Can we trust the Southern Poverty and Law Center?

Morris Dees and Joseph J. Levin Jr created the Southern Poverty and Law Center (SPLC) in 1971. It was intended to be a civil rights law center, and SPLC focused initially on the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups. As time went on, it began to include other civil rights topics, and has become a go-to group for journalists writing about "hate groups." And over time, its information and slant on issues has become more and more misleading, and often outright false. Over the years, the SPLC has shifted emphasis from its legal work to