Washington, DC - The Department of Justice this week announced it indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on fraud and money laundering charges for its work to expose neo-Nazi and extremist hate groups. In response, Mike Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) issued the following statement:
The indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center for its heroic and effective work to counteract dangerous hate groups like the KKK is another part of the Administration’s sustained campaign against the civil rights protections that are a foundation of our country and the organizations that defend these essential freedoms.
This is another of the repeated efforts by the Administration to reverse key civil rights protections and use federal institutions to prevent civil rights enforcement and attempt to intimidate civil rights groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Center for Responsible Lending knows this campaign. We have seen the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — an agency created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to protect Americans from discriminatory and predatory practices — be systematically dismantled, starting with its Office of Fair Lending. The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division is being redirected against the communities it was built to protect and now attacks organizations defending and enforcing civil rights.
Agency after agency charged with defending Americans from discrimination has been hollowed out or turned against their own missions. The current attack on the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose intelligence on hate groups informed FBI investigations into domestic terrorism for decades and whose offices were firebombed because of that work, fits squarely within this pattern. CRL stands with the Southern Poverty Law Center today and in the days ahead.
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Press Contact: Alfred King alfred.king@responsiblelending.org