President-elect Donald Trump (Photo: Twitter)
When the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center issued a widely cited survey-report charging Trump's election sparked "hate crimes" in schools against minorities, it censored its finding that at least 2,000 educators nationwide reported racist slurs and other derogatory language against white students.
The New York Post reported the Southern Poverty Law Center partnered with the American Federation of Teachers, which formally endorsed Hillary Clinton, to circulate the questionnaire among its 1.6 million mostly Democratic members.
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The report, “The Trump Effect: The Impact of the 2016 Presidential Election on Our Nation’s Schools,” reported that 40 percent of the more than 10,000 educators who responded to the survey “have heard derogatory language directed at students of color, Muslims, immigrants and people based on gender or sexual orientation.”
SPLC is known for labeling mainstream conservatives, such as Dr. Ben Carson, Trump's newly appointed HUD secretary, as "extremists."
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The organization, as WND reported, issued a separate report last week charging there is "a national outbreak of hate, as white supremacists celebrate Donald Trump’s victory" that should be blamed on the president-elect himself. The report, "Ten Days After: Harassment and Intimidation in the Aftermath of the Election," compiled 867 alleged incidents of "harassment and intimidation" in the 10 days that followed the presidential election.
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But SPLC – demanding Trump stop "the hate that his campaign has unleashed" – concedes it "was not able to determine the authenticity" of every one of the 867 reported cases, which were collected from submissions to the organization's #ReportHate page on its website and media accounts. Further, as WND reported Nov. 21, when SPLC began compiling the reports, many faked claims of "hate crimes" had been recently documented. And most of the incidents on SPLC's list, while deplorable if they actually happened, did not include physical violence, meaning the use of the term "attack" is misleading. Most were uncorroborated assertions of verbal threats or racist comments that don't appear to rise to the level of a crime.
The theme of SPLC's school report is Trump-supporting white kids harassing minorities at the nation’s schools, prompting a statement of "deep concern" Friday from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that “prejudice has reared its ugly head in public elementary and secondary schools," the Post reported.
The commission now wants more federal funding to prosecute "hate crimes."
But the Post's Paul Sperry reports SPLC "self-censored" results from a key question it asked educators: Do they agree or disagree with the statement: "I have heard derogatory language or slurs about white students."
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When the New York paper asked SPLC to provide the data, it initially said it was having a hard time getting the information from the researchers. By when pressed, spokeswoman Kirsten Bokenkamp finally revealed that “about 20 percent answered affirmatively to that question.”
SPLC co-founder Morris Dees (Tim Pierce, Wikimedia Commons)
Bokenkamp had no explanation for ignoring 2,000 bias-related incidents against white students.
The Post quoted former Education Department civil rights attorney Hans Bader, who opined that the information was left out because "it would not fit their ideological narrative."
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“It was deemed an inconvenient truth,” he said.
Bader warned that when Trump's nominees are up for confirmation for posts such as attorney general, left-wing groups will cite SPLC's slanted report to try to block them "by falsely making it look like America’s schools and streets are pervaded by bigotry.”
The Post noted SPLC held a press conference in Washington last week to demand Trump “reconsider” his choices for White House advisers and his attorney general pick, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and “disavow” Trump's immigration policies.
“His own words have sparked the barrage of hate that we are seeing,” SPLC President Richard Cohen said of Trump. “He has been singing the white supremacist song since he came down the escalator in his tower and announced his candidacy.”
'Hatewatch'
SPLC, headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama, made a name for itself decades ago by fighting the Ku Klux Klan. Today, it presents itself as the nation's premier defender of civil liberties and protector of the innocent from violent extremism. But through its highly publicized "Hatewatch" lists and "Hate Maps," it solicits millions of dollars in donations to demonize and defame mainstream conservatives, Christians and Jews by lumping them together with genuine haters such as neo-Nazi Skinheads and the Klan.
Dr. Ben Carson
The organization's labeling of Ben Carson as an "extremist" prompted a nationwide backlash last year. SPLC apologized and removed the post.
But its website still has a negative "file" on Carson that insists he has said things that "most people would conclude are extreme," such as his belief that marriage is between a man and a woman.
SPLC also inspired a domestic terrorist and would-be mass murderer to conduct an armed attack on the headquarters of the Family Research Council with the intent of killing every single employee and leaving a Chik-fil-A sandwich on their corpses.
Progressive civil-rights activist Stephen Bright once declined to attend an event honoring SPLC’s director, Morris Dees, calling Dees a "con man and fraud."
"The positive contributions Dees has made to justice – most undertaken based upon calculations as to their publicity and fundraising potential – are far overshadowed by what Harper’s described as his ‘flagrantly misleading’ solicitations for money," Bright said.
"He has raised millions upon millions of dollars with various schemes, never mentioning that he does not need the money because he has $175 million and two ‘poverty palace’ buildings in Montgomery. He has taken advantage of naive, well-meaning people – some of moderate or low incomes – who believe his pitches and give to his $175-million operation. He has spent most of what they have sent him to raise still more millions, pay high salaries and promote himself. Because he spends so much on fundraising, his operation spends $30 million a year to accomplish less than what many other organizations accomplish on shoestring budgets."
One of the best-known illustrations of Bright's point is the case SPLC won for a black woman whose son was killed by the Ku Klux Klan. While the organization raised $9 million sending out solicitation letters featuring a gruesome picture of the victim, the mother received a total of $51,875 in the settlement. Dees pays himself more than $280,000 a year.
