{"id":401289,"date":"2019-03-25T18:47:30","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T17:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/who-watches-the-watchdog-hate-monitor-group-splc-embroiled-in-harassment-scandal-video-rt-usa-news\/"},"modified":"2019-03-25T18:47:30","modified_gmt":"2019-03-25T17:47:30","slug":"who-watches-the-watchdog-hate-monitor-group-splc-embroiled-in-harassment-scandal-video-rt-usa-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/who-watches-the-watchdog-hate-monitor-group-splc-embroiled-in-harassment-scandal-video-rt-usa-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Who watches the watchdog? Hate monitor group SPLC embroiled in harassment scandal (VIDEO) \u2014 RT USA News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2019.03\/thumbnail\/5c990d2ffc7e939f058b45b6.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>        The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization which crusades against racism, has been hit by a string of resignations amid workplace harassment claims. Analysts say the scandal reflects the watchdog\u2019s duplicitous nature.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Richard Cohen, the organization\u2019s president, has stepped down a week after SPLC founder Morris Dees was fired for unspecified reasons. The center, whose hate group monitoring activities are often accepted as gospel by the media, has found itself looking inward after Dees was accused of harassing non-white and female staff members.<\/p>\n<p>According to reports, Dees\u2019 inappropriate activities were quietly swept under the rug by the SPLC\u2019s leadership. In an email to staff, Cohen said he took personal responsibility for any mistreatment that occurred at the organization on his watch.<\/p>\n<p>Before the high-profile resignations, the center was struggling to rebuild its image in the wake of several embarrassing lawsuits, in which the SPLC was ordered to pay out millions to individuals it had defamed as hatemongers.<\/p>\n<p>Those who have experienced the wrath of the SPLC\u2019s <em>\u201chate\u201d<\/em> monitoring activities firsthand told RT that they were hardly surprised by the scandal.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cCorruption has been going on in the SPLC for decades, and it finally got so bad that somebody tried to put a stop to it,\u201d<\/em> said Glen Allen, a lawyer who lost his job after being blacklisted by the organization. He said that the group\u2019s activism was primarily motivated by a desire to bring in donations from organizations that want the SPLC\u2019s stamp of approval.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong><em>They purport to go after hate groups, but their definition of hate group is so amorphous, that it really comes down to people who they, with their left-wing orientation, decide are their political enemies.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Political commentator and award-winning author Carol Miller Swain, who found herself a target of the SPLC after accusing it of double standards, predicted that the group\u2019s modus operandi would likely stay unchanged.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThe Southern Poverty Law Center has targeted many family-oriented Christian groups and labeled them as hate groups. And so they have been a menace, and they may continue to do that with Morris Dees gone,\u201d<\/em> Swain told RT.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cAnd it\u2019s not clear that new leadership will be any more objective and neutral than the leadership it will replace.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/454720-splc-scandal-hate-speech\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization which crusades against racism, has been hit by a string of resignations amid workplace harassment claims. Analysts say the scandal reflects the watchdog\u2019s duplicitous nature. Richard Cohen, the organization\u2019s president, has stepped down a week after SPLC founder Morris Dees was fired for unspecified reasons. The center, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":401290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-401289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}