[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PARTISAN AND PROFITABLE:
THE SPLC'S INFLUENCE ON FEDERAL CIVIL RIGHTS POLICY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION AND LIMITED GOVERNMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-45
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
_______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
62-368 WASHINGTON : 2026
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland, Ranking
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona Member
TOM McCLINTOCK, California JERROLD NADLER, New York
THOMAS P. TIFFANY, Wisconsin ZOE LOFGREN, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
CHIP ROY, Texas HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin Georgia
BEN CLINE, Virginia ERIC SWALWELL, California
LANCE GOODEN, Texas TED LIEU, California
JEFFERSON VAN DREW, New Jersey PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
TROY E. NEHLS, Texas J. LUIS CORREA, California
BARRY MOORE, Alabama MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
KEVIN KILEY, California JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
HARRIET M. HAGEMAN, Wyoming LUCY McBATH, Georgia
LAUREL M. LEE, Florida DEBORAH K. ROSS, North Carolina
WESLEY HUNT, Texas BECCA BALINT, Vermont
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
BRAD KNOTT, North Carolina JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
MARK HARRIS, North Carolina DANIEL S. GOLDMAN, New York
ROBERT F. ONDER, Jr., Missouri JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas
DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas
BRANDON GILL, Texas
MICHAEL BAUMGARTNER, Washington
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION AND LIMITED GOVERNMENT
CHIP ROY, Texas, Chair
TOM McCLINTOCK, California MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania,
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky Ranking Member
HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
WESLEY HUNT, Texas PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
MARK HARRIS, North Carolina BECCA BALINT, Vermont
ROBERT F. ONDER, Jr., Missouri SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
BRANDON GILL, Texas DANIEL S. GOLDMAN, New York
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
ARTHUR EWENCZYK, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
The Honorable Chip Roy, Chair of the Subcommittee on the
Constitution and Limited Government from the State of Texas.... 1
The Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, Ranking Member of the
Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government from
the State of Pennsylvania...................................... 4
The Honorable Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on
the Judiciary from the State of Maryland....................... 6
WITNESSES
Tyler O'Neil, Senior Editor, The Daily Signal
Oral Testimony................................................. 9
Prepared Testimony............................................. 11
Tony Perkins, President, Family Research Council
Oral Testimony................................................. 19
Prepared Testimony............................................. 21
Andrew Sypher, Executive Vice President of Field Operations,
Turning Point USA
Oral Testimony................................................. 29
Prepared Testimony............................................. 31
Amanda Tyler, Executive Director, Baptist Joint Committee
Oral Testimony................................................. 33
Prepared Testimony............................................. 35
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
All materials submitted by the Subcommittee on the Constitution
and Limited Government, for the record......................... 60
An article entitled, ``No, Trump Did Not Call Neo-Nazis and White
Supremacists `Very Fine People,' '' Jun. 21, 2024, Snopes,
submitted by the Honorable Chip Roy, Chair of the Subcommittee
on the Constitution and Limited Government from the State of
Texas, for the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, Ranking
Member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited
Government from the State of Pennsylvania, for the record
An article entitled, ``Trump administration threatens Sister
Norma Pimentel's migrant aid with 6-year funding ban,''
Dec. 15, 2025, America Magazine
An article entitled, ``Vance spars with US bishops over their
pushback on Trump's immigration policy,'' Jan. 27, 2025,
Catholic Review
An article entitled, ``U.S. Bishops Issue a `Special Message'
on Immigration from Plenary Assembly in Baltimore,'' Nov.
12, 2025, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
(USCCB)
A letter to the Honorable Chip Roy, Chair of the Subcommittee
on the Constitution and Limited Government from the State
of Texas, and the Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, Ranking
Member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and
Limited Government from the State of Pennsylvania, from
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Dec.
15, 2025
A letter to the Honorable Chip Roy, Chair of the Subcommittee
on the Constitution and Limited Government from the State
of Texas, and the Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, Ranking
Member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and
Limited Government from the State of Pennsylvania, from
the Congressional Black Caucus, Dec. 16, 2025
A letter entitled, ``An Open Letter Rejecting Presidential
Attacks on Nonprofit Organizations,'' from multiple
organizations
A letter to the Honorable Chip Roy, Chair of the Subcommittee
on the Constitution and Limited Government from the State
of Texas, and the Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, Ranking
Member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and
Limited Government from the State of Pennsylvania, from
the Independent Sector and the National Council of
Nonprofits, Dec. 16, 2025
A statement from Dr. Rachel Kleinfeld, Senior Fellow,
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Dec. 16, 2025
Materials submitted by the Honorable Andy Biggs, a Member of the
Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government from
the State of Arizona, for the record
An article entitled, ``Southern Poverty Law Center Settles
Lawsuit After Falsely Labeling `Extremist'
Organization,'' Jun. 18, 2018, Newsweek
An article entitled, ``Southern Poverty Law Center apologizes
to Ben Carson, takes him off `extremist' list,'' May 2,
2016, Fox News
An article entitled, ``Opinion | The Southern Poverty Law
Center has lost all credibility,'' Jun. 22, 2018,
Washington Post
An article entitled, ``Has a Civil Rights Stalwart Lost Its
Way,'' Jul./Aug. 2017, Politico
An article entitled, ``The lucrative business of `fighting
hate': In-house bigotry rocks Southern Poverty Law
Center,'' Aug. 2019, Freedom Socialist Party
A fact sheet entitled, ``What are They Saying?'' SPLC
An article entitled, ``SPLC Files Complaint Against Two Notorious
Neo-Nazi Leaders and Goyim Defense League for Violating Civil
Rights of Members of Nashville Jewish Center,'' Dec. 10, 2025,
SPLCenter, submitted by the Honorable Steve Cohen, a Member of
the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government
from the State of Tennessee, for the record
Materials submitted by the Honorable Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member
of the Committee on the Judiciary from the State of Maryland,
for the record
An article entitled, ``No Bias Found in FBI Report on
Catholic Extremists,'' Apr. 18, 2024, The New York Times
A letter entitled, ``Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury
Baptists: The Final Letter, as Sent,'' from President
Jefferson, Jan. 1, 1802, Library of Congress Information
Bulletin
A letter entitled, ``The Destruction of DOJ's Civil Rights
Division: Why it Matters,'' from multiple attorneys, Dec. 9,
2025, submitted by the Honorable Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a Member
of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government
from the State of California, for the record
PARTISAN AND PROFITABLE:
THE SPLC'S INFLUENCE ON FEDERAL CIVIL RIGHTS POLICY
----------
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in Room
2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Chip Roy [Chair
of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives Roy, McClintock, Hageman,
Grothman, Harris, Onder, Gill, Scanlon, Raskin, Cohen, Jayapal,
Balint, Kamlager-Dove, and Goldman.
Also present: Representative Biggs.
Mr. Roy. The Subcommittee will come to order. Without
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at any
time. I welcome everyone to today's hearing on the Southern
Poverty Law Center and Federal civil rights policy.
I will now recognize myself for an opening statement.
Before I begin, I just want to apologize to the witnesses and
for the folks in the crowd and to my colleagues that we got
started a little bit late. We were dealing with some votes on
the House floor. It ran long, and I apologize to the witnesses
and appreciate your patience and I appreciate you all being
here.
Today the Subcommittee meets to examine a troubling
reality, that one of the most politically motivated,
financially lucrative, and ideologically extreme nonprofits in
America, the Southern Poverty Law Center, has been permitted to
wield extraordinary influence over Federal civil rights policy,
Federal law enforcement training, and the private sector
mechanisms that increasingly dictate who is permitted to
participate in civic life.
This is a far cry from the Southern Poverty Law Center's
early reputation as a group engaged in concrete litigation
against civil violence and the KKK. The SPLC has reinvented
itself as a political fundraising machine built on an ever-
expanding, ideologically defined hate mission.
Since 2000, the SPLC has published what it calls a hate
map, a physical nationwide map that places bright-red markers
over the approximate location of designated hate groups across
America. The map is updated annually, amplified to the media,
and used by activists and even Federal agencies as if it were a
neutral intelligence product.
How did we arrive at a point where a tax-exempt political
organization can smear mainstream faith-based groups, parental
rights advocates, even Muslims who reject terrorism, or student
groups like Turning Point USA, and virtually anyone else who
disagrees with its far-Left ideology as extremists, feeding
these designations directly into Federal agencies, watching as
violence follows, and then continuing to profit from the very
fear it helps create?
This is not neutral monitoring. It is a political weapon
masquer-
ading as a public interest watchdog. SPLC leadership openly
admits as such, with a spokesman stating plainly, quote, ``Our
aim in life is to destroy these groups, completely destroy
them.'' This is despite explaining that their designations are
strictly ideological, not based on criminality, violence, or
danger, conceding that their hate-group labels are based on
opinion, not objective standards.
To illustrate just how far this mission creep has gone, the
Center for Immigration and Federation for American Immigration
Reform, which are groups dedicated to evaluating the effects of
mass illegal and legal immigration, are labeled as hate groups
by the SPLC. The SPLC's November 2025 extremism-tracking
bulletin even flagged me personally, not for violence or
lawlessness or any actual threat, but for legislative work on
issues like border security and concerns about radical
Islamism.
A mere difference in policy opinion may land you on SPLC's
hate map that has countless groups listed over mere
disagreements. Moreover, these labels have real-world
consequences, including the 2012 armed attack on the Family
Research Council, an attack in which the shooter admitted he
selected his target directly from the SPLC hate list and used
the hate map to determine FRC's location. He then entered with
50 rounds of ammo and a bag of Chick-fil-A sandwiches he
intended to smear on his victims' faces as a political message.
Even after this attack, Federal agencies continued relying
on SPLC materials, with the FBI citing SPLC classifications in
at least 13 intelligence products on so-called radical
traditionalist Catholics. We see the same pattern again more
than a decade later, when on September 9, 2025, one day before
Charlie Kirk was assassinated, the SPLC's Hatewatch newsletter
singled out Charlie and Turning Point USA by name, labeling
them dangerous extremists.
As with FRC, in the aftermath of Charlie's assassination,
there have been no retractions, no accountability, and no
acknowledgment of the risks inherent in branding mainstream
political figures as existential threats. These incidents,
separated by 13 years but linked by the same targeting
architecture, underscore a sobering reality. The SPLC's
designations don't merely stigmatize. They can serve as
ideological permission slips for individuals already willing to
commit political violence.
We must examine how Federal agencies, from the Department
of Justice and FBI to the Department of Education to even
elements of the Department of War, have relied on or
incorporated SPLC's briefings, training materials, or lists of
so-called extremist groups. How did we allow private
organization with no objective standards and no accountability
and a long history of internal corruption and bias to become
embedded in Federal civil rights enforcement, determining whose
speech gets chilled, whose religious exercise is punished,
whose organizations are suddenly surveilled, de-banked, de-
platformed, or targeted because a multimillion-dollar activist
nonprofit decided they were politically inconvenient?
The SPLC is just one in a sprawling ecosystem of Left-wing
foundations, foreign funding streams, donor-advised networks,
legacy media partners, and activist legal groups. This network
deploys billions of dollars annually to shape public-facing
extremism narratives, pressure corporations into policing
speech, and lobby Federal agencies behind closed doors,
encouraging the Federal Government to treat ideological dissent
as a threat to civil rights law or domestic security.
This is a broader ideological campaign designed to narrow
the boundaries of acceptable speech, to define traditional
religious beliefs as dangerous, to collapse the distinction
between advocacy and violence, and to shift the Federal civil
rights apparatus from its original purpose of protecting equal
treatment under law toward policing political dissent.
That is why this hearing is so important, because we must
recognize that only a select committee equipped with subpoena
authority, forensic tools, and investigative staff can follow
the money, map the coordination, and expose how partisan
nonprofits embedded themselves into Federal civil rights
enforcement to intentionally undermine constitutional
liberties, as the so-called targets of these systems are not
violent extremists. They are ordinary Americans, parents,
pastors, students, and community leaders expressing their
values and exercising their constitutional rights.
Civil rights law was not designed to punish people for
holding biblical beliefs or advocating for secure borders. The
incentives for expanding these extremist categories are
enormous. The SPLC now holds over $829 million in assets, with
an endowment exceeding $738 million and tens of millions stored
in offshore investment vehicles. Fear is profitable, and these
organizations have built a financial model around it.
Today's hearing is a critical step to affirming a basic
truth. The Constitution, not the SPLC, not wealthy donors, not
activist bureaucrats, and certainly not political violence,
sets the bounds of our liberty. It is our duty to defend it. It
is important as we discuss this today to remember that we are
here to defend and protect the First Amendment, and we are not
suggesting that we shouldn't have groups that are able to
exercise all their First Amendment rights and speak clearly and
freely.
We are saying that we ought to, as an oversight body, be
looking into the connections and the networks and how they are
extended into the decisionmaking of the Federal Government and
how they are being used to target average and everyday
Americans. The American people have a right to know and to see
and to understand it.
With that, I will now yield to the Ranking Member for her
opening statement.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you and thank you to our witnesses for
appearing today.
Our Republican colleagues call this the Subcommittee on the
Constitution and Limited Government. When Democrats are in
charge, we call I the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil
Rights, and Civil Liberties. It is clear from this hearing and
others that have preceded it that our colleagues' idea of
limited government only applies to the people and parts of our
society that they agree with.
Otherwise, this administration and its allies are more than
happy to use the power of government to ruthlessly intrude in
Americans' lives, whether it is interfering in people's private
medical decisions made between themselves, their families, and
their doctors; banning children's books and censoring what
history they can learn in school; or silencing people and
institutions for speaking out or working for causes that Right-
wing extremists disagree with, which brings us to today's
hearing.
This is just the latest act in a growing assault against
organizations that serve an important function in our society.
While today's hearing targets one particular group, the
Southern Poverty Law Center, it is part of a much larger attack
than on just one liberal institution. It is part of a broader
strategy by the Trump Administration and its Congressional
allies to silence and intimidate civil society.
Civil society is not a concept that we have had to think
about much in these United States of America because, for the
most part, our leaders in government have generally respected
our bedrock American values of free speech and thought and the
equal and fair application of our laws, even when applied to
those with whom we disagree. Civil society is a diverse range
of institutions and people distinct from our government that
includes nongovernment organizations, universities, cultural
institutions, religious congregations, clubs, the free press,
social movements, and active citizens, indivisible groups.
Civil society is a key part of our social fabric and serves
all of us by providing information and opportunities for
engagement, delivering important services, upholding our
rights, and helping to keep our government accountable. These
are organizations that Americans trust and contribute to
because they support our neighbors and our communities and
because they work to promote the common good and a better
America.
This administration and some of its supporters have taken
steps to undermine and dismantle these civic institutions to
stifle dissent and consolidate power. In the words of
conservative columnist David Brooks, quote,
What is happening now is not normal politics. We are seeing an
assault on the fundamental institutions of our civic life,
things we should all swear loyalty to, Democrat, Independent,
or Republican. This is a single effort to undo the parts of
civilizational order that might restrain Trump's acquisition of
power.
These actions are right out of the authoritarian playbook.
First, remove professional nonpartisan civil servants from key
government agencies, especially watchdogs, and replace them
with loyalists. Then weaponize these agencies against
individuals and organizations that might stand in opposition to
this administration's out-of-control agenda. Use the
Presidential bullhorn to undermine those who are meant to serve
as a check on the administration, whether it's the press, the
courts, labor unions, religious institutions, professionals
like doctors, lawyers, and scientists.
Over the past year, we have seen this administration
attempt to intimidate and seek retribution against elected
officials who have sought to hold it accountable, as well as
civil society groups such as law firms that brought cases
challenging the President and his prior administration, schools
and universities that it considers ideological enemies, media
organizations, journalists, and comedians that have published
or broadcast stories and jokes critical of this administration,
public interest groups that advocate for causes and viewpoints
this administration doesn't like, and nonprofits dedicated to
work that runs counter to this President's political agenda.
Take, for example, the fact that late last month, the
Department of Homeland Security suspended Federal funding for
Catholic charities of the Rio Grande Valley. Sister Norma
Pimentel, a close ally of Pope Francis, runs the organization
and has been lauded worldwide for her humanitarian work with
migrants, work that has put her and others who work with faith-
based immigration services in the crosshairs of anti-immigrant
politicians, particularly as Catholic leaders, including Pope
Leo and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, have spoken
out against this administration's dehumanizing rhetoric and
cruel deportation activities.
We have seen these efforts to suppress opposition to the
Trump agenda aided and abetted by Republicans here in Congress.
They have supported unilateral White House efforts to rescind
congressionally approved funding and bully the media, law
firms, universities, and nonprofits, despite their big talk
about freedom, individual liberties, and yes, limited
government.
Instead, we now see this administration and its
Congressional allies attempting to paint ideological opponents
as domestic terrorists. In September, the administration issued
National Security Presidential Memorandum NSPM-7, singling out
those that it would characterize as anti-American,
anticapitalist, anti-Christian, or otherwise hostile toward the
so-called traditional views on questions of religion and
morality.
In other words, this administration and its allies are
trying to redefine constitutionally protected speech against
this President and his administration as domestic terrorism.
This isn't a new playbook. During the McCarthy era,
conservative idealogues tried to paint Martin Luther King, Jr.,
and other civil rights leaders as dangerous communists. It goes
against everything our Constitution stands for.
In the tradition of attacks on civil society as a whole, we
have seen a cottage industry of meritless conspiracy theories
grow and be leveled against the SPLC and other civil rights
organizations, groups that seek to ensure that all Americans
are given a seat at the table regardless of race or gender or
background.
Throughout its history, the SPLC has done important work to
identify hate groups and extremist threats. It is exactly that
work that has made the SPLC and similar groups prime targets
for Right-wing forces now. Ultimately, these individual
baseless accusations are just a means to an end. They are part
of a larger goal to weaken and delegitimize the pillars of
civil society.
A strong, robust civil society provides the infrastructure
we need for robust democratic self-governance. Right now, these
organizations and individuals that stand up for us, the ones
that people look to for protection against government
oppression, are under attack by this administration and its
allies. We as Americans mush push back because, while today the
target may be one particular group or those perceived to be
part of one particular political ideology, the next day, it
could easily be you or me.
Without civil society and the stability and protection
these organizations provide us to counter creeping
authoritarianism and Right-wing propaganda, all our rights are
at risk because our fundamental rights, the freedoms and
principles we hold so proudly as Americans, are only guaranteed
if we stand up and defend them when they are under attack.
I yield back my time but not my defense of our
Constitution, our civil rights, and liberties.
Mr. Roy. I now recognize the Ranking Member of the Full
Committee, Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Chair Roy.
Welcome to all our witnesses here. Lethal hate crimes are
on the rise in America. We saw it at the Tree of Life
synagogue. We saw it in Buffalo at the Tops supermarket. We saw
it in El Paso, Texas, at Walmart. We saw it in Charleston,
South Carolina, at church.
We see hate crimes every day across America. The President
does not talk about extremist racial violence or White
nationalism, which the Department of Homeland Security just a
couple years ago defined as America's greatest domestic terror
threat. The Trump Administration calls ANTIFA the most serious
terrorist threat in the country, although no one can tell us
where it is headquartered, who its leaders are, what its
structure is, how many members it has, or what crimes it is
responsible for committing.
The FBI in the last few months abruptly cut ties with the
Anti-Defamation League, deliberately closing its eyes to the
episodes of antisemitism that the ADL wants to bring to the
attention of the country. The administration gutted the
Domestic Terrorism Operations Section of the FBI, which has
monitored threats by violent groups, including White
nationalists.
President Trump, in fact, has a history of disturbing
actions in this field. He invited over for a lavish dinner in
Mar-a-Lago Nicholas Fuentes, a vicious neo-Nazi and Holocaust
denier who calls for annihilation of the Jews, and self-
proclaimed Hitler lover Ye.
Infamously, Donald Trump said he saw very fine people on
both sides of an antisemitic riot in Charlottesville
accompanying the Unite the Right rally in 2018. He saw very
fine people marching down the boulevard, which led into an
antisemitic riot, a confusion that has not afflicted prior
Presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt, who knew exactly which
side America needs to be on when Nazis are on the march.
President Trump's immigration enforcement teams are
encouraged to violate people's civil rights, arresting people
solely on the basis of the language they speak or the color of
their skin. The President calls the refugees garbage. He calls
the Somali American community garbage. He uses expletives to
describe entire countries in Africa.
He pardoned 1,600 rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol and
our Constitution on January 6, 2021, including hundreds who
pled guilty to or were convicted of violently attacking our
police officers with baseball bats, steel pipes, broken
furniture, and bear mace. Many of those pardoned convicts
proudly carried Confederate battle flags and Nazi paraphernalia
into the Capitol, and many of them, since their pardons, have
gone on to commit other crimes against American citizens, like
terroristic threats, home invasion, armed robbery, rape, child
sex abuse material, trafficking, and so on.
Now, in other times, Democrats and Republicans alike would
rely on the Southern Poverty Law Center to help us keep track
of the movements of violent White supremacy in the country. The
Southern Poverty Law Center has been a vigilant voice in civil
society against radical White nationalist violence and
extremism, neo-Naziism, and other forces across the political
spectrum that spread organized hate from any quarter.
The President, however, wants to undermine civil society
organizations and to reduce our ability to defend ourselves
against the virus of racial violence. The administration is
engaged in a full-blown assault on civil society: The
nonprofits, the law firms, the universities, the independent
journalists who gather information, research the White
supremacist movement, and defend our freedom and our civil
rights and voting rights in court. The Majority, unfortunately,
now has chosen a hearing to promote its conspiracy theories
about the Southern Poverty Law Center simply for exercising its
First Amendment rights.
If my friend the Chair is shocked and horrified that a
private group would call out hate speech and violence where it
arises, how does the Chair feel about actual government
officials accusing other government officials of various
crimes? On November 20th, President Trump accused six Members
of the House and Senate, quote, ``seditious behavior from
traitors. Lock them up,'' when all they did was to State the
uncontroversial truth the members of the Armed Forces have a
duty to refuse illegal orders.
How does he feel about high-ranking Presidential aide
Stephen Miller saying the Democratic Party is not a political
party; it is a domestic extremist organization? Certainly, I
think it is more dangerous when you have government officials
engaging in speech like that.
The Southern Poverty Law Center promotes nonviolence in
America, an interracial coalition, and peace. To my knowledge,
there has never been a single member of the Southern Poverty
Law Center in its more than five decades of existence that has
ever been convicted of participating in a violent crime. It is
the target of this hit job today, part of this broader attack
on the not-for-profit community.
Long before the horrifying assassination of Charlie Kirk,
which I have vehemently denounced, the President and his allies
have targeted law firms that represent clients he doesn't like,
universities that don't follow a line of Right-wing dogma and
political correctness, and journalists who dare to report facts
critical of the Trump Administration's corruption and
authoritarianism. They now simply are using Mr. Kirk's murder
to engage in tactics imputing collective guilt, guilt by
association, and guilt by pure invention against civil society
groups that they don't like.
This past September, President Trump issues an Executive
Order purporting to designate ANTIFA as a domestic terror
organization even though a senior FBI official struggled just
last week in testimony in Congress to explain how ANTIFA is
even an organization after claiming without irony that it is
the largest domestic threat facing the United States.
More than 3,000 nonprofit groups have signed an open letter
asserting that the National Security Presidential Memorandum on
Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political violence
is not about protecting Americans or defending the public
interest. It's about using unchecked power to silence
opposition and voices that the President disagrees with.
To put it bluntly, the Trump Justice Department seeks to
redefine any kind of political dissent against him as domestic
terrorism. That is a classic Orwellian and authoritarian tactic
that anybody who loves freedom should reject. We must hold a
hearing on the Trump Administration's attempt to criminalize
political dissent in the country. Instead, we get this hearing
rehashing the same old lies about the Southern Poverty Law
Center.
Mr. Chair, we can do a lot better than this. We should all
be working together to oppose real political violence and
terror, which remain a plague on the land. We must denounce
political violence across the spectrum. We should allow any
civil society group to call out extremism, terrorism,
fanaticism, and violence as they see it.
Today, we missed the mark a lot by targeting one group
only, which has always proclaimed its fidelity to the
Constitution, to civil peace, and to nonviolence in the
country.
I yield back to you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Roy. I thank the Ranking Member.
Without objection, I will introduce into the record a story
by Snopes entitled, ``No, Trump Did Not Call Neo-Nazis and
White Supremacists Very Fine People.''
Without objection, all other opening statements will be
included in the record.
We will now introduce today's witnesses.
Mr. Tyler O'Neil. Mr. O'Neil is a Senior Editor of The
Daily Signal, where his reporting focuses on nonprofit
organizations and where he looks into and investigates the flow
of dollars and the extent to which nonprofit organizations and
how they're founded and how they're connected. He previously
was an editor at PJ Media and Fox News and is the author of two
books.
Mr. Tony Perkins. Mr. Perkins is the President of the
Family Research Council, a nonprofit organization that
advocates for family centered policies. He is an ordained
minister and previously served as the Chair and Vice Chair of
the United States Commission on International Religious
Freedom. Mr. Perkins also previously served as a member of the
Louisiana House of Representatives.
Mr. Andrew Sypher. Mr. Sypher is the Vice President of
field operations at Turning Point USA, a nonprofit organization
that advocates for fiscal responsibility, free markets, and
limited government. She oversees the organization's support of
more than 2,000 high school and college chapters across the
country.
Ms. Amanda Tyler. Ms. Tyler is the Executive Director of
the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit
organization that advocates on matters of religion. She
previously worked in Congress and private law practice.
We thank our witnesses for appearing today, and we will
begin by swearing you in. Would you please rise and raise your
right hand? Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury
that the testimony you are about to give is true and correct to
the best of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help
you God?
Let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in
the affirmative. You may be seated. Please know that your
written testimony will be entered into the record in its
entirety, accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony
in five minutes.
Mr. O'Neil, we will begin with you. I will remind you to
turn your microphone on and stay within the five-minutes. Thank
you.
STATEMENT OF TYLER O'NEIL
Mr. O'Neil. Chair Roy and the Members of the Subcommittee,
imagine that an organization notorious for comparing mainstream
conservatives and Christians to the Ku Klux Klan, which
inspired a literal domestic terror attack and has ties to
ANTIFA, advised the Federal Government on how to counter the
domestic terrorism threat.
This Orwellian nightmare isn't a hypothetical; it actually
happened in the Biden Administration. It is the reason I am
testifying before you today. In the next few minutes, I will
explain just how biased the SPLC is, its influence in the
previous administration, and why this should concern every
American.
The SPLC gained its reputation by suing Ku Klux Klan groups
into bankruptcy. Now it weaponizes that reputation, putting
mainstream conservative and Christian groups on a hate map with
clan chapters. It uses this map to scare donors into
contributing to its $786 million endowment and to demonize its
political and ideological opponents by suggesting opposition to
its agenda is driven by hate.
On the hate map are moms and dads who oppose critical race
theory in schools, doctors who question the grotesque
transgender treatments euphemistically referred to as gender-
affirming care, and even lesbians and gays who oppose drag
queen story hour.
The hate map inspired a terrorist attack at the Family
Research Council in Washington, DC. The man who opened fire at
the ongressional baseball game practice, had liked the SPLC on
Facebook, and supported Bernie Sanders. The SPLC also added
Turning Point USA to the hate map mere months before Charlie
Kirk's assassination.
Yet, none of this led the Biden Administration to think
twice about working with the SPLC. The Biden White House hosted
the SPLC at least 18 times. Biden nominated an SPLC attorney to
a top Federal judgeship. He touted the SPLC's help in the White
House's strategy to combat antisemitism.
More disturbing, however, was the SPLC's influence on
Federal law enforcement. The FBI's Richmond office cited the
SPLC on radical traditional Catholic hate groups. The FBI
rushed to rescind the memo when a brave whistleblower published
it.
Yet, it seems the Justice Department's Civil Rights
Division had no such compunction over its close ties to the
SPLC. In fact, the division's head, Kristen Clarke, took a
break from prosecuting prolife protestors to meet with SPLC
leaders and the staff in March 2023?
Also, when the SPLC added Moms for Liberty to the hate map
in 2023, it shared an embargoed copy of the report with the
civil rights division. An SPLC researcher brief DOJ prosecutors
on the threat of the ant-LGBTQ movement? Why does this matter?
The SPLC has suggested that merely quoting the Catechism of the
Catholic Church is enough evidence of anti-LGBTQ hate to land
you on the map.
For years, the SPLC defended itself from the charge of
being anti-Christian by noting that it does not put every
organization that upholds biblical sexual morality on the hate
map. It only cited one piece of evidence for this claim: Its
decision not to put Focus on the Family on the map. As it turns
out, the language responding to the anti-Christian charge
disappeared from the website recently, and this year, SPLC
added Focus on the Family to the hate map.
The SPLC acts as the Left's ideological enforcer, narrowing
the parameters of socially acceptable debate. Through the hate
map, it suggests that mere disagreement with its agenda on
immigration, critical race theory, or trans issues amounts to
bigotry. This contributes to the hostile climate in which
conservatives keep their mouths shut to avoid being accused of
racism, Islamophobia, or hate.
It is no accident that activists use this hat map to
deplatform conservatives or that activist groups have tried to
pressure donor-advised funds to blacklist the SPLC's targets.
Law enforcement should not rely on such a biased anti-Christian
organization. The FBI Director Kash Patel was right to swear
off this partisan smear machine.
Americans deserve to know just how much influence the SPLC
had in the Biden Administration. As Chair Jordan recently
noted, there is yet more to be revealed.
[The prepared statement of Mr. O'Neil follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Roy. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. O'Neil.
Mr. Perkins, you now have five minutes. Reminding you to
turn your microphone on.
STATEMENT OF TONY PERKINS
Mr. Perkins. Chair Roy and the Members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
On August 15, 2012, our organization experienced firsthand
what happens when inflammatory rhetoric is legitimized by
respected institutions. That morning, an armed LGBTQ activist
named Floyd Corkins entered FRC's headquarters with a loaded
semiautomatic pistol, nearly 100 rounds of ammunition, and 15
Chick-fil-A sandwiches.
He later admitted to the FBI that his intention was to kill
the people in the building and stuff the sandwiches into his
victims' mouths as a political statement. Corkins is the first
person convicted under the District's post-9/11 terrorism
statute. When the FBI asked him why he chose FRC, he told them
plainly, ``he found us via the Southern Poverty Law Center's
hate map.''
Two years earlier, FRC became the first mainstream
Christian public policy organization labeled a hate group by
the SPLC. The SPLC not only placed us on a list, but they also
published an interactive map pinpointing our location, doxxing
us and making us a target.
Despite appeals after the shooting, the SPLC refused to
remove us from their map. To the SPLC, the life-threatening
gunshot suffered by our African American building manager, Leo
Johnson, was little more than collateral damage, acceptable if
it intimidated Christians who uphold biblical teaching on
marriage and human sexuality.
As was stated, once upon a time, SPLC did legitimate civil
rights work. Today, even former SPLC insiders have acknowledged
the organization's internal ethical failures and ideological
turn. The SPLC is an activist advocacy organization that, to
use a sports analogy, is not only a player, but they blow the
whistle, call the penalties, claiming authority to decide who
may speak while actively shaping the political fight
themselves.
Their hate map isn't research. It is a political weapon
aimed at silencing viewpoints that the Left opposes. The legacy
media is a silent partner with them. When FRC was added to the
list, a Soros-funded group immediately demanded MSNBC and Chris
Matthews ban me from appearing on Hardball. Within days, the
SPLC label functioned like a verdict, treated as an
unquestionable fact without investigation or accountability.
The result is the silencing of conservative voices.
More troubling, government agencies have used SPLC
materials to shape training and threat assessments. The
Department of Defense previously used SPLC materials in
trainings that cast suspicion on Christian organizations. Local
law enforcement agencies circulate SPLC lists as though they
were intelligence bulletins. Schools have incorporated SPLC's
material into curriculum, presented to children as objective
fact. Major corporations, from online platforms to payment
processors, have used SPLC's label to deny services, restrict
donations, and cutoff basic financial tools to Americans.
Once a group is branded, the SPLC label functions like a
digital scarlet letter, deployed to restrict speech,
marginalize, and financially ruin individuals and
organizations. This is precisely the SPLC's intent, not to
fight violence, but to silence political and cultural opponents
one way or another.
Labeling is not without consequence. The SPLC's agitation
propaganda has inspired more than one act of violence. In 2017,
Congressman Steve Scalise was shot and nearly killed by a man
immersed in SPLC online ecosystem that relentlessly demonized
conservatives. Prior to the shooting, the SPLC had called for
Steve to be removed from his GOP leadership position.
Following this pattern, earlier this year, after months of
SPLC targeting, Charlie Kirk was assassinated in an environment
supercharged by ideological hostility toward social
conservatives. The SPLC and other groups in this Left-wing
ecosystem create an environment ripe for terrorism, a form of
terrorism in which influential public figures and media outlets
use incendiary but deniable rhetoric to incite anonymous
ideologically aligned individual to commit unpredictable and
often violent acts.
The government, the media, and corporations should not
facilitate an organization that characterizes law-abiding
citizens in a way that suggests violence against them is
justified. The SPLC refuses to acknowledge its role in fueling
this hostility. Denial does not erase responsibility.
If the SPLC is truly committed to reducing hate, then they
should drop the gun, take down the hate map, and stop feeding
the dynamic that pushes unstable individuals toward violence.
In conclusion, Mr. Chair, just after midnight on August 15,
2012, I stood in the hospital waiting for our wounded building
manager to emerge from a long and complicated surgery. When he
did, I went into the recovery room to see him and to pray with
him.
Then, I asked him the same question that the FBI agent
asked when we were reviewing the video footage of the shooting.
I said, ``Leo, this question has been swirling in my mind all
day. Why did you not shoot Corkins when you had taken his gun
and you had it trained on him as you were bleeding and about to
lose consciousness?'' Leo said, ``Because God told me not to.''
That kind of restraint, the belief that life is sacred, is
what the SPLC refuses to acknowledge in the very people it
labels as dangerous. If we want a freer, safer, and more just
society, we must reject the SPLC's practice of ideological
blacklisting and ensure the government agencies, media outlets,
corporations, and schools stop outsourcing moral judgment to an
organization that has long abandoned neutrality and morality.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Perkins follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Roy. Thank you, Mr. Perkins. I appreciate that
testimony.
We will give Ms. Tyler some grace on her time as well. Feel
free to use the time as needed.
Mr. Sypher, you now have five minutes. Reminding you to
turn your microphone on. Right before you begin, I do want to
say this. Obviously, all of us were horrified about what
happened to Charlie in September. I can't believe it has been
three months. I know that given your responsibilities in
dealing with university chapters that you were physically
present on the scene. Just know that we are praying for you,
for Charlie's family, for the entire, Mr. Perkins, USA family,
and appreciate your willingness to be here.
You are now recognized for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF ANDREW SYPHER
Mr. Sypher. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair
and the Members of the Committee. My name is Andrew Sypher, and
I am the Executive Vice President of Field Operations for
Turning Point USA.
In my many years leading our operations, I have overseen
the chapter growth at colleges and high schools, building the
largest campus chapter organization in the country. I have also
managed our campus events, including Charlie Kirk's ``Prove Me
Wrong,'' tables or his passion for open dialog with disagreeing
students that made him a social media giant, reaching millions
of young people through tough, humanizing conversations.
Over the years, Charlie and Turning Point have been
attacked by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which
villainizes our open-dialog approach on campuses. The SPLC
hastily labels ideologically opposing organizations as hate
groups, misleading well-intentioned entities and blurring the
line between real hate and mere differences of opinion.
Charlie warned just before his murder that the SPLC's hate
map designation equating campus kids who promote the
Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and prolife, profamily values
with the KKK and neo-Nazis would put Turning Point in the
crosshairs. This proved prophetic. Just months later, an
assassin took Charlie Kirk's life on campus during one of those
open-dialog events that often lowered tensions and fostered
healthy debate among young people.
Charlie embodied what made America great: Free speech.
Students flocked to these exchanges, not just for
entertainment, but to witness how conversations labeled
triggering or hateful by the Left could humanize even the
toughest of opponents.
This is the work we continue in Charlie's legacy. We reject
the idea that more speech is hate speech. Hate festers when
institutions shut down dialog, creating divides and equating
ordinary Americans with home-grown terrorism, what we call the
coddling of the American mind.
We have seen this animosity firsthand. I was standing just
ten feet to his left when Charlie was assassinated at Utah
Valley University, an act later condoned and justified by some
of the very people who labeled him and Turning Point a hate
group.
At places like Berkeley, where we recently held a
prescheduled event, violent protestors gathered and injured
civilians. This mirrors years of organized protests involving
groups like ANTIFA breaking doors, destroying property, setting
fires, and intimidating our attendees.
Since Charlie's death, political violence against
conservatives has only risen. I urge this Committee to act
decisively. We cannot allow biased organizations like the SPLC
to arbitrarily dictate good and evil in our government and
culture or to weaponize the hate label against ideological
opponents.
My hope is that this becomes America's turning point, that
we never forget Charlie Kirk's murder, and that Congress
confronts the brewing political violence in our midst. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sypher follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Roy. Thank you, Mr. Sypher. Thank you for your
testimony. Ms. Tyler, you have five minutes. Reminding you to
turn your microphone on, and a little grace on the five minutes
if you need it.
STATEMENT OF AMANDA TYLER
Ms. Tyler. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Roy, Ranking
Member Scanlon, and the Members of the Subcommittee. I am
Amanda Tyler, Executive Director of Baptist Joint Committee for
Religious Liberty.
As a faithful Christian and a patriotic American, I am
honored to be here this afternoon to offer testimony about why
the treatment of civil society organizations is directly
relevant to religious liberty and First Amendment protections.
First, I mourn with the Jewish community in the wake of the
deadly antisemitic attack at Bondi Beach in Australia this
weekend. This latest attack, fueled by antireligious hate, is a
tragic reminder of the need for a united front that will stand
against every instance of violence and actively work to
dismantle the ideologies that drive that violence.
For 89 years, the BJC has worked to advance faith freedom
for all. The BJC has a consistent record of supporting both of
the First Amendment's religion clauses, no establishment and
free exercise. Our commitment to religious freedom stems from
the historical experiences of early Baptists, who suffered the
pain of persecution that resulted from religious fervor coupled
with the coercive power of the State.
The BJC works with a diverse group of organizations, both
secular and religious, and various coalitions. Depending on the
case or the policy we are working on, we may find ourselves on
the same or opposing sides with other groups that work on
religious freedom issues or other concerns that are crucial to
our pluralistic democracy.
Nonprofits, religious and secular, are essential to
American democracy, creating opportunities for civic
engagement, caring for neighbors, and standing up to abuses of
power. When government attacks these institutions, especially
during moments of instability or when government services are
strained, communities suffer.
American civil society represents the broad diversity of
the American people. Dissent and disagreement between these
groups is a hallmark of a free society. We cannot conflate
policy disagreement with dangerous conduct. The government and
especially law enforcement, should respond to facts, not
ideology.
Civil rights organizations, Southern Poverty Law Center
included, are part of the essential infrastructure of American
civil society. Civil rights organizations have historically
helped communities in many ways, including documenting and
combating discrimination and racially motivated violence,
ensuring access to justice, providing education and services
where government capacity is limited, supporting those targeted
by bigotry or political retaliation, and strengthening
democracy by defending constitutional rights.
Today, as communities face rising extremism, political
polarization, and gaps in Federal support, these organizations
remain crucial, often stepping in where government has stepped
back. Today's hearing is not about one nonprofit. Instead,
hearings like this one serve to normalize the idea that
government should use oversight, enforcement, and public
rhetoric to punish and make examples of organizations whose
viewpoints or work challenge the administration's agenda.
Such retaliation can chill advocacy, undermine
constitutional norms, and threaten the independence of the
nonprofit sector. The government targeting of nonprofits should
concern all Americans. A functioning democracy depends on the
ability of organizations across the spectrum of viewpoints to
debate without fear of retaliation.
What begins as political retaliation against civil society
organizations quickly becomes a threat to conscience rights,
religious pluralism, and the foundational First Amendment
protections that safeguard all people and all faith
communities.
Religious liberty depends on a government that remains
neutral when it comes to religion, neither favoring nor
denigrating any religious viewpoint held by individuals and
groups. The government misuse of its authority, whether through
investigations, rhetoric, or selective enforcement, creates a
climate where religious people, houses of worship, and faith-
based charities are put at risk.
For faith to remain free, it must never be used as a tool
of political power. Religion must never be used as a proxy for
threat or danger. There are no second-class faiths in this
country. When the State elevates certain ideologies and
stigmatizes others, it erodes both free expression and free
exercise.
A vibrant and free civil society is core to religious
liberty in our country, as well as essential to achieving the
promise of our constitutional democracy that all belong, no
matter how one worships, how one believes, or how one
identifies religiously or not. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Tyler follows:]
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Mr. Roy. Thank you, Ms. Tyler, for your testimony.
Without objection, the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Biggs,
will be permitted to participate in today's hearing for the
purpose of questioning the witnesses if a Member yields him
time for that purpose.
Without objection, we will now proceed under the five-
minute rule with questions, and I will now recognize the
gentlelady from Wyoming for five minutes.
Ms. Hageman. Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. We
appreciate you joining us here for this important discussion.
The intended effect of SPLC's Hate Map is clear: By lumping
mainstream conservative voices an organization in with actual
Nazis and extremists the SPLC delegitimizes any opinion to the
right of whatever line the SPLC deems acceptable.
Richard Cohen, the former President of the SPLC, when
discussing whether ANTIFA would be listed, was quoted as saying
that, quote, ``There might be forms of hate out there that you
may consider hateful, but it's not the type of hate we
follow.''
In June 2020, the SPLC published an analysis stating that
designating ANTIFA as a domestic terrorist organization is
dangerous and threatens civil liberties. Let that sink in.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center's website, its
hate data list for 2024 includes 1,371 groups, up from 599 in
the year 2000. Some of the groups listed what we should expect:
Neo-Nazis, the KKK, and others. However, this list lumps in
countless conservative advocacy organizations including the
Alliance for Defending Freedom, Moms for Liberty, Parents
Defending Education, Turning Point USA, and the Family Research
Council.
Now, Mr. Sypher and Mr. Perkins, you have both testified
about the impact and the consequences of the SPLC designating
your organizations as hate groups.
I am going to start with you, Mr. Perkins. Could you
briefly describe or list any of the commonly held conservative
beliefs that would lead the SPLC to classify your organization
as a hate group?
Mr. Perkins. According to the SPLC the reason is our
biblical view of marriage and human sexuality. That is what
causes them to classify us as a hate group.
Ms. Hageman. As a result then you had the incident that you
described during your testimony earlier. They actually put a
target on your back, didn't they, Mr. Perkins?
Mr. Perkins. Correct. If you'll recall, back in 2012 there
was a Chick-Fil-A Day where nationwide people went to Chick-
Fil-A because Chick-Fil-A at the time had made a statement in
support of natural marriage. Because we, along with then-
Governor Mike Huckabee, now Ambassador Huckabee, had promoted
that day, Corkins went to the map of SPLC to find FRC and he
targeted us. It was also when he was arrested, he had a list in
his pocket which had actually a couple of more Washington, DC-
based organizations coming from the SPLC map.
Ms. Hageman. Mr. Sypher, can you describe some of the
beliefs of Turning Point USA that would warrant a listing as a
hate group by the SPLC?
Mr. Sypher. For the record, none. We have three core
beliefs at Turning Point USA. Charlie would always state them.
First, the constitution is the greatest document to ever be
written. Second, the U.S.A. is the greatest country to exist in
this world. Third, that capitalism is the greatest economic
system to lift people out of poverty.
Ms. Hageman. As a result of those three core beliefs SPLC
has designated you as a hate group. Is that fair?
Mr. Sypher. Not at all.
Ms. Hageman. That is right. While there is no doubt that
these designations can have a significant impact not only on
the reputation and operation of listed organizations, tying
them to the entities that are truly responsible for hateful
acts and and violence, it actually inflames tensions and
threatens individuals' safety, as you have both described.
One point that sticks out to me when looking through the
center's hate data is that very few, if any, Left-wing
extremist organizations and activities show up. In one of the
more well-known examples, ANTIFA is conspicuously absent
despite the SPLC's specifically maintaining categories for
antigovernment extremist groups and general hate. In a more
recent example, the SPLC failed to specifically condemn the
violent actors endangering Jewish students at American
universities following the horrific October 17th attack carried
out by Hamas and supported by radical Islamists, including many
right here in the United States of America.
Mr. O'Neil, could you briefly provide some insights on why
they would exclude ANTIFA, pro-Palestinian, and pro-Hamas
organizations on American campuses, Jane's Revenge, and other
Left-wing extremist groups from their hate data framework?
Mr. O'Neil. They have ties to some of these organizations,
particularly with ANTIFA. They hired a woman who is described
as ANTIFA's secret weapon, a researcher. When it comes to--I
can't speak to exactly why they don't, but what I can say is it
is an absolute travesty that they will put organizations like
Turning Point USA and Moms for Liberty as antigovernment
extremist groups, comparable to the Klan in their view, and
then not put actual groups that are hurling Molotov cocktails
at government buildings.
Ms. Hageman. I think that you make a very good point. I'm
out of time. I yield back. Thank you all for being here today.
Mr. Roy. I thank the gentlelady from Wyoming for her
questions.
I will now recognize the Ranking Member, the gentleman from
Maryland, Mr. Raskin, for five minutes.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chair, thank you. Maps are protected by the
First Amendment. You can make a flat Earth map, you can make a
map of s--hole countries, as designated by Donald Trump, you
can make a map that calls the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of
America or the Gulf of Mexico. If you don't like somebody
else's map, you make your own map. That is basic John Stuart
Mill. That is what we do under the First Amendment. We have got
an entire hearing organized around one map published by one
group.
Look, I am someone who is an ardent defender of freedom of
speech, on all sides. People also should be held responsible
for the speech they engage in. Legally we can hold them
responsible only if their speech incites imminent lawless
action and violence. That is the Brandenburg standard. Short of
that--or engages in defamation, for example. Short of that, we
hold them accountable morally and politically. There is nothing
wrong with the process of saying I don't like your speech, I
don't like your map.
Of course, it would be good if we had a real hearing that
was about hate speech generally in the country or speech that
endangers other people. For example, a number of the mass
murderers who showed up in Buffalo or in El Paso and killed
dozens of people themselves in their manifestos and their
social media statements said that they were acting based on the
statement that--and the well-known conspiracy theory that
George Soros is engaged in a plan to replace the American
population, the so-called great replacement theory. Does that
mean we can ban that speech? No, we can't ban that, but
certainly we should talk about it, and we should talk about the
moral implications of people engaged in.
Same thing with people in the Pro-Life Movement who call
doctors and physicians, who are OB/GYNs, baby killers, which
has led in many cases to doctors being murdered or violently
assaulted, or attacks on abortion clinics. It is true that
speech does have a real world effect even though in our society
we only allow it to be punished if it is incitement to imminent
lawless action, or analogous to that.
Ms. Tyler, let me ask you: I think that we don't want
violent attacks against the Southern Poverty Law Center. I know
you don't work for them. You work for the Baptist Committee,
right?
Ms. Tyler. That's right. I work for Baptist Joint Committee
for Religious Liberties.
Mr. Raskin. OK. Is the Southern Poverty Law Center a hate
group like the Ku Klux Klan or the Neo-Nazis? Do they proclaim
interest in violence or nonviolence, and has anybody at the
Southern Poverty Law Center ever been convicted of engaging in
a conspiracy to murder to engage in violence against anybody
including Charlie Kirk?
Ms. Tyler. I know of no reports of that violence, and I
know of SPLC as a civil rights organization that tries to draw
awareness to White supremacy and files legal action to protect
our civil rights laws.
Mr. Raskin. OK. The way that we sort this out in an
organized society under the rule of law is that if somebody
actually engages in a conspiracy to murder, or aids and abets a
murder, or imminently incites violence against someone, they
can be prosecuted. Short of that, if they engage in speech,
especially the kind of speech the SPLC is involved in, which is
trying to stop hate violence in the country, then we
essentially leave them alone, except for some reason we have
decided to have an entire hearing about one map created by this
one group.
Look, if we really wanted to promote nonviolent peaceful
discourse in the country and to promote greater understanding
and civil peace, which I hope everybody in this room could get
behind, what would we be doing? What are you doing to try to
promote civil peace and civil conversation and dialog?
Ms. Tyler. Well, one thing we do at Baptist Joint
Committee, along with a number of other organizations, is
trying to draw awareness to our First Amendment protections for
religious freedom, and to make space for all different views on
religion, and to help people have some tough conversations
including in religious communities. One of the projects that we
work on is something called Christians Against Christian
Nationalism. We don't shy away from difficult topics that we
believe do contribute to different--
Mr. Raskin. OK. I am running out of time, but just tell us
finally what do you think is behind this really extraordinary
attack on civil society organizations and particular groups
like the Southern Poverty Law Center?
Ms. Tyler. Well, I see this as an attack on civil society,
as a way to try to quash dissent, as a way to chill advocacy.
That I really fear for the future of our pluralistic democracy
if groups and individuals succumb to the intimidation. This is
a moment that we all need to be leaning into our democratic
society and participating like many of us have never done so
before.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Roy. I thank the Ranking Member, Mr. Raskin. I will now
recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Harris, for
five minutes.
Mr. Harris. Thank you, Mr. Chair and thanks to all of you
on our panel today.
Something that has been concerning to me is the Biden-
Harris Administration's targeting of Catholics in Richmond for
being so-called extremists. It was thanks to the investigative
work done by this Committee that we learned at the Biden-Harris
Administration relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center and
its memo that labeled traditional Catholics as domestic
terrorist threats.
I applaud FBI Director Kash Patel's decision to terminate
the FBI relationship with the SPLC, although such a
relationship should have been terminated a long, long time ago.
Mr. Sypher, what does it say to you about the Biden
Administration's view of conservatives that they were using a
resource that categorized conservative groups like ADF and
Family Research Council among the likes of the Aryan
Brotherhood and the Nation of Islam?
Mr. Sypher. Mr. Harris, thank you. What it shows is that
the Biden-Harris Administration did not truly care about what
most Americans believe. Turning Point USA represents what most
Americans believe, in the nuclear family. They believe in law
and order. Those very things are the things that the SPLC uses
in their very biased approach in targeting and labeling
Christian conservative organizations.
Mr. Harris. Well, thank you, sir. Mr. Perkins, your
organization advocates from a Christian world view, but was
labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for
taking stances that align with simply biblical teaching. I want
to ask you a few questions, Mr. Perkins. Is the Christian world
view hateful?
Mr. Perkins. No.
Mr. Harris. Is it affirming that there are only two genders
hateful?
Mr. Perkins. No.
Mr. Harris. Is believing God created marriage between a man
and a woman hateful?
Mr. Perkins. No. It's the reason we're all here today.
Mr. Harris. Is the Christian world view that teaches the
very morals on which this Nation was founded hateful?
Mr. Perkins. No, sir.
Mr. Harris. Does disapproving of someone's actions mean
that you hate them?
Mr. Perkins. No. The definition that the SPLC holds out is
one that's trying to prevent violence. Words are not violent
when you're having a disagreement over public policy. You
should be free to do so. We advocate for their rights and their
freedom to do that. As a former police officer, as a Marine
veteran I protected the First Amendment right. As the issue
here today is not a map; it's who uses the map. Government
agencies should rely on transparent peer-reviewed criteria, not
partisan advocacy groups. We should implement safeguards
against unverified external lists used by government to target
peace-loving, law-abiding citizens.
Mr. Harris. Well, according to a Gallup poll 69 percent of
Americans identify with a Christian denomination. Now, of
course, you and I know that there's a diversity of beliefs
within Christianity, but what does it say about the SPLC that
they would label as hateful a group that aligns with the
identity of the majority of our country?
Mr. Perkins. Well, that they are anti-Christian for one,
and biblical truth. I would even question whether or not
they're pro-American.
Mr. Harris. Thank you, sir. Mr. O'Neil, I worry that not
every organization may have the resources to be able to deal
with the consequences of being placed on SPLC's Hate Map. What
are some of the challenges that you will see that may arise
within an organization if they happen to land or be labeled a
hate group by this group?
Mr. O'Neil. Yes, there are many challenges. It chills some
donors who are afraid that because of the Hate Map, the hate
group designation, their information might be leaked, and then
they would face repercussions for giving to an organization
they believe in.
There are also--I have a list here--Alphabet used it for
YouTube as a trusted flagger. AmazonSmile excluded conservative
and Christian. By the way, not always conservative and
Christian; there are some very nonpartisan and Left-leaning
groups on this map. They excluded them on AmazonSmile.
Benevity, which works with hundreds of companies to determine
where their employees can give to charities has bragged about
using the SPLC Hate Map to determine which nonprofits can
receive money. There are many ways in which an organization can
be negatively impacted by being put on this map.
Mr. Harris. Well, thank you. Thanks to all of you as
witnesses. Mr. Chair, thank you for bringing this before the
American people. I yield back.
Mr. Roy. I thank the gentleman from North Carolina. I will
now recognize the Ranking Member for some unanimous consent
requests.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. I would seek unanimous consent to
introduce into the record several articles. The first would be
from America Magazine. ``Trump Administration threatens Sister
Norma Pimentel's migrant aid with a 6-year funding ban.'' That
is dated December 15, 2025. This is from the Catholic Standard,
``Vance with U.S. bishops over their pushback on Trump's
immigration policy,'' dated January 20, 2025. ``The U.S.
Bishops Special Message,'' dated November 12, 2025, addressing
their concern for the immigration policy of the Trump
Administration.
Mr. Roy. Without objection. I will now recognize the
gentleman from Tennessee for five minutes.
Ms. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I listened to all your
opening statements, and the Chair and the Ranking Member, and
everybody here until I came down.
One thing concerned me. Ms. Tyler, I'd like to ask you Mr.
O'Neil said that the Southern Poverty Law Center was anti-
Christian. It upsets me greatly when any group is anti-Jewish,
anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, and anti-Christian. Does the
Southern Poverty Law Center have any Church of God and Christ
folks that maybe support them, and Baptists, Southern Baptists
folk, and Methodists, et cetera, et cetera?
Ms. Tyler. I don't work for the Southern Poverty Law
Center. I can't speak exactly, but what I hear you saying is
there's a difference between being against a religion and and
calling out ideologies, or hate speech in this case, which is
what is the issue here that we're discussing.
Mr. Cohen. Is the Southern Poverty Law Center against
Christian nationalism?
Ms. Tyler. I think that they have named White Christian
nationalism as an ideology to watch, as something that does
fuel hate-driven violence.
Mr. Cohen. Can you define White Christian nationalism for
me?
Ms. Tyler. Yes. White Christian nationalism is this
political ideology that seeks to merge American and Christian
identities into one. Put another way, White Christian
nationalism suggests that to be a real American that one has to
be a Christian. It does provide cover for White supremacy and
racial subjugation. As I mentioned earlier, to be against
Christian nationalism is not to be anti-Christian.
Mr. Cohen. Right.
Ms. Tyler. I am a Christian and I represent many, many more
people, Christians, who are horrified to see our faith used to
justify discrimination, to justify exclusion, and in some cases
violence.
Mr. Cohen. What are some of the other things that--I know
you're not necessarily a spokesperson for the Southern Poverty
Law Center, but what are some of the other things they stand
for and support, and oppose?
Ms. Tyler. Yes, I know them as a historic civil right
organization that stands as against White supremacy, that
stands against antisemitism, that has brought critical
litigation against the Ku Klux Klan, that stands for supporting
civil rights and making sure particularly in the American South
that our promise of equal protection of the law and all our
other civil rights and liberties are protected to the fullest
extent of the law.
Mr. Cohen. Well, Mr. O'Neil or maybe Mr. Perkins both
mentioned the history of the Southern Poverty Law Center being
outstanding. Then, Mr. Roy did, too, that they used to bring
cases. I still think they do bring cases that are important.
Julian Bond was a very close friend of mine and somebody I know
Mr. Raskin knew. He was a great American. He was one of the
founders of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Morris Dees as was
a very strong spokesperson for civil rights and support. He was
one of the founders.
Mr. O'Neil, is there anything you can help me with on
Christian groups that they--not Christian groups, but the fact
your statement that the Southern Poverty Law Center is anti-
Christian? How is the Southern Poverty Law Center anti-
Christian?
Mr. O'Neil. Yes. There is this document called the
Catechism of the Catholic Church. It lays out the belief
statements for Catholics, one billion people across the world.
Mr. Cohen. Whose statement? Is that the Southern Poverty
Law Center?
Mr. O'Neil. No. This is published by the Catholic Church.
Mr. Cohen. OK. Mr. O'Neil. By the Magisterium of the
Catholic Church.
The Southern Poverty Law Center when they decided to put
the Ruth Institute, which is a small charity in Louisiana, one
of the groups that it finds it difficult to respond and have
the money to respond to the negative defamation of the Southern
Poverty Law Center, in justifying putting them on the Hate Map
the SPLC quoted--and they didn't just quote it once, they
quoted it twice--they quoted the president of the Ruth
Institute just saying that the Catholic Church believes--and
this is the statement of faith for all Catholics, remember,
that homosexual activity is intrinsically disordered.
The SPLC put that on there twice, suggesting that just
believing what one billion Catholics ostensibly say they
believe justifies you being on the Hate Map. If there is
anything more anti-Christian than that, I'm not sure what it
is.
Mr. Cohen. Frankly, what did the Ruth Institute do to have
this SPLC come at it?
Mr. O'Neil. Yes. The Ruth Institute advocates for survivors
of the sexual revolution. That is what they call people who
suffer from family breakdown.
The President of the Ruth Institute, Jennifer Roback Morse,
has gone on the radio many times. She is a devout Catholic. She
has cited the eight positions of the Catholic Church. It is
those statements of faith from the Catholic Church that derive
directly from the Catechism that the Southern Poverty Law
Center decided was hateful enough to cite as evidence to put
her on the Hate Map.
Mr. Cohen. They put her on the Hate Map?
Mr. O'Neil. Yes. They put her on the Hate Map. They have
not put the Catholic Church on the Hate Map. Though, by putting
her on the Hate Map in this way they have suggested that the
entire Catholic Church should be on the Hate Map. This is
something I would love Democrats--
Mr. Cohen. That is wrong. You take one example, Ms. Morse,
and put her on a Hate Map and say that is the entire Catholic
Church? I don't think Pope Leo would be put on that group, I
wouldn't think.
Mr. O'Neil. Well, Pope Leo stands for the faith statements
in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
If the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a hateful
document that justifies putting you on the Hate Map, then he
belongs on the Hate Map, logically, based on the Southern
Poverty Law Center's own presentation.
Mr. Cohen. Ms. Tyler, do you know anything about this lady
for the group?
Ms. Tyler. I do not.
Mr. Cohen. OK. Anything else Mr. O'Neil that makes you
think--I know a lot of ministers that are Church of God in
Christ ministers who support the SPLC.
Mr. O'Neil. Yes.
Mr. Cohen. There are a lot of Black Baptist churches, maybe
not Southern Baptist Churches, maybe there are Black Southern
Baptist Churches, too, that support the SPLC.
Mr. O'Neil. The other aspect is,--
Mr. Cohen. They are Christian.
Mr. O'Neil. --and something I mentioned in the testimony,
that the SPLC for a long time, because groups like Tony's had
been put on the Hate Map, the SPLC claims it isn't because they
stand for marriages between a man and woman, but that is
essentially what it boils down to if you look at the history of
why they chose to put them on there.
The SPLC has defended themselves from the charge of being
anti-Christian for years. The fact they changed this language
once from anti-LGBT to anti-LGBTQ in explaining on their
website, so, they stood by this. They said when they were
called anti-Christian they said, ``no, we are not anti-
Christian because we don't put every Christian group that
stands for the traditional definition of marriage on the Hate
Map.''
They only had one piece of evidence for this. That was that
they didn't put Focus on the Family on the Hate Map. Then,
earlier this year the language defending themselves from the
anti-Christian charge disappeared from their website and they
put Focus on the Family on the Hate Map.
Mr. Cohen. My time is up. Thank you for--
Mr. Roy. Mr. Cohen, I like the spirited back and forth and
the way you handled that. I was happy to let it go overtime.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you.
Mr. Roy. I appreciate your questions. I now recognize the
gentleman from California for five minutes.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, I agree with
Mr. Raskin that the Southern Poverty Law Center has a right to
say whatever it is that they want to say. The reason we defend
outrageous speech like theirs is because we have the same
freedom as men and women of good will to call them out on it.
That is what I see as the purpose of this hearing today, to
call them out for truly outrageous and patently unfair and
hypocritical allegations. That is the point that Ms. Hagerman
made.
Ms. Tyler says, well, this is an attempt to intimidate and
chill SPLC's speech. Well, that is an interesting perspective,
considering the fact that the SPLC's stock in trade is to
intimidate and chill the speech of anyone they disagree with,
mainstream conservative groups like Turning Point USA, and the
Family Research Council, the Federation for American
Immigration Reform, Moms for Liberty, and the Center for
Immigration Studies.
Mr. O'Neil, have they ever called out ANTIFA? I think did I
understand you to say they actually had ANTIFA activists
involved with their organization??
Mr. O'Neil. Yes. They had a woman who was described as
ANTIFA's secret weapon. She was profiled in Wired Magazine
describing her that way.
Mr. McClintock. Well, what was--
Mr. O'Neil. She was hired full time. Then, they also had a
man who was charged with domestic terrorism for his role in a
Molotov cocktail riot in 2023. He is an SPLC attorney.
Mr. McClintock. Well, they are calling Turning Point USA
and Family Research Council hate groups. Have they ever called
out the Animal Liberation Front for their vandalism and violent
attacks they have made, or Jane's Revenge?
Mr. O'Neil. No.
Mr. McClintock. Weather Underground?
Mr. O'Neil. No.
Mr. McClintock. How about Students for Justice in Palestine
or any--
Mr. O'Neil. No.
Mr. McClintock. --of the Palestinian groups that are
responsible for violence on our campuses, for intimidating and
threatening, in some cases attacking Jewish students; have they
called out any of these as hate groups?
Mr. O'Neil. That would be another no. Also, when the
October 7th attack happened they waited three weeks before
issuing a statement. Then, they falsely accused Israel of
targeting civilians.
Mr. McClintock. How about the Council on American-Islamic
Relations that was just declared a terrorism organization by
the State of Florida? Have they ever called them a hate group?
Mr. O'Neil. No. They work very closely with them.
Mr. McClintock. How about the Turtle Island Liberation
Front that was just implicated in the news today in a massive
plot to detonate multiple bombs throughout Southern California
to create a mass casualty attack against Americans?
Mr. O'Neil. No. Not present on the Hate Map.
Mr. McClintock. Those are not hate groups according to the
SPLC, but Turning Point USA, Family Research Council, and the
other mainstream conservative groups are.
Do I have that correct?
Mr. O'Neil. Gays Against Groomers, which is a LGBT group
that opposes drag queen story hour.
Mr. McClintock. The other question that has been raised is,
well, why does this rise as a fit object for a Congressional
hearing is simply because this group, with assets of hundreds
of millions of dollars, has been advising both government
agencies to direct their powers against these Americans, as
well as advising financial institutions and social media
platforms.
Social media platforms, of course, is the prime public
square of today's society, discouraging the very right of these
groups to even express themselves.
Mr. O'Neil. Exactly. There are few organizations that
engage in the chilling of civil society more than the Southern
Poverty Law Center.
Mr. McClintock. I have got about a minute-and-a-half left.
I yield to Mr. Biggs.
Mr. Biggs. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I will just
echo one of the points you made is that stock in trade at SPLC
is to do exactly what they are decrying other groups, and that
is to intimidate, bully, scare, and go after.
In so doing they make mistakes. They made a mistake with
FRC. They made a mistake with Turning Point USA.
Here is one. I would like to submit these article for the
record: ``Southern Poverty Law Center settles lawsuit after
falsely labeling extremist organization;'' ``The Southern
Poverty Law Center apologizes to Ben Carson,'' takes him off
extremist list; ''Southern Poverty Law Center has lost all
credibility;'' ``Has a civil rights stalwart lost its way?'';
and from the Freedom Socialist Party, ``Fighting Hate: The
lucrative business of fighting hate: In-house bigotry rocks
Southern Poverty Law Center.''
Mr. Roy. Without objection.
Mr. Biggs. With that I will yield back this at time.
Mr. Roy. I thank the gentleman from California. I thank the
gentleman from Arizona. I will now recognize, well, I will
recognize the gentleman from Tennessee for something for the
record, I think.
Mr. Cohen. Exactly. Thank you, sir. I introduce for the
record an article that the ``SPLC Files Complaint Against Two
Notorious Neo-Nazi Leaders and Goyim Defense League for
Violating Civil Rights of Members of Nashville Jewish Center.''
Mr. Roy. Without objection. I now recognize the gentlelady
from Washington for five minutes.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It is quite unprecedented for us to use the Committee time,
valuable Committee time to target a specific group. Based on
what I am hearing, the criticisms of the Southern Poverty Law
Center seem to boil down to three things:
(1) That it has healthy finances and an endowment;
(2) that it collaborated with the Department of Justice
during the Biden Administration; and
(3) that it calls out White supremacy, including White
Christian Nationalism.
I guess if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are
so hellbent on the finances of nonprofits, we could also talk
about the Koch Brothers funding tens of hundreds of millions of
dollars to the Cato Institute and Americans for Prosperity.
If they are so concerned about nonprofits collaborating
with the Executive Branch, where do I even begin with the
Heritage Foundation and Project 2025? Throughout his campaign
Donald Trump disavowed the conservative nonprofit's policy
blueprint when polls showed that it was deeply unpopular with
the American people.
As soon as he took office, he made it the foundation of his
policies by appointing at least half a dozen Project 2025
architects and supporters to oversee the Federal budget, mass
deportations, cuts to healthcare and SNAP, dismantling of
environmental protections, policies that harm all communities,
and disproportionately target communities of color.
Now, maybe this shouldn't be a surprise. The President has
a history of nominating or appointing officials with racist
beliefs, including Paul Ingrassia and Carl Higbie. Architects
of Project 2025 also have a very well-documented history of
writing racist, writing statements or activity.
I won't repeat all of them here. I do have a visual right
behind me with just a couple of examples, including assertions
that Black people and immigrants have lower I.Q.s than White
citizens.
We have known for a while . . . that individuals differ in
their inherent capabilities. The racists do, too, with Whites
and Asians on the top, and Blacks on the bottom.
That was from Richard Hanania, contributor to Project 2025. How
about this one:
The ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no
tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty, means that
the electorate grows more Left and less traditionally American.
Whatever that means--with every cycle. That is from Michael
Anton, also a contributor to Project 2025. How about this one:
The prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low I.Q.
children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.
That is from Jason Richwine, contributor to Project 2025.
Just today I was reading an article about a Member of the
Judiciary Committee who said,
It is time for a Muslim travel ban, radical deportations of all
mainstream Muslim legal and illegal immigrants, and citizenship
revocations wherever possible. Mainstream Muslims have declared
war on us. The least we can do is kick them the hell out of
America.
Do people understand that there are two billion Muslims
across the world? That is 25 percent of the global population.
I am waiting to see if anybody on that side says anything about
condemning those remarks about Muslims.
We should be very clear here about what is going on. Ms.
Tyler, I just want to ask you, what role does rhetoric like
these, these quotes that I mentioned, what role does it play in
promoting White supremacy and violence?
What happens when we give people who espouse this kind of
rhetoric more responsibility in our civic institutions?
Ms. Tyler. Well, rhetoric like this certainly furthers
White supremacy and can further discrimination and,
potentially, violence against marginalized communities.
Particularly in the minds of violent extremists when it
combines with more extreme views like the Great Replacement
Theory, as it has done, and killed people in this country.
When this rhetoric is also espoused by people who hold
government power, members of these marginalized communities
will fear not just that violence might come to their community,
but also that the force of government might be used against
them in various ways.
Ms. Jayapal. Civil rights groups like the Southern Poverty
Law Center have a long history of suing White supremacist
groups for violent rhetoric and actions that target communities
of color.
What are some of those lawsuits and why are they critical
for keeping communities safe?
Ms. Tyler. Well, I think Mr. Cohen just referenced a recent
lawsuit that was filed that involved a Jewish Community Center
and some individuals who entered that with the intent to
intimidate and potentially commit violence. They brought a
lawsuit that included claims under the Ku Klux Klan Act.
Ms. Jayapal. This is such important work. Yet, we are
trying to undermine the SPLC simply because it disagrees with
far Right policies, and shines a spotlight on White supremacist
ideology.
How has the Trump Administration used the power of the
Federal Government to silence and weaken these groups like
SPLC?
Ms. Tyler. Well, we have seen a number of actions this
year. Some of them are rhetorical by blaming, for instance,
Lutheran social service organizations, accusing them baselessly
of money laundering. That was in the early DOGE attacks.
Then, more recently, with the Presidential Memorandum that
has this very broad language that tries to link ideologies that
are really ill-defined, ideologies like anticapitalism or anti-
Christianity, trying to link those without evidence to violent
conduct.
The impact of is that it will chill advocacy, that it tries
to silence dissent. Because even if that Presidential
Memorandum lacks the force of law, since there are no laws on
the books around domestic terrorism, they do serve to be a
warning to groups that if you oppose this administration that
you will come under scrutiny, extra scrutiny, like this
hearing.
Ms. Jayapal. A threat to free speech rights of some of us
matter to all of us.
I thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Roy. I thank the gentlelady from Washington. I now
recognize the gentleman from Missouri for five minutes.
Mr. Onder. Thank you, Mr. Chair. For more than two decades
the Southern Poverty Law Center has operated its so-called Hate
Map, a project it claims is meant to track extremist
organizations, but which increasingly functions as a political
weapon.
Since its launch in 2000, the number of groups labeled as
hate groups has ballooned from 599-1,371. This dramatic
increase does not reflect a sudden increase in extremism but,
rather, SPLC's steady expansion of what it defines as hate, a
definition that increasingly targets traditional Christian
beliefs and conservative viewpoints.
Ms. Tyler, in your opinion is Alliance Defending Freedom a
hate group?
Ms. Tyler. I don't work for SPLC. I wouldn't try to--
Mr. Onder. I understand that. You came here today. You know
what the title is, and you said some complementary things about
SPLC in your written testimony. In your opinion, is ADF a hate
group?
Ms. Tyler. I wouldn't use that term.
Mr. Onder. Yes, I wouldn't either for an organization that
argued 16 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
How about Turning Point USA, is Turning Point USA in your
opinion a group?
Ms. Tyler. Again, I don't speak for SPLC. I don't--
Mr. Onder. I am asking for you and your organization.
Ms. Tyler. My organization, I am here for my organization.
Mr. Onder. Do you believe Turning Point USA is a hate
group, Ms. Tyler?
Ms. Tyler. My organization doesn't label groups.
Mr. Onder. OK, good.
Ms. Tyler. I don't.
Mr. Onder. How about Family Research Council, is Family
Research Council a hate group, Ms. Tyler?
Ms. Tyler. Same, same answer.
Mr. Onder. OK. Is Focus on the Family a hate group?
Ms. Tyler. Same answer.
Mr. Onder. How about Prager University?
Ms. Tyler. I don't. I don't have any of these labels for
any of these organizations.
Mr. Onder. OK. You talk a lot in here about what
constitutes a hate group, and a White supremacist organization.
Is Center for Immigration Studies a White supremacist
organization?
Ms. Tyler. I am not familiar with that organization.
Mr. Onder. No. How about Catholics who go to Latin Mass,
are they a hate organization, are they haters by definition?
Ms. Tyler. No. I don't know what that is.
Mr. Onder. Yes, I wouldn't think so. In your written
testimony you said BJC has a consistent record of supporting
both the First Amendment's religion clauses, no establishment
and free exercise.
A little bit later you said our commitment to religious
freedom stems from the historical experience of early Baptists.
You said, further, the government targeting nonprofits
should be of concern to all Americans. Has your organization or
you personally condemned the Biden Administration's targeting
of Catholics who attend Latin Mass as hate groups?
Ms. Tyler. I don't understand the question.
Mr. Onder. Oh. Well, the Biden Administration, as you may
know, the Richmond Field Office targeted Latin Mass Catholics
as a hate group. Their evidence for that was the Southern
Poverty Law Center's suggestion that those Catholics were hate
groups.
This is your wheelhouse here, right: Religious liberty--
your testimony--government targeting of nonprofits. Have you or
your organization condemned the SPLC and the Biden
Administration for targeting Latin Mass Catholics?
Ms. Tyler. We speak consistently that religion should never
be used as a proxy for threats.
Mr. Onder. OK, thank you. Mr. Perkins, you don't think your
organization, Focus on--or Family Research Council is a hate
group?
Mr. Perkins. No.
Mr. Onder. Or Turning Point USA, or ADF?
Mr. Perkins. No. None of those organizations. One of the
things we all have in common: None of us advocate violence.
Mr. Onder. In any of these organization, your own, any of
the others that I just listed, have they ever committed arson,
destroyed a police station, targeted a police officer or ICE
agent maybe even overturned a patrol car?
Mr. Perkins. No. We have been the target of violence.
Mr. Onder. Indeed you have. Indeed you have. How do you
explain this list that SPLC has that Ms. Tyler refuses to
answer. She doesn't have an opinion as to whether your
organization is a hate group. How do you explain that list?
Mr. Perkins. Well, the difficulty is because it is not
based on any type of action. It is based on ideology that
Southern Poverty Law Center disagrees with.
Mr. Onder. Ah.
Mr. Perkins. Again, they have the freedom to speak and make
lists. They could do it all day long.
It is when the government uses that list to marginalize
citizens, you have taken a player and you have made them a
referee.
Mr. Onder. Isn't that why we are here today?
Mr. Perkins. That is exactly why we are here.
Mr. Onder. Because the Biden Administration used SPLC's
hate list, Hate Map to target, among others, I am sure, I am
sure--
Mr. Perkins. Did the Obama Administration?
Mr. Onder. Did the Obama Administration? That is what we
are talking about. The SPLC, in collusion with government,
targeting--
Mr. Perkins. Yes, sir.
Mr. Onder. --religious groups and political groups with
which the Biden regime and the Obama regime disagreed. Well,
thank you for your testimony. Thank you to all the witnesses
for being here today. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Roy. I thank the gentleman from Missouri. I now
recognize the Ranking Member of the Committee for U.C. advice.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much. Just two things, Mr.
Chair.
One is an article from April 18, 2024, The New York Times,
``No bias found in FBI report on Catholic extremists.'' Also,
Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists.
Mr. Roy. Without objection. I will now recognize the
gentlelady from Vermont for five minutes.
Ms. Balint. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
We are here today because Republicans are uncomfortable
that a nonprofit has labeled of their core organizations as
hate groups. I would like to explore the facts and understand
why the organizations sitting before us today, particularly,
the Family Research Council, Mr. Perkins, may have been labeled
a hate group by the SPLC.
The FRC was designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by SPLC
in November 2010, for its dissemination of false and
denigrating propaganda about gays and lesbians. The designation
was based on FRC's pattern of spreading debunked claims linking
homosexuality to pedophilia.
Mr. Perkins wrote that, ``while activists like to claim
that pedophilia is a completely distinct orientation from
homosexuality, evidence shows a disproportionate overlap
between the two. It is a homosexual problem.''
Mr. Perkins also called the ``It Gets Better'' antibullying
campaign, which is designed to save the lives of gay kids
across this country who are being bullied mercilessly, he
called it ``disgusting and part of a concerted effort to
persuade kids that homosexuality is OK, and actually to recruit
them into that lifestyle.''
I would like to say for the record, nobody recruited me. I
would have loved to have had somebody actually talking to me
about my experience.
Didn't happen. Doesn't happen. If that is not enough, we
have documented connections that Mr. Perkins has appeared at
organizations that have been supportive of White supremacist
groups.
Look, the SPLC did not make up these designations out of
thin air; we have the receipts. Just want to say that words
matter. Accusations that an entire community is dangerous
because of who they love makes LGBTQ Americans, who live in all
our districts, every single district here, over nine percent of
Americans identify as being part of the LGBTQ community. That
makes all those people less safe. That's tens of millions of
Americans. I am one of them.
As far as I know, I am the only one that I know of on this
Committee that identifies. As I say, ``that I know of,''
because the largest subsection of the LGBTQ community in this
country is the bisexual subset of that organization. Again,
that I know of.
I am curious, Mr. Perkins, are you familiar with the app
Grindr?
Mr. Perkins. With what?
Ms. Balint. The app Grindr. Are you familiar with the app
Grindr?
Mr. Perkins. No, I am not.
Ms. Balint. You are not. OK, well, I will just say it is a
gay dating app. I brought it up today because I am so sick of
the hypocrisy coming from the other side of the aisle.
Did you know the Grindr app crashed at the RNC Convention
in Milwaukee? Do you know it crashed again near the Charlie
Kirk Memorial?
This is no slight to all those people who were there
grieving. I am just saying this is the reality. In your own
ranks, in your own offices there are gay Americans who
desperately want you to stand up for them.
It is so disheartening over and over again to come into
this Committee and be told that somehow, I don't have a right
to be here. That somehow, I am making Americans less safe just
by existing when tens of millions of Americans just want to
live their life and be left alone. They want to be left alone.
They don't want to have their lives dragged once again in front
of this Committee.
Now, I appreciate your time being here today, but I wish
that you would put your energy and focus on actually protecting
Americans and not scapegoating individuals who are just trying
to live their lives.
Ms. Tyler, thank you so much for joining us here today. We
don't have that much time. I needed to get that off my chest.
How does scapegoating groups like the LGBT community that I
am a part of fit into the authoritarian playbook? Because that
is what concerns me.
Ms. Tyler. Scapegoating groups or marginalizing them, using
dehumanizing language, that all tries to make an example of one
particular group. It starts often with groups that have the
least power in society and then goes from there.
As Americans, we should be about protecting every person in
this country and making sure that all their civil rights and
liberties are fully protected.
Ms. Balint. That is right: We need to push back. I just
want to say, Mr. Sypher, I believe it was you who said earlier
that the majority of the country stands with you against same
sex marriage.
The most recent Gallup Poll shows about 70 percent of this
country supports same sex marriage. It has been holding steady
at that number for quite a long time.
I yield back.
Mr. Roy. I thank the gentlelady from Vermont. I will now
recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin for up to five minutes.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you.
Mr. Roy. I will note that votes have been called. I am
going to try to work out what the timetable is. To the extent
that people want to speed things along, that may help us in our
quest to finish before we have to go vote. I yield.
Mr. Grothman. I will comment again briefly. The Chair
pointed out an article in Snopes, ``No, Trump did not call Neo-
Nazis and White Supremacists very fine people.''
I would have thought that was so well known by now. The
only reason people would say that is they knowingly lied. They
should be called out for knowingly lying.
Second thing in general, we talk about hate speech or hate
crimes. Well, I am not sure either should be sanctioned outside
of the crime itself or outside of the speech itself.
Do any of the witnesses, we can start with you, Mr. O'Neil,
should there be something of hate speech or a sanction against
something called hate speech? Should there be crimes with a
separate penalty that is a hate crime as opposed to a crime?
Mr. O'Neil. I am not here to testify on the specifics of
hate crime law.
Mr. Grothman. Any of you guys have a comment?
Mr. Perkins. I believe we should focus on behavior and not
ideology, and not beliefs.
Mr. Grothman. Nobody wants to answer the question, do you?
Mr. Sypher. More speech is a good thing.
Ms. Tyler. Hate speech is protected speech in the
Constitution. Then, also speech that calls out hate speech must
be protected.
Mr. Grothman. At least you got the most conservative
answer, I guess. OK, Mr. O'Neil, why was SPLC founder Morris
Dees fired in 2017?
Mr. O'Neil. Yes, it is an interesting thing to bring that
up. It was 2019.
This is something our friends on the other side of the
aisle seem not to remember. I think Mr. Cohen praised Morris
Dees. Morris Dees had longstanding accusations of racial
discrimination and sexual harassment.
It was in the context of that scandal that he was fired,
that Richard Cohen, the long-term president of the Southern
Poverty Law Center resigned, and that the Southern Poverty Law
Center began the process of unionization which led to
accusations of union busting last year and the ouster of their
most recent president Margaret Huang.
Mr. Grothman. OK. It is accurate to say that I guess you
can describe Southern Poverty Law Center about five years ago
as just a big moneymaking racket. Is that true?
Mr. O'Neil. I would continue to describe it that way. It
does do a few other things besides falsely defame conservatives
and raise money by doing so, but that is the main proposition,
value-add if you talk to donors.
Mr. Grothman. With their endowment of $700 million; right?
Mr. O'Neil. What?
Mr. Grothman. Their endowment is about $700 million?
Mr. O'Neil. Yes, $786 million.
Mr. Grothman. OK. Given the public record of retractions,
settlements, and criticisms of Southern Poverty Law Center
methodology, why do you believe so many--this is a really good
one--why do you believe so many national news organizations
rely on SPLC, given the blizzard of legal, I guess you call
them malfeasance they have been involved in?
Mr. O'Neil. It is a useful political weapon, not just for
the legacy media but also for our friends on the other side of
the aisle. It is also a useful weapon for Ms. Tyler here.
It was very interesting to me to hear her not stand by some
of the accusations that Alliance Defending Freedom, and Family
Research Council, and groups like that are hate groups, despite
the fact that she is constantly using Christian Nationalism to
demonize conservative positions.
Mr. Grothman. OK. I tell you what, we are running out of
time. Why don't I, we will give it back to you, Mr. Chair. You
can take the two-minutes.
Mr. Roy. I will do that, I will yield the time if the
gentleman is fine yielding time. I will recognize the
gentlelady from California.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will get right
into it.
Ms. Tyler, historically the U.S. Government has not
targeted conservative groups, it has targeted civil rights
organizations like the NAACP, like Dr. King, like the Black
Panthers, often labeling them as extremist or dangerous to
justify surveilling them.
Mr. Roy. Would the gentlelady pause for one second? I
apologize for interrupting her. I will make up the time.
Can I ask the witnesses really quick, we are trying to
figure out. The vote has been called on the floor.
We either are going to have to suspend and come back around
5:00-ish to finish another 20-ish minutes of questions or we
are going to have to somehow truncate it.
Are the witnesses able to stay and finish out at 5:00 p.m.
for 30 minutes, if that is what we are going to have to do?
Yes. OK. The gentlelady can proceed with her questions until we
are done.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. OK. Labeling them as extremists or
dangerous to justify surveilling and silencing them.
Ms. Tyler, how does today's rhetoric accusing civil society
organizations of weaponization echo those past Government
abuses used to silence or intimidate civil rights movements?
Ms. Tyler. Yes, I definitely see some historical analogues
to what you are speaking of. What we are seeing now is even
more extreme because we see it with this Congressional hearing,
but also with actions from the administration that seek to,
again, with a very wide swath call out anything that falls into
their view of being anti-Christianity or anticapitalism, for
instance, or taking what they view to be extreme positions on
gender or immigration, that those could be singled out as
domestic terrorist organizations with the full freight of the
government behind it to prosecute them in some way.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Yes. In fact, Mr. O'Neil said a lot of
things, but he did say that SPLC does a few other things. I
want to talk about some of the few other things that they do,
the great work.
They have a continuous history of exposing anti-Black
violence and White supremacist movements while defending the
rights of those targeted by discrimination. In 2024, for
example, the SPLC protected the voting rights of more than
3,000 Georgia voters after Cobb County failed to send absentee
ballots on time.
In Alabama they organized an unlawful voter purge that
would have stripped more than 3,200 naturalized citizens of
their right to vote.
Ms. Tyler, how do watchdog organizations that track
extremism help to safeguard communities, especially those that
have been historically targeted by hate groups?
Ms. Tyler. Civil rights organizations like SPLC draws
awareness to hate groups and helps to warn communities ahead of
time when there might be violent action.
It is important to civil society, including civil rights
organizations play a vital role in the overall fabric of
American society. We need to have strong public-private
partnerships to keep all Americans safe.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Absolutely. I have a few other questions
for you. Would you say that the Cato Institute is like a Left-
wing ANTIFA-allied organization? Would you categorize Cato as
that?
Ms. Tyler. I would not.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. OK. I wouldn't either. They are
libertarian at best.
Even the Cato Institute, I believe, released a report
saying that since 1975 people motivated by hard-right
ideologies have been responsible for 63 percent of politically
motivated murder. How does that sound? Have you heard of that
report?
Ms. Tyler. I have not.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. OK.
Ms. Tyler. I don't--it--
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. We are going to trust Cato today. How
about that? Even I am going to say that.
There was a killing of a representative from Minnesota, Ms.
Hortman, who was killed alongside her husband and her dog. The
police recovered many items of the person responsible for
killing them. Maybe you have heard. Have you heard if they had
also recovered materials that this person had belonging to SPLC
or other Left-wing, Left-leaning organizations?
Ms. Tyler. I have not heard that.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. No, I haven't either. What I have heard
is that the person was motivated by the false but racist Great
Replacement Theory, conspiracy theory. In fact, had a list
targeting other Democrats and wanting to go after them. In
fact, it was a list of 70 targets. Doesn't seem to me that was
a person that was connected to, motivated by ANTIFA.
In fact, Ms. Tyler, I don't know if you know this, but the
FBI actually took down, right, stopped working with both the
SPLC and also the Anti-Defamation League. Did you know that?
Ms. Tyler. I learned that earlier in this hearing.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. What do you think about that?
Ms. Tyler. Well, that it is vital that our Government meet
with a broad variety of organizations, especially those that
are concentrating on rooting out White supremacy and anti-
Semitism, to make all our communities safer.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Well, I would think. I am going to enter
into the record, Mr. Chair, because I know we are out of time.
Mr. Roy. Yep.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. ``The Destruction of DOJ's Civil Rights
Division: Why it Matters.''
Mr. Roy. Without objection.
Ms. Kamlager-Dove. I will yield back.
Mr. Roy. The gentlelady from California. I will recognize
the gentleman from Texas for a few minutes.
Mr. Gill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for holding this
hearing and thank you to the witnesses for taking the time to
be here and very eloquently explaining your position.
Ms. Tyler, I want to start with you. You have written
pretty extensively about what you call White supremacy and
Christian Nationalism. Is that correct?
Ms. Tyler. Yes. Most specifically Christian Nationalism.
Mr. Gill. Got it. Do you believe that White Christians are
a problem?
Ms. Tyler. No.
Mr. Gill. You have written that--I have got an interview
here, the transcript from an interview you gave in November
last year with the Interfaith Alliance where you wrote, quote,
or you stated, ``White Christians have been more a part of the
problem than a solution.'' That was in relation to your views
on Christian Nationalism. Do you remember that?
Ms. Tyler. Yes. I am including myself; right? I am
including, I am a White Christian, and I am saying that White
Christians because--
Mr. Gill. That is because of views on Christian
Nationalism; is that right?
Ms. Tyler. Yes, so.
Mr. Gill. OK. Did you know that 34 percent of Black
Americans support ``Christian Nationalism?'' That number is 30
percent for White Americans?
Ms. Tyler. That Christian Nationalism is an ideology that
every racial group, every religious group embraces or rejects
to different extents.
Mr. Gill. Do you think that Black Christians are also a
problem?
Ms. Tyler. I said no. When you asked me if White
Christians--
Mr. Gill. You stated in this interview. I have the
transcript here.
Ms. Tyler. Yes.
Mr. Gill. You stated in this interview that White
Christians are a problem. I am asking you if you have the same
view about Black Christians.
Ms. Tyler. White Christians have done more than other
groups to perpetuate White Christian Nationalism. I include
myself in that category.
Mr. Gill. Black Christians support Christian Nationalism at
higher rates than White Christians, per the statistics that I
just read.
Ms. Tyler. Christian Nationalism is an ideology that all
different groups can reject.
Mr. Gill. Got it.
Ms. Tyler. That is one social--
Mr. Gill. I got it. No, no, no, my understanding is that
the categorical, the categorical condemnation only applies to
White Christians and not to Black Christians, that seems to be
your testimony. Appreciate it.
Ms. Tyler. Most of my work is working with White
Christians--
Mr. Gill. We have got limited; we have got limited time. I
asked you about those. We have got limited time, so I want to
move on here. I just wanted to clear that up, to make that very
clear for everybody listening. Mr. Sypher, I want to thank you
for being here. Has Turning Point USA ever advocated violence
against innocent groups?
Mr. Sypher. More speech is a good thing.
Ms. Tyler. Hate speech is protected speech in the
Constitution. Then, also speech that calls out hate speech must
be protected.
Mr. Gill. At least you got the most conservative answers, I
guess.
Mr. Sypher. Never.
Mr. Gill. Have they ever harbored, as an institution
harbored racial animus against any group?
Mr. Sypher. No. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Charlie
would always say, disagreements come to the front. He wanted to
talk with those that disagreed. He didn't want to talk to an
echo chamber like we find so many places here in D.C.
Mr. Gill. Mr. Perkins, has Family Research Council ever
advocated violence against any other group?
Mr. Perkins. No.
Mr. Gill. Have they ever advocated racial animus or any
other type of animus against any other group?
Mr. Perkins. No. To the opposite.
Mr. Gill. Got it. Mr. O'Neil, I will end with you because
we are trying to go quickly here. Why do you think that the
SPLC labels or has labeled TP USA and the Family Research
Council as hate groups?
Mr. O'Neil. They are effective organizations on the
opposite of the SPLC on various political and ideological
issues.
Mr. Gill. Awesome. Thank you. Since we are out of time due
to the votes, I will yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Roy. I thank the gentleman from Texas for his
indulgence. I will now recognize the Ranking Member for as much
time as she needs, up to five minutes.
Ms. Scanlon. OK, thank you. I do think this has been a
fascinating hearing in which there has been a number of attacks
on a nonprofit rights organization which was not called to
testify in its own defense. Certainly, we have heard a lot of
pretty far-reaching and, apparently, inaccurate statements
about that.
Ms. Tyler, I do appreciate the perspective you bring about
the importance of our First Amendment, particularly with
respect to the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise
Clause.
The district that I represent in Pennsylvania is the site
where William Penn first landed to establish a community based
on tolerance, especially for Quakers who were fleeing--a
Christian group who were fleeing persecution in their homeland.
You have been asked a number of questions and you have
referenced in your testimony doing work as Christians against
Christian Nationalism.
Why is that important?
Ms. Tyler. I approach this both as a faithful Christian and
patriotic American.
Ms. Scanlon. Uh-huh.
Ms. Tyler. As a Christian I view Christian Nationalism as a
form of idolatry. It causes us to confuse political and
religious authority and to potentially worship government over
God.
I also see it as a gross distortion of the teachings of
Jesus. Jesus who was all about love. That it turns the Gospel
of Jesus into a false idol of power. As a Christian, I feel a
calling to call out Christian Nationalism.
As a patriotic American I view it as a way that we are not
being true to our constitutional values of religious freedom
for all people.
As stated in the First Amendment, that people, regardless
of religious identity, should all be equal in this country.
That Christian Nationalism betrays that constitutional promise.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you. I appreciate that. Because we have
certainly over the course of this hearing heard a variety of
opinions on things such as which form of Christianity is the
right one or the one that we should be adhering to. We have
certainly heard about it with respect to the abortion question.
There is a variety of opinions on that issue among Christian
and other sects.
We have seen it increasingly with respect to this
Administration's immigration policies, that there is a wide
variety of policies. As you suggested, with a loving God who
counsels respect for the dignity of all people, we have seen
some pretty strong statements from our Catholic hierarchy as
well.
I do want to enter into the record several I offer for
unanimous consent.
First, the December 15th letter to myself and Chair Roy
from the Leadership Conference condemning this hearing.
Second, a December 16th letter from the Congressional Black
Caucus expressing great concern about today's hearing targeting
the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Third, an open letter from 3,000 coalition--a coalition of
3,000 nonprofit and nonpartisan organizations rejecting
Presidential attacks on nonprofit organizations.
Fourth, a December 15, 2025, letter from the National
Council of Nonprofits sharing their concern about the
Subcommittee's hearing today.
Mr. Roy. Without objection.
Ms. Scanlon. OK. I would yield back.
Mr. Roy. I thank the gentlelady. I thank the gentlelady for
limiting her time. I appreciate the witnesses' patience for
coming here. We were a little late starting. I am only going to
use about a minute here to wrap up with my normal questioning.
I think that a lot of the things that we wanted to
illuminate have been illuminated. The only thing that I want to
just finish here with is, and specifically for you, Mr. Sypher,
given the circumstances of what occurred this year in
September.
Is it your considered judgment, and the considered judgment
of people that you associate with at TP USA that the focus by
not just the Southern Poverty Law Center but by those that are
trying to designate people for expressing free speech views and
expressing their views on biblical principles or other
principles that people find objectionable, that labeling that
as hate, and specifically SPLC, do you believe that that
created an environment that led to the attack on Charlie?
Mr. Sypher. Most definitely. I find it ironic that a civil
rights organization is marginalizing over half the country in
their viewpoints.
On college campuses what you see is when people celebrate
violence, as we saw post-assassination, it shows the sad state
of this country. It means that communication and dialog is
dying.
Charlie fought against that. That is why so many people
craved coming to his ``Prove Me Wrongs.'' That is why they
craved to see him work through those thoughts with disagreers.
Because people need to talk for violence to be done away with.
Mr. Roy. Mr. Perkins, you stated earlier that it was your
belief that the purpose of this hearing, as I share, was to
focus on the extent to which not just the SPLC but generally
when the government is then utilizing these organizations
effectively as a tool to carry out its objectives, that that is
now a different world. That is not just talking about speech,
that has an oversight function for us to understand how that
labeling has been having an effect on our legal system, on
civil rights in general.
Is that correct?
Mr. Perkins. It is correct. To Mr. Sypher's point, as the
government elevates that voice and legitimizes that voice, the
media takes it and runs with it.
The dialog that we had in this city and in this Nation 15,
20 years ago has ceased. It does lead to violence. The best way
to stop violence is to have conversations and to allow people
of differing views to speak, even when you disagree with them.
That is what a healthy nation does.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is about silencing, not
facilitating.
Mr. Roy. I thank you, Mr. Perkins.
Out of respect for my colleagues that shortened their time,
I am going to do the same.
I appreciate the witnesses.
That concludes today's hearing. We thank the witnesses for
appearing before the Subcommittee today.
Without objection, all the members will have five
legislative days to submit additional written questions for the
witnesses, or additional materials for the record.
Mr. Roy. Without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:38 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
All materials submitted for the record by Members of the
Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government can
be found at: https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent
.aspx?EventID=118758.
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