Jaw Drop: Southern Poverty Law Center Characterizes These Groups As "Hate And Anti-Government Groups"

This controversial decision followed the unveiling of their 2022 "Year In Hate and Extremism" report, in which the SPLC revised their notorious "Hate Map" into a broader map of "hate and anti-government extremist groups."

The report highlighted a marked rise in such groups, which jumped from 733 in 2021 to 1225 in 2022. A substantial number of these groups were associated with issues in the education sector. The report underscored that schools had been experiencing an intensified wave of hard-right attacks, attributing the phenomenon to the reaction of right-wing groups to COVID-19 safety measures.

According to the SPLC's findings, parents' rights groups have been transformed into an anti-student inclusion movement. The report detailed that these groups were targeting curricula that included discussions of race, discrimination, and LGBTQ identities.

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The SPLC has placed Moms for Liberty, a Florida-based organization with strong GOP connections, under its extremist group classification. The report accuses Moms for Liberty of disrupting school board meetings nationwide and inhibiting officials and parents from conducting ordinary proceedings.

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June 07, 2023

These latest developments reflect the age-old narratives of opponents of integration, as pointed out by the SPLC report. "Galvanizing supporters around supposed 'parental rights' and 'family values' is nothing new," the report stated, "similar rallying cries were adopted by those who opposed school desegregation during the civil rights movement and by the Moral Majority of the 1980s."

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The SPLC report concluded with the assertion that Moms for Liberty, like others, has the prime objective of fuelling right-wing hysteria and making the world less safe for specific groups, predominantly those who are Black, LGBTQ, or come from LGBTQ families.

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Margaret Huang, the President and CEO of the SPLC and SPLC Action Fund, commended the report as a crucial tool in challenging and shedding light on the strategies employed by extremists. "We are exposing a concerted effort by hate groups and extremist actors to terrorize communities and gain control of public institutions by any means necessary," Huang said.

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In response to the SPLC's decision, Moms for Liberty co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich refuted the hate group label, reaffirming their commitment to equipping parents to participate in the public school system. They stated, "Name-calling parents who want to be a part of their child's education as 'hate groups' or 'bigoted' just further exposes what this battle is all about: Who fundamentally gets to decide what is taught to our kids in school - parents or government employees?"

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In the past, conservative groups such as the Family Research Council, Alliance Defending Freedom, ACT for America, the Center for Security Policy, the American Freedom Law Center, and D. James Kennedy Ministries have been featured on the SPLC's hate groups list. Notably, in 2012, the Family Research Council was targeted in a terror attack inspired by the SPLC's "hate map."

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In this complex scenario, it's clear that the question of parental rights in education is a highly contentious issue. As the debate continues, the SPLC and groups like Moms for Liberty have drawn their lines in the sand, asserting their respective positions.