RIP SPLC: I Endured Their Wrath

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a left-wing organization whose chickens have finally come home to roost.

A federal grand jury very recently indicted the organization for using its donations, supposedly given by donors to stop racism, to actually foment racial discord.

The SPLC allegedly funneled money to leaders of racist organizations to purportedly prop-up protests, so the group could then swoop in and seek donations and pursue donations to go after the racists they funded.

The center was once a force for good in going toe to toe with the then strong KKK (which in its heyday boasted 4 million members).

However, once the KKK was vanquished, leaving it with a mere 4,000 constituents, the SPLC had to continue the narrative that white racists were omnipresent.

By allegedly helping fund the Charlottesville, Virginia, riots, they manufactured an environment that helped them nearly triple their intake of contributions the following year.

This writer speaks from personal experience as how deplorable the SPLC has become.

How?

I was victimized by the seemingly, highly-questionable tactics of this far left-wing organization when I was a county executive trying to fight illegal immigration spreading across Long Island, New York.

Radical groups and the illegal immigration lobby pushed the SPLC to conduct a so-called "investigation" of our administration's efforts to crack down on our county's illegal underground economy.

The report issued was filled with inaccuracies painting a false narrative of the people of Suffolk County and its leaders, in order for the group to solicit more campaign donations.

Here are just a few of their inaccuracies:

1. Most outrageous was their false claim that "Levy proposed that Suffolk County police officers be empowered to detain Latinos solely on suspicion of being undocumented immigrants and turn them over to federal authorities for deportation."

There was no such order.

Police were not rounding people up and off the street based upon their appearances.

Rather, the police were authorized, only upon arrest of an individual suspected of committing a crime, to notify federal authorities if the suspect was here illegally.

2. The SPLC castigated me because, in their words, "Levy oversaw zoning violation raids on 11 houses in Farmingville, and the eviction of 200 Latino day laborers and their family members."

What they failed to mention is that the raids were conducted not because the individuals were illegal immigrants or Hispanic, but rather because landlords had stuffed 66 people in a 900 square foot two-bedroom fire trap.

3. The group maliciously castigated me as a nativist by saying, "At a forum in 2006 he said that women crossing the border to give birth in the United States free of charge were having 'anchor babies.'"

This was simply a statement of truth, which is now coming to light during the debate related to birthright citizenship.

4. The organization issued further statements, which could be construed as defamatory, including "as part of his effort to protect the suburban dream vehicle, Levy cofounded…a national group that promotes immigrant cleansing ordinances."

They failed to mention a single example of what these so-called immigrant cleansing ordinances were, because there weren't any.

5. To bolster their claims that Hispanic immigrants were having their harassment complaints ignored, the SPLC referenced a Javier Monroy, who claims Suffolk police failed to investigate his assault allegation.

As I documented in a book of mine, "Bias in the Media," had the SPLC given the courtesy of my office or the police department opportunities to respond, we could've debunked this nonsense. What Monroy didn't mention was that a Suffolk detective traveled to his bedside to get as much information as possible to help apprehend the perpetrator.

No description was provided by Monroy.

The officer surveilled all nearby businesses and residences to obtain any potential videos of the alleged crime. None surfaced. And, finally, the police department issued a reward for anyone coming forward to give information.

Pretty important information for the public to have known, but the SPLC didn't pursue that information.

Is this because it didn't fit their narrative?

More than a decade later, I witnessed the unacceptable consequences of the SPLC's campaign(s) of negativity when I sought to bring together numerous "Moms For Liberty" chapters on Long Island under one umbrella to help battle the disproportionate influence of teachers unions and the woke curriculum that was being injected in our schools.

I was amazed to find that almost all of these groups had become dormant in just the span of a few years. The Moms and families had been so harassed that they felt they had to back down or face dire consequences.

Their demise began when the SPLC designated Moms for Liberty a hate group.

This nonsensical designation was picked up as being credible by the mainstream media, including Long Island’s major daily newspaper, Newsday, which cites the SPLC hate map regularly.

So it appears that the SPLC succeeded in snuffing out conservative speech by simply designating their political enemies as hate groups.

And later, a group of liberals in Smithtown petitioned the town to fire Kevin Smith, founder of a conservative group, Loud Majority, in part because Smith's group was placed on the SPLC's hate map following its opposition to "woke" school policies.

Whether or not feds succeed in this indictment, the bloom has been forever lost from the SPLC rose.

Their historic efforts to chill the speech of conservatives are hopefully buried forever.

Steve Levy is President of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of the “On the Right Side Podcast." He is the author of “Solutions to America’s Problems” and “Bias in the Media.” www.SteveLevy.info, Twitter @SteveLevyNY, steve@commonsensestrategies.com. Read more of Steve Levy's reports — here.