A week after co-founder\u00a0Morris Dees was ousted<\/a>\u00a0over sexual misconduct claims – with\u00a0two dozen employees<\/strong>\u00a0signing a letter of concern over “allegations of mistreatment, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and racism,”\u00a0the head of the SPLC, Richard Cohen, as well as the organization’s legal director, Rhonda Brownstein,\u00a0resigned on Friday.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Cohen had been with the organization 33 years and was one of its most prominent figures.<\/p>\n At 5:03 p.m. Friday, Cohen sent a message to staff, with the subject line \u201cStepping Down,\u201d announcing that he, too, would be leaving the organization that he and Dees had turned into a research and fundraising juggernaut.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever problems exist at the SPLC happened on my watch, so I take responsibility for them,\u201d Cohen wrote, while asking the staff to avoid jumping to conclusions before the board completes an internal review of the Montgomery, Ala., organization\u2019s work culture. –LA Times<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Earlier this week, the SPLC board of directors appointed\u00a0Michelle Obama’s former chief of staff,Tina Tchen\u00a0<\/strong>– who, in an unrelated matter,\u00a0unsuccessfully tried to\u00a0pull strings<\/a>\u00a0and have the Jussie Smollett case transferred from the Chicago PD to the FBI.\u00a0<\/strong>Tchen is heading up the inquiry into the sexual misconduct claims.<\/p>\n Also out on Friday was Rhonda Brownstein – who had worked with the organization for\u00a0nearly three decades<\/strong>, according to the\u00a0Montgomery Advertiser<\/a><\/em>‘s Melissa Brown.<\/p>\n Inside the SPLC “Scam”<\/strong><\/p>\n As the\u00a0Washington Examiner<\/a>‘s\u00a0<\/em>Beckett Adams writes, the Southern Poverty Law Center is a “scam,” which has taken ”\u00a0no care whatsoever for the reputational and personal harm it causes by lumping Christians and anti-extremist activists\u00a0with actual neo-Nazis<\/a>.”<\/p>\n As it turns out, the SPLC is a cynical money-making scheme, according to a former staffer\u2019s blistering tell-all, published this week in the\u00a0New Yorker<\/a>. The center\u2019s chief goal is to bilk naive and wealthy donors who believe it’s an earnest effort to combat bigotry.<\/p>\n The only thing worse than a snarling partisan activist is a slimy conman who merely pretends to be one. –Washington Examiner<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n “\u201cOutside of work,” recalls Bob Moser of his days working for the organization, “we spent a lot of time drinking and dishing in Montgomery bars and restaurants about \u2026 the hyperbolic fund-raising appeals, and the fact that, though the center claimed to be effective in fighting extremism, \u2018hate\u2019 always continued to be on the rise, more dangerous than ever, with each year\u2019s report on hate groups. \u2018The S.P.L.C.\u2014making hate pay,\u2019 we\u2019d say.”<\/p>\n “[I]t was hard, for many of us, not to feel like we\u2019d become pawns in what was, in many respects, a highly profitable scam,” added Moser.<\/p>\n The way Moser tells it, the center\u2019s chief founder, Morris Dees, who was dismissed unceremoniously last week for unspecified reasons, discovered early on that he could rake in boatloads of cash by convincing \u201cgullible Northern liberals<\/strong>\u201d\u00a0that his group is doing the hard work of fighting \u201chate.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n But the center\u2019s supposed mission of combating bigotry doesn\u2019t actually matter to its top brass, Moser says.\u00a0It\u2019s just a business choice and one that has been extremely lucrative throughout the years<\/strong>. Moser\u2019s article reminds readers of the time Dees actually said of the SPLC in an interview with then-Progressive magazine reporter John Egerton, \u201cWe just run our business like a business. Whether you\u2019re selling cakes or causes, it\u2019s all the same.\u201d\u00a0–Washington Examiner<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Moser claims that the SPLC’s business model centers\u00a0entirely around keeping its precious donors in constant fear\u00a0<\/strong>using gimmicks such as “hate maps” and “hate lists.”<\/p>\n “[T]he center continues to take in far more than it spends. And it still tends to emphasize splashy cases that are sure to draw national attention,\u201d he writes adding the group\u2019s \u201ccentral strategy\u201d involves \u201ctaking on cases guaranteed to make headlines and inflame the far right while demonstrating to potential donors that the center has not only all the right enemies but also the grit and know-how to take them down.”<\/p>\n Moser adds there is an inescapable sense of \u201cguilt\u201d that comes with thinking about \u201cthe legions of donors who believed that their money was being used, faithfully and well, to do the Lord\u2019s work in the heart of Dixie. We were part of the con, and we knew it.\u201d<\/p>\n Who knew you could make the big bucks simply by lumping Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Ben Carson with actual, honest-to-God neo-Nazis?\u00a0–Washington Examiner<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Right wing commentator and\u00a0Vice<\/em>\u00a0co-founder Gavin McInnes is currently\u00a0suing the SPLC<\/strong>\u00a0for labeling\u00a0his right-wing fraternal organization, the\u00a0Proud Boys, a\u00a0hate group<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The SPLC has gone from a noble institution genuinely dedicated to eradicating hate to a hate group in and of itself that pretends this country is frothing with bigots desperate to foment World War III,” McInnes said in a press release.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_desktop\/public\/inline-images\/dees%20cohen%20rhonda1.jpg?itok=pj1MiMih)
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