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The Southern Poverty Law Center is based in Montgomery, Alabama, in the South of the US. It was started in 1971 by Morris Dees and Joe Levin as a civil rights law firm. It is known for its tolerance education programs, its legal victories against white supremacist groups, its tracking of hate groups and its sponsorship of the Maya Lin-designed Civil Rights Memorial. The Center publishes an in-depth analysis of political extremism and bias crimes in the United States in the quarterly Intelligence Report.

History & Controversy

The first case the Center took on forced the local YMCA to racially integrate their athletic offerings. In 1979, the center brought its first case against the Klu Klux Klan . This was the first of many cases against the Klan. In 1983, the Klan responded by burning down the Center's offices. Several other attempts to bomb the center and kill Morris Dees have been thwarted.

However, the Center has not been without controversy. In 1996 USA Today reported that the Southern Poverty Law Center was "the nation's richest civil rights organization" with $68 million in assets. In 2003, the Fairfax (VA) Journal reported that 89% of income was spent on fundraising and administrative costs. Guidestar.org states that the center has $131 million in assets on $31 million revenue.

Critics of the Center, including Laird Wilcox, death-penalty lawyer Millard Farmer and former Dees associate Stephen Bright, claim that it has exagerated the threat of white extremist groups for fundraising purposes. Others have charged it maintains links with ethnic identity groups and targets conservative political organizations by using 'guilt by association' rather than direct evidence of extremism.

In 1994 the Montgomery Advertiser published an investigative series revealing financial mismanagement, poor management practices, misleading fundraising, and institutionalized racism at the Center. Former black employees asserted that the Center was "run like a plantation" and complained of discrimination by white supervisors. The Center threatened legal action against the newspaper during the publication of the series, and lobbied against its consideration for journalism awards. However, the investigative series was a finalist for a 1995 Pulitzer Prize.

External links

• Southern Poverty Law Centre official site
• SPLC Internet-based activism project - Tolerance.org
• 'The Church of Morris Dees' - A critical look at the SPLC and its founder from Harper's Magazine, republished in the Free Republic.
• Harvard University's Nieman Foundation for Journalism- Panel Discussion with the investigative reporter who covered the SPLC for the Montgomery Advertiser.