60 layoffs show the SPLC has overplayed its hand. Will the rest of the left learn from it?

The Southern Poverty Law Center's June round of layoffs comes just days after releasing its annual update to its laughable 'hate group' document

Jeremy Tedesco is senior counsel and senior vice president of corporate engagement for Alliance Defending Freedom (@ADFLegal).

After gaining a reputation for successfully bringing to an end what was left of the Ku Klux Klan through lawsuits in the early 1980s, the SPLC shifted into full-time fundraising mode under its co-founder, Morris Dees.

A member of the Direct Marketing Association’s Hall of Fame, Dees was unceremoniously booted from the SPLC in 2019 while longtime president Richard Cohen resigned in disgrace amid swirling allegations of racism and sexism at company headquarters—a lavish facility employees have dubbed "The Poverty Palace."And don’t kid yourself into thinking that anything has changed. In 2021, one ex-SPLC staff member wrote at The Daily Beast that even the follow-up efforts to address this toxic culture were designed to "protect the reputation of SPLC and not to enact or recommend changes that would benefit staff—changes that were desperately needed."