The Southern Poverty Law Center has long been known as a far-left hate group, and now that it is under indictment for mail fraud and has been exposed as perhaps the largest funder of racist organizations in the U.S., one might expect its influence to wane. But left-wing organizations, like the teachers’ unions that control most public schools, won’t give up their allegiance to the SPLC without a fight.
Thus we have this report from my American Experiment colleague Catrin Wigfall:
A former Rochester [Minnesota] Public Schools (RPS) staff member says she received a packet of Teaching Tolerance materials — a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — during a district professional development session in January 2024.
The claim raises new questions about Superintendent Dr. Kent Pekel’s recent statement that RPS does not use SPLC materials. The district pushed back on a letter from U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad who asked the Minnesota Department of Education to look into the influence of SPLC’s educational arm, Learning for Justice — formerly branded Teaching Tolerance — on RPS classrooms.
Pekel told reporters the district does not use “products from that curriculum,” and that the reference in Finstad’s letter was an “obscure, old” footnote in a 2022 school board document that was never voted on or adopted as curriculum.
But that isn’t what a whistle blower says, and she has the materials that she was given at a Rochester Public Schools event in 2024:
One document is titled “Common Beliefs” and bears the Teaching Tolerance logo with the line “A Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center.” It is structured around “common beliefs” educators may hold that are viewed in need of correction and are paired with background explanations and discussion questions intended for use in staff training. A “Common Beliefs Survey” was also included in the packet.
You can see pictures of the materials at the link.
The former staffer, who asked not to be named, says she received the documents during a professional development session at RCTC Heintz Center, and noted the date in her planner and on her work calendar as Jan. 19, 2024. The session was led by two Rochester Public Schools staff members….
After the Supreme Court reaffirmed that race discrimination in public universities or universities that receive federal funding is illegal, many schools purported to dismantle their DEI initiatives. But time after time, it has turned out that they merely re-named them and are determined to continue their racist and illegal conduct. I suspect we will see something similar with the SPLC. That organization is utterly discredited, and yet it will retain the loyalty of left-wing institutions that will continue to recycle SPLC’s smears of conservatives. Useful tools are not given up easily.
Reliance on the SPLC should be rooted out wherever we encounter it.
