SPLC Faces Congressional Scrutiny Over Its “Hate Map”

Since April 2026, the SPLC is facing federal indictment for wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering for paying more than $3 million to covert informants embedded in so-called “hate groups.” The indictment alleges the SPLC covertly used donor money to pay individuals associated with the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and National Socialist Party of America (American Nazi Party), and more.

Fair, who took the interim role in July 2025 for a one-year term, noted his testimony would be one of his final official acts in that role. When questioned by Republican committee members about the DOJ’s superseding indictment, Fair’s most common response were evasive maneuvers saying, “Not to my knowledge” or “our counsel will respond to all the allegations in the middle district of Alabama.”

However, the most contentious exchanges during the hearing involved the SPLC’s “hate map.” Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX) stated that SPLC’s “hate map” included mainstream conservative organizations while leaving out violent extremist groups. Rep. Gooden said the SPLC’s “hate map” included Alliance Defending Freedom, Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, and Family Research Council. The SPLC has also listed Liberty Counsel on the “hate map.”

Rep. Gooden: “Do you believe that Americans practicing their Christian faith and exercising their first Amendment rights are violent extremists?”

Bryan Fair: “The SPLC doesn't identify any group based on religion. We too believe in religious liberty. We identify groups based on the statements they make, that their leaders make, based on their activities.”

Fair defended the current “hate map” designations as fitting the SPLC’s “criteria” for a hate group, such as groups who are “anti-LGBTQ” or who “vilify, demonize individuals based on immutable characteristics” or push “anti-government conspiracy theories.”

Yet, Rep. Gooden asked Fair whether the domestic terror group Antifa, and the radical leftist pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge that has openly claimed responsibility for firebombings and vandalism of pregnancy resource centers and Catholic churches, were designated as hate groups. Fair avoided saying “no.”

Bryan Fair: “Under our criteria, we’ve designated those groups based on what they’ve said.”

Rep. Gooden: “Under your criteria. Turning Point USA, Family Research Council and other conservative Christian groups are considered hate groups. But Antifa and Jane’s Revenge that burns down Catholic churches and pregnancy resource centers, those are not hate groups. It sounds like you're really proud of that process.”

Rep. Gooden closed out his brief questioning by stating, “And you know what, I’d actually ask for you to add me to your hate map. I’d be honored to be on it. It sounds like I’d be in great company.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) questioned Fair on whether the SPLC included any anti-Semitic groups or Islamic extremist organizations on its “hate map.”

Rep. Roy: “Do you think the SPLC could provide us a list of the Islamic-oriented groups you have on your hate map?”

Bryan Fair: “We target no group because of its religion. We target groups because they express statements and engage in activities that demean and vilify—”

Rep. Roy: “You brought up LGBT groups a minute ago. So you think there’s a bunch of Islamic groups that are pro-LGBTQ? Is that the position of the SPLC? I just want to make sure the record reflects that.”

Bryan Fair: “Mr. Roy, as I said, we target no group and label no group because of its religion. We target groups and label groups because of what they say about others. And we have a constitutional right to do that, and we will continue to do that.”

Dr. Alveda King, niece of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and who has appeared on the SPLC’s “hate list,” also testified at the hearing strongly criticizing the SPLC for inciting violence and criminal activity they purport to fight against.

Dr. King: “So, do you pay the same people to do the bomb (sic), and then go and comfort the people from being bombed? You pay the same people to do both jobs. That's kind of fraud to me. That’s weird and chaotic and confusing.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): “Well, Dr. King, I don't think there’s any allegation that anybody who was working for the Southern Property Law Center bombed anyone. Do you have information to that effect?”

Dr. King: “I don’t personally, but outside agitators did bomb our house in ‘63 and then ran back and took off the Ku Klux Klan sheets and put on police things and ran up in the yard. And they were the same people. It was crazy.”

When Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) asked Fair if he would “recant” Dr. King’s previous “hate list” label, Fair avoided answering by stating that the SPLC would “continue to expose hate and extremism.”

Dr. King also criticized the SPLC for funding abortion and irreversible gender interventions on children that have “shocked” some of its donors.

Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI): “Do you think the SPLC’s hate map, as we’ve seen many times, is antithetical to the peaceful advancement of civil rights in America?”

Dr. King: “It makes people hate. I’ve been on it. I’ve been on a domestic terrorist list when I’m for peace and love. One blood, one human race, stop fighting, stop chopping off [male body parts] and killing babies…Hey, some of the money, go investigate it yourself, is being used to, in the name of LGBTQ, cutting baby parts off, that is happening with the money of donors and the donors are shocked.”

Dr. King (later continued): “SPLC has an opportunity right now to look at the things that it has not gotten right, and we can all benefit from that. There have been decades of this kind of thing. In the 1960s, the informants and all of that were doing their work, ended up hurting rather than helping. When you manufacture hate, when you manufacture and socially engineer racism as if we were separate races and we are only one race, you're going to keep getting unwarranted fear and chaos.”

Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The Southern Poverty Law Center is under much deserved scrutiny. The SPLC has falsely labeled Liberty Counsel and many other Christian conservative groups as ‘hate groups’ in a baseless, reckless attempt to damage the reputations of those with which it merely disagrees. Hate group labels carry real-world consequences, such as when Floyd Corkins intended to commit mass murder at the headquarters of the Family Research Council in 2013 after viewing the SPLC’s ‘hate map.’ The ‘hate map’ appears to be a one-way street labeling faith-based groups who stand firm for religious liberty, sanctity of life, and biological reality as hateful while giving violent extremist groups a free pass. Public scrutiny for the SPLC must continue until it has been held accountable for all of its double standards and deceptions.”