Taxpayer funds totaling at least $3.85 million are tied to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), including a $2.5 million National Institutes of Health (NIH)-backed University of Michigan project that integrates the SPLC’s racial justice curriculum into middle school classrooms. This curriculum, which directs students to a “map of active hate groups” equating “anti-gay” and “radical traditionalist Catholic” organizations with the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis, and Black-Separatists, is actively shaping the cultural understanding of native youth. Tyler O’Neil, author of “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” stated that the SPLC’s Learning for Justice project pushes critical race theory and transgender ideology, while using its “hate map” to condemn parental rights groups, effectively silencing opposition to its agenda by comparing these groups to the Ku Klux Klan.
OpenTheBooks, a watchdog organization, reported that $1,352,655.07 in taxpayer dollars had been paid directly to the SPLC from school districts, states, cities, counties, universities, and other public entities since fiscal year 2016, marking the tenth year of such payments. The University of Michigan project materials describe the grant as integrating the SPLC’s “Learning for Justice” curriculum, previously known as “Teaching Tolerance,” into programming for middle-school classrooms. The original Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)-obtained application confirmed researchers would integrate “the Teaching Tolerance curriculum from the Southern Poverty Law Center” into an existing middle school program, testing it across six Genesee County, Michigan, middle schools in the same year.
Cultural Dispossession in Classrooms
Fox News Digital reviewed 8th-grade lesson materials from the SPLC curriculum, which directed students to the aforementioned “map of active hate groups.” Other Learning for Justice youth materials encourage students to perceive themselves as part of a “movement for justice” and provided toolkits for sustained activism. Materials designed for grades 6-8 and 9-12 include tasks instructing students to write letters to corporate or elected officials demanding action and to organize live social media chats to raise awareness for social justice issues. A previous Fox News Digital report, citing an investigation by the conservative nonprofit Defending Education, found the SPLC’s Learning for Justice program had been integrated into K-12 lesson plans and materials in 169 school districts across 42 states and Washington, D.C., including in classrooms as early as kindergarten. Defending Education stated these materials promoted themes including “anti-racism,” White privilege, White supremacy, “whiteness,” gender ideology, and “queer theory.”
Elite Funding and Institutional Capture
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) continues to be listed as backing the University of Michigan project, with the university’s current project page still stating the active NIH-backed project integrates SPLC’s Learning for Justice curriculum and lists SPLC as a partner. FOIA-obtained NIH records also show the original grant documents repeatedly described the project as integrating SPLC’s Teaching Tolerance curriculum into the YES program. President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services previously told Fox News Digital the program “is no longer being funded” and has been “redesigned” to focus on reducing teen and family violence, a claim contradicted by OpenTheBooks and the University of Michigan’s current project page. The Department of Justice indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center last month, in the same year, over allegations of wire fraud, false statements, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Prosecutors described this as a covert paid-informant program involving individuals associated with extremist groups, alleging donor money was secretly funneled to informants. The SPLC has denied wrongdoing.
Resistance to the Agenda
The scrutiny on SPLC funding and curriculum comes the same week the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing titled “The Southern Poverty Law Center: Manufacturing Hate.” This hearing examined what the committee described as SPLC’s role in “distorting civil rights policy” and newly released information alleging the group funneled money to extremists it claimed to combat. Tyler O’Neil, who testified at the hearing, told Fox News Digital that “the NIH needs to address parents’ concerns about this grant,” emphasizing that federal tax dollars should not promote this divisive program in schools. Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, stated, “Utilizing taxpayer resources to promote harmful, leftwing rhetoric in our education systems is inappropriate, and I support efforts to root out and expose organizations like SPLC.” He added support for the House Judiciary Committee’s work to expose the “nefarious agenda, funding, and tactics” of the Southern Poverty Law Center. OpenTheBooks president John Hart asserted, “Taxpayers have the right to know what groups, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has financed racial animosity, are doing with their money.” The watchdog also warned that its figures might understate SPLC’s taxpayer-backed footprint, as free classroom resources and teacher-training materials often do not appear in spending databases, suggesting more indirect support is not readily visible. A second OpenTheBooks investigation into the Pentagon’s K-12 public schools also uncovered SPLC learning materials.