ‘depend upon objective data or evidence’ and described the designation as ‘an entirely subjective inquiry.’ Despite this subjective slant, SPLC’s labels have been used in the private sector as a basis for decisions to exclude partnerships with certain groups.”

Comer’s letter also notes that the SPLC added parental rights groups to the “hate map” only a few years after the Biden administration and the Department of Justice acquiesced to demands of the National School Boards Association to investigate parents and parents’ rights activists who had chosen to speak up at school board meetings throughout the country.”

“The committee is concerned and seeks to understand the extent of engagements, influence, and the impact of SPLC within your department as well as any steps you may be taking to mitigate against it,” Comer writes to the education secretary. “The American people have a right to know how extensively federal employees are utilizing or disseminating flawed and subjective information that effectively discriminates against them for their First Amendment protected political views.”

His letter requests that the agency hand over “all communications between the Department of Education and the Southern Poverty Law Center, its representatives, or other outside entities pertaining to SPLC,” along with all of the department’s internal communications pertaining to the SPLC, its “hate map,” and its “antigovernment group” designation of any parental rights groups as ‘antigovernment groups’ or its placement of any parental rights groups on its ‘hate map.’” …

It sounds like the Department of Education is trying to make an end run around Congress. They know that Congress will not pass a law to infringe on Americans’ right to speak their thoughts freely, and they also know that POTUS cannot take the action by an executive order. So, their only path is to go around Congress.