Friedling the Southern Poverty Law Center-A Cause for All

www.plaintiffmagazine.com

AUGUST 2009

The Southern Poverty Law Center©: A cause for all seasons The plaintiff is tolerance.

RICHARD FRIEDLING and who returned to ongoing relevance and necessity of the become the SPLC’s SPLC and the broad practice of civil When he was five years old in 1941, CEO after working in rights law, it is essential to understand Morris Dees’ farmer father, for one of the Carter administra- the seminal approach engendered by only two times in Morris’ life, gave him a tion. Dees, Levin & Co. in attacking these evils “whipping” with his belt for calling a I didn’t have to try in a society at once a national melting- farm hand who was trying to get the al- these cases – or any pot, and in which minority groups must ready willful Morris – known as Bubba – cases at all. I was fi- feel free to celebrate their diversity. Photo by permission of SPLC off of his mule before he was ready, a Dees nancially secure “black nigger.” “Don’t you ever call any- through business ven- An innovative strategy body a ‘black nigger.’ You mind Wilson. tures begun long be- You do what he says.”1 In such ways, the fore Joe Levin and I had founded the Dees, Levin & Co. are principal ar- young Morris began to know at an early Center in Montgomery in 1971. I could chitects of the innovative strategy of ap- age how his father, and his father’s ways, hunt or fish or take my motorcycle on plying business principles and basic tort differed from those of many other white that trip around the world I’d never had law to track, publicize, and cripple or en- men in 1940s Alabama, where Jim Crow time for. And if I was so set on working, I tirely extinguish hate-engendering. The was very much alive and thriving and the could open a comfortable, private prac- strategy could not be simpler, if its suc- promises of the 13th and 14th Amend- tice or important cases challenging the cessful application is supremely complex: ments had yet – and would have many segregation of the Alabama State Troop- The securing of a judgment for money decades – to reach any meaningful con- ers and the Montgomery YMCA and the damages against an organization for a summation of their purpose. exclusion of minorities from juries.2 tortious act or pattern of acts against a The lessons and examples we glean Through the use of civil law, it has definable class of beleaguered minority from our parents bear life-long fruit, but been the flesh-and-blood disenfran- clients, and then exercising the judgment seldom with sweeter or more prolific ef- chised, along with tolerance, which have to seize assets such as bank accounts, re- fect than with Mo Dees. After graduating been and remain the SPLC’s “plaintiffs,” alty and any other attachable property. from the University of Alabama School in all their diversity. Among Dees & Co.’s most famous of Law in 1960, Dees opened his own law The specific cases fought by the cases to date include landmark damage office in Montgomery as well as a suc- SPLC have been recounted in detail; awards which have driven several promi- cessful book-publishing business, which, here, the focus is on its continued rele- nent neo-Nazi groups into bankruptcy, as he describes in his memoir, A Season vance not only to the promulgation of effectively causing them not only to dis- for Justice, he sold in 1967 to the Times greater tolerance of the diversity of our band (although they have reorganized Mirror Corp. after “a night of soul- society, but to the practice of civil rights under different names and with different searching at a snowed-in Cincinnati air- in the aftermath of the Obama election leaders) but also to suffer the ignonimity port.” The proceeds allowed him to and beyond, which some worry will “gen- of turning the keys to their properties found the Southern Poverty Law Center erate an attitude that, in one fell swoop, over to the SPLC. SPLC maintains a na- (SPLC) in 1971 along with Joe Levin, the problem of discrimination in our so- tional database as these groups morph in legal director from its founding to 1976, ciety has been fixed.” To understand the attempts to remain viable.

AUGUST 2009

Some have accused the SPLC of The “Free Tommy Hines” move- lawyers used a then-unprecedented legal using its clients only as pawns in a ment which ensued and the subsequent strategy to hold the Klan accountable for grander scheme of “social engineering” arrest and imminent prosecution of Cur- the acts of its members, winning a $7 (read, “liberalism”); but the SPLC’s tis Robinson (no Klan members having million judgment for the mother of the clients are not mere ends to philosophi- been arrested for the wounding of the victim, Michael Donald, who had been cal goals; they are damaged plaintiffs in two black marchers) became a lightning selected at random. The verdict bank- need of and entitled to access to the rod for Klan activity not only in Decatur, rupted the United Klans of America and court system for redress of very real but around the country. The perhaps resulted in its national headquarters grievances every bit as much as victims of foregone conviction of Robinson resulted being sold to partially satisfy the judg- tainted medicine or auto accidents. Yet in a relatively lenient two-year probation; ment. Although the sale of the Klan’s the “accusation” of ideologue has fol- but Dees was furious. On the way back to headquarters, while not sufficient to sat- lowed Dees’ career since the inception of Montgomery, Dees told an associate that isfy the entire jury judgment, was suffi- the SPLC. not only would they appeal the convic- cient to allow Beulah Mae Donald to buy In February, 1994, Dan Morse of the tion, but they’d “have to figure out some her own home. Alabama Montgomery Advertiser pub- way to haul the Klan into court for violat- During the past 25 years, SPLC law- lished multiple articles alleging financial ing the civil rights of the Decatur suits have bankrupted or crippled 12 mismanagement and misleading fund- marchers – something the federal gov- major hate groups in lawsuits represent- raising by the SPLC, summarizing his “in- ernment should have done from the ing the actual victims or their families of vestigation” as having produced evidence start.”5 hate-motivated violence. A 1990 Port- of “a complex civil rights organization es- This was an advanced, but not radi- land, Oregon jury awarded a $12.5 mil- sentially controlled by one man – Morris cal, departure for the SPLC; one of their lion judgment against Tom Metzger and Dees.”8 In reality, the SPLC is effectively earlier cases involved suing the State of his White Aryan Resistance group for the and actively controlled by a diverse and Alabama to integrate the Alabama State beating death of an Ethiopian immi- extensive board of directors; but this Troopers – not to integrate the ranks of grant.6 makes a less tangible and comprehensible the police force, but to use the case to That the Vietnamese Fishermen’s As- target than a single “ideologue.” stop the ongoing pattern of abuse di- sociation in Texas didn’t seek out the rected at blacks by the then-all-white SPLC, but was courted by the law firm Slow progress force. Suing the Klan wasn’t all that dif- does not vitiate that these were real Progress usually proceeds incremen- ferent; in less than four weeks, the SPLC clients, with real damages and grievances tally, no matter how just the cause; 48 filed a civil suit for damages against the deserving of judicial redress. In the early years after the eight “Scottsboro Boys”3 Klan and Louis Beam, its “Grand 1980s, jingoistic Texas fishermen didn’t were tried by all-white juries who were Dragon,” personally. understand – or care to acquaint them- represented by inexperienced attorneys That clients often do not seek out, selves with – the ways of Vietnamese fish- given no time to prepare, and their sub- but are sought out by, the SPLC, does ermen. Most fled their homeland in the sequent imprisonment4 for the alleged not mitigate its role as a plaintiffs’ law wake of the American and South Viet- rape of two white women, a 26-year-old firm achieving multiple ends through namese defeat by communist forces. The black man named Tommy Lee Hines was civil actions. Any tort attorney will react Texas fishermen, frustrated over the in- being similarly railroaded in connection to the phrase “frivolous lawsuit” with flux of immigrants from Vietnam and the with a series of black-on-white rapes in lightning speed that damage suits for in- added competition on the shrimp fishing Alabama. An unprecedented (in Decatur) dividual clients all also serve vast social grounds, enlisted the “help” of the Klan march and sit-in by members of the goals; that lawsuits are the reason cars in intimidating Vietnamese fishermen, by black community had little effect other are infinitely safer now than before threatening to kill them and to burn their than to stir up Klan interference. This Ralph Nader published Unsafe At Any fishing boats. culminated in a bloody confrontation in Speed; that our food, drugs, and airlin- The SPLC proved violations of the which two black marchers and two Klan ers enjoy the safety record that they do, Sherman Anti-Trust Act, civil rights members were hurt. One black man, due to the efforts of a lawyer represent- statutes, and Texas’s common-law tort of Curtis Robinson, was charged with at- ing a client. interference with contractual relation- ships to obtain permanent injunctions tempted murder of a wounded Klan Targeting hate groups leader; Robinson admitted shooting a that successfully tied the hands of Louis weapon but claimed that it was in self-de- When Klansmen lynched a black Beam, the local Klan leader and his co- fense. teenager in Mobile, Alabama, SPLC horts. More significantly, perhaps, the

AUGUST 2009

court ruled that the guise utilized by the risen by 54 percent since 2000 (the Age without enfranchising all “Americans,” Klan, known as the Texas Emergency Re- of Bush II), but may be proliferating but rather ensuring the primacy of serve, was in fact a military organization even more since Obama’s election, fu- landed, moneyed white males in all and that its military and training activi- eled by fears of weaker anti-immigration branches of government and influential ties were without the protection of the laws, of the failing economy (shades of society. The nation’s political leaders are First Amendment right of assembly, between-the-wars Germany) and by ill-prepared to deal with it, says a Univer- granting an injunction which put the Re- Obama’s very success, according to the sity of Florida researcher: “[b]y the year serve out of business. “Year in Hate” issue of the SPLC Intelli- 2055 at current fertility and immigration “Civil rights,” writ large and as pur- gence Report released on February 26, rates, white European Americans will be sued by the SPLC, is far broader than the 2009. a minority for the first time since they most headline-engendering cases. The “Oh man,” enthused blogger “Cen- came to outnumber the Native Ameri- SPLC’s ongoing “School-to-Prison Re- timanus” on the white nationalist Storm- cans in the 18th century,” writes Joe Fea- form Program” aims to “stem the flow of front Web site quoted in the Intelligence gin, a graduate professor of sociology at children from schools to jails by ensuring Report: “I am gleefully, sadistically look- the University of Florida and expert on that public schools provide the educa- ing forward to Obama as president... It race relations. “And none of our white tional services needed by children with will be a beautiful day when the masses leaders are paying any attention to de- emotional disturbances (ED) and learn- look at the paper and truly realize they segregating our society in meaningful ing disabilities.”7 The project enjoyed its have lost their own country.”9 Presum- ways.” first victory in 2005, the SPLC winning a ably, the “masses” referred to are “right- In 2030 the majority of young peo- settlement agreement in the Jefferson thinking” white Americans, who, it ple in the United States, those ages 18 (Louisiana) Parish School System, which should be noted, will be a minority and younger, will not be white, said Fea- was systematically violating the rights of within the United States. Conceivably, gin, co-editor of a new book of essays emotionally-disturbed, primarily African- portions of the Caucasian (“real”) Ameri- about race, ethnicity and the urban crisis, American, school children by failing to cans will one day be among SPLC’s The Bubbling Cauldron.10 If our stars are make any special provision for overcom- plaintiffs, as the Illinois American Nazi in ourselves, the wisest course for white ing their ED. Settlements were also faction has been rightfully represented Americans recommended by Feagin – reached with two other Louisiana school by the ACLU on free speech grounds. and thoroughly understood by the SPLC districts in 2006 and 2007, making a The SPLC identified 926 hate by understanding that denial of rights sweep of the three largest school districts groups active in 2009, up more than four for one is a denial of rights for all – is to in Louisiana. percent from the 888 groups in 2008. treat minorities equally now before they In addition to its School to Prison (In California alone, SPLC has identified become the majority population. Reform program, the SPLC has a long- many of the groups in its annual “In theory, we’re a democratic re- standing program to divert non-violent “Hate Group Map,” viewable on public, but in practice white men run the juveniles from entering into the merry- www.SPLCenter.org.) country,” Feagin said. “In theory, we like go-round which criminalizes their expo- to talk about ourselves as a nation of im- Changing demographics sure to conditions which have led to their migrants, but increasingly white Euro- entry into the juvenile “justice” system, Counter-intuitively to some – but pean Americans are becoming openly by seeking to transform punishment into obvious to the SPLC, ACLU, NAACP and racist in attacking immigrants because treatment and rehabilitation in seven others – not only are they a bulwark of the newcomers now are mostly Latinos southeastern states through enforcement tolerance and enfranchisement for mi- and Asians.” of federal laws already requiring special nority groups, but with projected demo- “For the most part, we do not en- educational services often ignored by graphics for the next 50 years, they will force our anti-discrimination laws, we school districts. also serve in that capacity for the devel- have only token enforcement,” he said. oping minority of those of European “If a black person is refused service in a Hate groups continue to rise white extraction, including those who restaurant or a Latino is discriminated In the Age of Obama, some question presently decry the “meddling” of civil- against in renting an apartment, there is the continued viability or need for or- rights groups’ mission and even their little place for them to turn for redress ganizations such as SPLC as part of re- very existence. In a little over half a cen- except the legal system, which requires lieved vigilance in the wake of the tury, whites will once again become a mi- substantial resources.” election of our first minority President. nority in the United States as they were It is reminiscent, for me, of the ad- But “hate group” numbers have not only when the Constitution was conceived monition every Passover that, as we were

AUGUST 2009

slaves in Egypt, so must we be prepared recent litigation are available on its ex- 4 Those convicted spent between six and nineteen to abhor the slavery of others wherever it cellent Web site and through its several years behind bars. In 1976, after the Scottsboro Boys had served such long prison sentences, oddly may exist. Yet the Equal Employment free newsletters at: www.splcenter.org enough, it was arch segregationist Alabama Gover- Opportunity Commission, the major fed- No matter how diverse and wide- nor George Wallace who issued a pardon to the one eral agency charged with enforcing anti- spread the SPLC’s activities – by in their remaining Scottsboro defendant still subject to the Alabama penal system, stating: “Bout damn time, discrimination laws in the workplace, is own perception and in their every pro- y’all.” overwhelmed with complaints and only fessional action, Morris Dees, Joe Levin, 5 A Season for Justice, supra, at p. 13. resolves satisfactorily a fraction of the and their colleagues are not ideologues – 6 “Metzger Leaves Former Home a Mess, but its Un- damaged.” The Oregonian September 19, 1991; ones it receives, Feagin said. they are trial lawyers representing real “Metzger Home Worth Only A Tiny Fraction of $12.5 And even if a victim wins a job back plaintiffs, first, last and always. It’s just Million Sum” The Oregonian August 28, 1991 in a favorable settlement, there is little that in every case, the 7 “School-to-Prison Pipeline: Stopping the School- chance the discriminator will be signifi- other plaintiffs at the to-Prison Pipeline by Enforcing Special Education Law” Southern Poverty Law Center – Legal Action cantly punished, he said. table are and will re- www.splc.org/legal/schoolhouse/jsp. The SPLC has and will continue to main our national, mu- 8 Dan Morse, “A Complex Man: Opportunist or Cru- pick up much of the slack which the gov- tual need for tolerance sader?,” Montgomery Advertiser, February 14, 1994; Dan Morse and Greg Jaffe, “Critics Question $52 ernment has not the tools to tighten, and equal treatment Million Reserve, Tactics of Wealthiest Civil Rights and its relevance in the enlightened self- under the law. Group, Montgomery Advertiser, February 13, 1994, interest model which America, Feagin Richard (Rick) Anker page 15A. Friedling 9 envisions, will only increase as we ap- Friedling is a plaintiff’s Quoted in Hatewatch: Keeping an Eye on the Radi- cal Right Southern Poverty Law Center, proach the middle of this still young attorney in Oakland, California. He has been SPLCenter.org. See also: Hate Groups Number Up century. practicing for over 16 years in the areas of by 54 percent Since 2000, February 26, 2009, South- In my law school graduation speech, civil rights and family law. ern Poverty Law Center www.splcenter.org/ news/item.jsp?aid=366. “Stormfront”s logo is a written in a time of hope following Bill Celtic-stylized cross bearing the legend, “White Clinton’s election and similar to that Endnotes Pride World Wide.” abiding in the age of Obama, I noted 10 Michael P. Smith, Joe R. Feagin, The Bubbling 1 Morris Dees and Steve Fiffer, A Season for Justice, Cauldron :Race, Ethnicity, and the Urban Crisis Uni- that as many of us wondered where our 1991 Charles Scribners’ Sons 1991, p. 63. versity of Minnesota Press 1995, quoted by Cathy paths would lead after the bar exam, 2 Morris and Fiffer, A Season for Justice, supra, at p. Green, “Whites Unprepared to Become Future Mi- there were still plenty of dragons to be 5. nority” The Albion Monitor/News, September 18, 3 slain even in a dawning period of na- The “Scottsboro Boys” case went to the United 1995 (http://www.monitor.net/monitor). For a full list States Supreme Court twice, establishing the princi- of Professor Feagin’s prolific books and articles, tional optimism. That is as true now as it ples that, in the United States, criminal defendants you are encouraged to visit his Web site at: was then. are entitled to effective assistance of counsel (Pow- sociweb.tamu.edu/faculty/feagin. Complete updates of the identity ell v. State of Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932)); and that people may not be de facto excluded from juries be- and status of many of these dragons and cause of their race. Norris v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 587 of SPLC’s publications and pending and (1935).