'Hate Group' Lawsuit Clears Hurdle, Judeo-Christian Group Warns SPLC 'Day of Reckoning' Is Coming
Article by Tyler O'Neil in "PJMedia":
While America was distracted
with impeachment and the 2020 Democrats last week, a monumental lawsuit
against Orwellian government surveillance cleared a major hurdle in a
Michigan district court. The case, American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) v. Nessel,
involves the defense of free speech against government surveillance
based on the far-left smear factory the Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC) and its allegedly defamatory "hate group" accusations.
"This is George Orwell, 1984,
the thought police, watching over us," AFLC co-founder and Senior
Counsel Robert Muise told PJ Media on Tuesday. Michigan Attorney General
"Dana Nessel keeping a watchful eye on all these SPLC-designated 'hate
groups' has a chilling effect on speech and expressive association."
Last Wednesday, federal district judge Paul Maloney agreed
that the AFLC has a powerful case against Nessel and former Michigan
Department of Civil Rights (MDCR) Executive Director Agustin Arbulu. He
denied Nessel's and Arbulu's motions to dismiss the lawsuit, allowing
the case to proceed to discovery. This means AFLC will be able to
request all documents showing communication involving Nessel, Arbulu,
and the SPLC.
"The
SPLC can't violate our constitutional rights — unless they're working
with the government as a joint actor," Muise argued. He described Nessel
as "a hard-core left-wing progressive. I wouldn't be surprised to find
some connections" between her and the left-wing smear factory. "We
intend, through discovery, to disclose any connections that the Michigan
attorney general and the SPLC had. If there's enough joint action so
that the SPLC could be considered a state actor, then we will consider
adding them to the lawsuit."
In a statement following Maloney's order, Muise insisted that this ruling should terrify the SPLC.
"The
judge’s powerful and exceedingly favorable decision should send a
strong message to the Michigan attorney general that she will not be
allowed to weaponize her office to target political opponents. It should
also send a strong message to government officials who side with the
George Soros-funded and radically partisan SPLC that their day of
reckoning is coming. Know this: We will not allow you to trample on our
constitutional rights," he said.
The lawsuit revolves around a "hate-crimes unit"
that Nessel and Arbulu launched last February. In the press release for
the new unit, both officials effectively endorsed the SPLC's "hate
group" accusation. Arbulu went so far as to name a geographic region of
the state — a region that includes AFLC's headquarters. "Particularly of
concern, over one half [sic] of the identified groups are located east
of US-23 between Flint and Ann Arbor," the MDCR director said.
"According
to the SPLC report relied upon by Defendants, Plaintiff is identified
as a 'hate' group because it is allegedly 'anti-Muslim,' and according
to SPLC’s 'Hate Map,' Plaintiff is located in the Ann Arbor area," the
lawsuit claims. "Consequently, Plaintiff is one of the very groups that
Defendants referred to in their public announcement as an 'extremist and
hate organization in Michigan.'"
In
his ruling, Maloney laid out AFLC's three claims against Michigan's
attorney general: that the officials violated the group's free speech as
protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments; that they violated
AFLC's right to expressive association, which is also protected by those
amendments; and that "by targeting AFLC for disfavored treatment based
on its political viewpoints, Defendants have deprived AFLC of the equal
protection of the law, which is protected by Fourteenth Amendment."
Maloney
also cited AFLC co-founder and Senior Counsel David Yerushalmi, who
explained how the SPLC's "hate group" accusation damaged his
organization. "AFLC has to expend resources to combat the label and
bolster its reputation. The government’s endorsement of the label makes
that job more difficult. Although AFLC was not specifically mentioned in
the Press Release, it received media inquiries following the Press
Release. The government designation thus injures AFLC both
reputationally and financially," the judge wrote.
While
Nessel and Arbulu "cannot control who SPLC labels a hate group," their
action of "referencing SPLC’s reports as the justification for the
Policy Directive" places the government's imprimatur on the SPLC's "hate
group" accusations inside the state of Michigan. "Notably, AFLC
contends it does not engage in any criminal activity and further
contends it has been placed on SPLC’s list of hate groups because of its
constitutionally-protected activities."
"AFLC
has established both a harm to its reputation and a credible fear that
it will be targeted by the State of Michigan under the Policy
Directive," Maloney noted. "As pled, AFLC reasonably fears that it will
be a target for investigation and surveillance."
AFLC
claims the SPLC accuses them of being a "hate group" due to the
organization's conservative political positions. The far-left group
gained credibility by suing the Ku Klux Klan into bankruptcy, but in
recent decades it has expanded the monitoring of "hate groups" to
include ever more mainstream conservative and Christian organizations.
As documented in my book Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a devastating racial discrimination and
sexual harassment scandal last March led the SPLC to "clean house at
the top," firing its co-founder and seeing the resignation of many other
leading figures. After this scandal, employees came clean about being
"part of the con," exaggerating hate
by padding the "hate group" list and "bilking northern liberals" into
cutting big checks. The SPLC has millions in offshore bank accounts in
the Cayman Islands.
The "hate group"
accusations are also politically motivated. The list includes mainstream
conservative groups like ACT for America, the Center for Security
Policy, the Family Research Council, and Alliance Defending
Freedom. Former SPLC spokesman Mark Potok declared that the SPLC's "aim
in life is to destroy these groups, completely destroy them."
AFLC v. Nessel is not the only lawsuit centered on the SPLC's "hate group" accusations. The Christian ministry D. James Kennedy Ministries filed a lawsuit against
Amazon and the SPLC after it was booted from the AmazonSmile program. A
judge granted the SPLC's motion to dismiss, but DJKM filed an appeal last October.
The far-left group accused Maajid Nawaz, an anti-terror Muslim reformer, of being an "anti-Muslim extremist." Nawaz sued and the SPLC settled, offering a very public apology and paying $3.375 million to his nonprofit. In addition to DJKM and Nawaz, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, Baltimore lawyer Glen Keith Allen, and former heroin addict Craig Nelsen have
sued the SPLC for defamation and various other claims. The CIS lawsuit
was struck down because it attempted to shoehorn a defamation claim into
racketeering, but it will likely be re-filed. Peter Brimelow, the
editor of VDare, sued The New York Times for branding him a "white nationalist" while citing the SPLC.
In the Nelsen case, a judge allowed the plaintiff to enter the discovery process,
giving the former heroin addict access to the organization's documents.
The SPLC had falsely claimed that Nelsen "wasn't convincing anyone"
that his drug recovery program was open to men of all races.
Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, a Christian nonprofit branded a "hate group" by the SPLC, told PJ Media that more than 60 organizations are considering their own lawsuits against the SPLC.
AFLC
may have the strongest argument because their case involves a state
government endorsing the far-left smears, enforcing them with threats of
government surveillance. It is indeed Orwellian.
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