When SPLC Put Moms For Liberty On Its Hate Map, It Was Also Funding Neo-Nazis

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

In a speech before the National Cultural Diversity Awareness Council in January, U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement of using “language and imagery” in its recruitment efforts that “echo themes associated with White nationalist movements.”

Her source for this attack?

“Civil-rights groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center.”

And in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential race, it was the SPLC that labeled “Moms For Liberty” a hate group, just as GOP presidential candidates like Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy were on their way to the Granite State for events with the parental rights organization.

The SPLC designated Moms for Liberty and other parental rights organizations as “extremist organizations,” even including them on the same “hate map” as neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.

Which is ironic because, according to the federal Department of Justice, the SPLC was also giving money to the KKK at the time.

“Starting in the 1980s, the SPLC began operating a covert network of informants who were either associated with violent extremist groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, or who had infiltrated violent extremist groups at the SPLC’s direction. These informants were referred to by some individuals within the SPLC as the ‘field sources’ or the ‘Fs,’ according to the federal grand jury’s indictment.

“Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million in SPLC funds to Fs who were associated with various violent extremist groups.”

That includes a source involved in the infamous Charlottesville, Va., “Unite the Right” rally that resulted in a woman’s death. The SPLC continued to pay that “informant” for six years after the deadly rally.

According to the indictment, the SPLC was paying high-ranking members of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, the United Klans of America, and the Aryan Nations-linked “Sadistic Souls Motorcycle Club.” At the same time, it was also attacking Moms For Liberty as hateful extremists.

When Moms For Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice came to New Hampshire for an event with Ramaswamy, Rockingham County chair Sayra DeVito was on hand.

“Parents advocating for their children are not extremists. The real danger is allowing unaccountable organizations to weaponize those labels without consequence,” DeVito told NHJournal on Wednesday. She is now a GOP state representative from Danville.

“For years, the Southern Poverty Law Center has acted as a self-appointed arbiter of ‘extremism,’ smearing groups like Moms for Liberty with labels that many parents have always known were politically motivated.

“Now, as credible reports raise serious questions about the SPLC’s own conduct and associations, their moral authority is collapsing under the weight of its own hypocrisy.”

The SPLC has long been viewed as both political and partisan. Tyler O’Neil is the author of “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center.” He said in a podcast interview that President Joe Biden met with SPLC staff personally at least six times.

“The SPLC is a useful tool for those on the left to demonize conservatives, particularly with the Biden administration, when they go after parents, and they worked with the National School Board Association to draft that letter comparing parents to domestic terrorists and encouraging the government to use the Patriot Act to go after them.”

The group also put Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA on their hate map in May 2025. They released a lengthy attack on Kirk and his organization around the same time, accusing him of having “proudly embraced a white nationalist conspiracy theory.”

Just four months later, Kirk was assassinated while giving a speech on a college campus.

Elected officials, including New Hampshire Democrats in Concord and in Congress, continue to reference the SPLC as a legitimate organization that can be trusted to declare some groups and causes unacceptable.

Kimberly Allan, Hillsborough County chair of Moms for Liberty, hopes that is changing.

“For years, many of us have pushed back on the way the SPLC has labeled Moms for Liberty. Those labels were never about objective analysis; they were political, plain and simple. Parents who chose to get involved in their children’s education were unfairly and inaccurately branded in ways that never reflected reality.

“Now that the SPLC itself is facing serious scrutiny, it’s hard not to point out the obvious. An organization that built its reputation on labeling others is now being questioned for its own conduct and credibility. That should concern anyone who has taken their claims at face value.”

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.