SPLC fails to defend placing parental rights groups on ‘hate map’ with KKK
Jack Elbaum
Last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center unveiled its updated “hate map” for 2022, along with its annual “Year in Hate and Extremism” report. It is supposed to be a resource documenting the prevalence of hate groups across the country. But, this year, the SPLC decided to include hundreds of chapters of parental rights groups on a list right alongside the KKK, neo-Nazis, and racist militias.
The backlash was swift. So much so that the president and CEO of the SPLC, Margaret Huang, felt it necessary to take to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to defend the move.
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Needless to say, it didn’t go too well.
Huang claims that the SPLC included these parental rights groups, most prominently Moms for Liberty, on their “hate map” because of their “anti-government principles, its trafficking in conspiracy theories about an illegitimate government and its actions to censor school discussions around race, discrimination and LGBTQ+ identities.”
OK, let’s parse that out. The SPLC website indicates that by “anti-government principles,” they mean Moms for Liberty has advocated the Department of Education be abolished. This may or may not be imprudent, but it is by no means uniquely extreme, as the department has faced opposition since its inception in 1980.
The Chronicle of Higher Education documents this history. It began with President Ronald Reagan as soon as he got into office. He wanted the agency gone, and even selected his first education secretary with a mandate to get rid of it — although it did not ultimately happen. This continued with the 1996 Contract with America, which stated the federal government “has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula or to control jobs in the marketplace. This is why we will abolish the Department of Education.” And it is just as much a part of GOP politics and rhetoric today. Just three months ago, 161 House Republicans voted in support of getting rid of the Department of Education. The stance is mainstream conservatism, not extremism by any means.
That this is a line of attack for the SPLC indicates it may be nothing more than a regular partisan move on their part.
Next, what does it mean when Huang writes that these groups traffic “in conspiracy theories about an illegitimate government”? I’m not actually sure, and the SPLC page about Moms for Liberty does not provide any more of a clue. It would be good for the SPLC to clarify its point here so we can assess its validity.
Last, when Huang claims these groups have taken “actions to censor school discussions around race, discrimination and LGBTQ+ identities,” it sounds a lot scarier than it actually is. What this has usually meant, in practice, is two things. First, it meant supporting a bill in Florida that barred instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for grades K-3. Importantly, 60% of Americans agreed with the content of the bill. Second, it meant objecting to certain books in libraries that contained pornographic material and trying to get them removed. Not exactly KKK-level stuff here.
This is not a defense or endorsement of every one of Moms for Liberty’s statements or initiatives. If they have tried to remove content from libraries that is not actually age-inappropriate, but rather just contains liberal ideas, I would certainly disagree with them. It is important for the education system to be pluralistic in the ideas it allows children to consider. At the same time, anyone with any sense of proportion should see it’s just not fair to liken Moms for Liberty, along with other parental rights groups, to neo-Nazis by placing them on the same map. It should be obvious to those approaching the issue in good faith.
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The problem is that the SPLC has incentives to 1) make it look like there are an increasing number of hate groups in order to boost donations and 2) use their reputation to smear political opponents. There is a reason their credibility has been greatly reduced in recent years as they have labeled everyone from famed neurosurgeon Ben Carson to respected scholar Christina Hoff Sommers as extremists and agents of hate.
Nevertheless, as long they need money rolling in, they have no reason to stop what they’re doing. As such, we should only expect more stunts like this from the SPLC going forward.
Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.