COLUMBIA, S.C. — Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has released its latest report on hate and extremism in America using data compiled in 2022, the latest data available regarding what SPLC defines as "antigovernment extremist groups operating within the United States."
The report includes an interactive map showing which hate and antigovernment groups are active in each state.
In South Carolina, SPLC tracked 30 such groups based on the group's ideology.
Making SPLC's list are two groups active in the education landscape of South Carolina -- Moms for Liberty and South Carolina Parents Involved in Education (USPIE is the national organization). Both groups have been designated as antigovernment extremist groups by SPLC, based on their actions to gain power through election to school boards "to attack public education, ban books, and remove any curriculum that contains discussions of race, discrimination, and LGBTQ+ identities."
Moms For Liberty has been vocal about saving women's sports by banning transgender persons from competing, and the organization's belief that "parental rights do not stop at the classroom door and no amount of hate from groups like (SPLC) is going to stop that." Presidential candidate Nikki Haley posted on the Moms for Liberty Facebook page that she is "proud to stand" with the group.
In a statement to WLTX, Moms For Liberty said, "Two-thirds of Americans think the public education system is on the wrong track today. That is why our organization is devoted to empowering parents to be a part of their child's public school education. That is our fundamental goal, which began just two years ago when teacher's unions locked students out of schools during the pandemic. Empowering parents continues to be our mission today and that has fueled our organization's growth - like wildfire to now 45 states in the country. Name-calling parents, who want to be a part of their child's education as 'hate groups' or 'bigoted' just further exposes what this battle is all about: Who fundamentally gets to decide what is taught to our kids in school - parents or government employees? We believe that parental rights do not stop at the classroom door and no amount of hate from groups like this is going to stop that."
SPLC has been called out by Moms For Liberty, saying Moms For Liberty is an antigovernment overreach organization and stating SPLC's "labels and intimidation tactics won't stop concerned moms."
South Carolina Parents Involved in Education took SPLC's designation as a badge of honor, posting on their Facebook page: "Making the SPLC 'hate' list means we are succeeding in our work to protect children and our country's freedom. If we weren't effective, they wouldn't be coming after us. USPIE will continue to fight for Parental Rights … Making the SPLC 'hate' list means we are succeeding in our work to protect children and our country's freedom. If we weren't effective, they wouldn't be coming after us."
Sheri Few, founder and president of the national USPIE organization, is a Lexington, South Carolina native. Few ran for the state Superintendent of Education position in 2022 and South Carolina's 5th Congressional District special election in 2017 when Rep. Nick Mulvaney stepped down to become director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump administration.
Midlands Attorney, Christopher Kenney, explained what hate groups and hate speech are under First Amendment law.
"Typically hate speech is speech that targets in offensive or odious terms an individual or group because of some immutable characteristic," Kenney explained. "Typically these are things like race, color, national origin, and language, it can also be things like sexual orientation or religion. These are things, that generally speaking, we don't choose, and what we call immutable characteristics, and so the idea that we're expressing hate to someone purely on account of an immutable characteristic is what is quintessentially understood as hate speech."
Active hate and antigovernment groups in South Carolina monitored by SPLC include:
- Asatru Folk Assembly (Neo-Volkisch)
- Constitution Party (antigovernment)
- Dixie Republic (neo-Confederate)
- Fight White Genocide (White nationalist)
- John Birch Society (antigovernment)
- Moms for Liberty (antigovernment)
- Patriot Front (White nationalist)
- Patriotic Flags (White nationalist)
- Proud Boys (general hate)
- Renaissance Horizon (White nationalist)
- South Carolina Parents Involved in Education (antigovernment)
- Southern Sons Active Club (White nationalist)
- True Light Pentecost Church (anti-LGBTQ)
- Wolves of Vinland (Neo-Volkisch)
The Southern Poverty Law Center was founded in August 1971 by civil rights lawyers Morris Dees, Joseph J Levin, and Julian Bond. It became active on the national level in 1975 when Dees and the SPLC began filing civil lawsuits against the Ku Klux Klan and similar organizations for monetary damages on behalf of their victims. SPLC's actions were responsible for bankrupting the KKK. In 1981, the organization began monitoring the activities of other hate groups across the United States. SPLC publishes an annual Year in Hate & Extremism report "detailing the scope and danger of hate and antigovernment extremist groups operating within the United States."