How the SPLC Got into America’s Classrooms

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been indicted for a variety of crimes. To laymen, the allegation is that the organization has been paying hate groups to engage in hate and broadcast their hate so that the organization can cast itself as a champion of anti-hate and fundraise. The charges will play out in the courts in one way or another. But battling bigots and haters isn’t the only activity of the SPLC. It’s a multimillion-dollar operation with many legs, one of which reaches into American classrooms.

In National Review in December 2020, Stanley Kurtz reported on illinoiscivics.org, a resource to help teachers in the state implement a civics requirement. The Inclusive Curriculum Law mandated that by the end of eighth grade, students will have been taught about the contributions of LGBTQ individuals to U.S. and Illinois history. Among the materials was an LGBTQ Best Practices Guide that showed teachers how to create a safe and inclusive classroom open to LGBTQ history and (so said the law) provide “LGBTQ+ students the opportunity to see themselves represented in history.” It also recommended a film, Bibi, that portrays a “Latinx” homosexual youth and his late father.  

Those lesson plans and materials, which are geared to sixth grade and up, are the creation of Learning for Justice, a project of the SPLC. The “About” page says that the project goes back to the 1990s and has provided curricula to “thousands of educators across the country.” It seeks to “educat[e] for liberation” and insists that “white supremacy and racism” continue to perpetuate harm. Kurtz calls the entire project (and others like it) a “veritable festival of woke.”

Illinois isn’t the only state. Connecticut adopted Learning for Justice materials in several public school systems in the state. The National Education Association recommends Learning for Justice programs and content as part of its Freedom to Learn initiative. 

The reach is extensive, the outlook a matter of dogma among many educators in the public and private spheres. This vision is hard and fast: Our country is a cauldron of injustice, a factory of victims. Kids as young as ten must realize it. One reads the SPLC website and knows that there is no discussion to be had, no debate. Every assertion simmers with moral objection. How can it be otherwise when “practices that seek to disenfranchise our communities” are on the rise, as the Learning for Justice “About” page declares? This is a matter of “resisting hate.” Is there anyone who wishes to dispute the matter? Any haters in the room?

Given the illiberal, coercive, intimidating nature of the approach, we shouldn’t be at all surprised if it turns out that the SPLC really did pay figures to stage race-baiting spectacles and followed the payoff by soliciting funds to defeat such abominations. Let us hope that, if the SPLC is found guilty, legislators take action to remove these insidious catechisms in resentment. SPLC wishes to get them while they’re young—lawmakers can stop it. In fact, whatever the outcome of the current case, the Trump administration should cut federal funds right now to any district that inflicts this bilious propaganda on kids.