In what amounts to a wholesale betrayal of its early work, the Southern Poverty Law Center1 (SPLC) has morphed into a racial nemesis2. It regularly stokes resentment with unnecessary and empty charges of discrimination and hate. Quilliam, which is headquartered in the UK and bills itself as “the world’s first counter-extremism organisation” with an emphasis on “promoting pluralism and inspiring change,” is just one of many groups that has been targeted by the hate-hustling SPLC.
Quilliam founder Maajid Nawaz, an Islamic reformist, was highlighted in the SPLC’s “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists” a few years ago. In response, a lawsuit was filed by Quilliam, the outcome of which was revealed this week. According to a Quilliam press release3, “The Southern Poverty Law Center, Inc. has apologized to Quilliam and its founder Maajid Nawaz for wrongly naming them in its controversial Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists.” The press release adds, “The SPLC also agreed to pay a $3.375 million settlement, which Quilliam and Nawaz intend to use to fund work fighting anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamist extremism.”
Of course, the $3.75 million figure is chump change relative to the SPLC’s $432.7 million endowment. It does, however, hopefully send a signal. How many more people and organizations stand on equally solid legal grounds to sue? Many, for sure. And a massive retaliation could theoretically bankrupt SPLC if litigation wasn’t so expensive. Sadly, money, not legitimacy, is at the heart of SPLC’s modern-day mission. As columnist Dennis Prager writes4, “Any organization that labels Ayaan Hirsi Ali — the extraordinary Somali-American woman who devotes her life to fighting for oppressed women, especially in the Islamic world — an ‘extremist,’ as the SPLC has done, is not a moral organization.” It is, for all intents and purposes, the Southern Poverty Lies Center.
United States Supreme Court Building, July 21, 2020. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. You are free: to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work .... Source: Wikimedia Commons