EXCLUSIVE: SPLC’s Morris Dees Fired After BLP Exposé, Employees Detail Internal Strife

The Southern Poverty Law Center said Thursday that it had fired the organization’s co-founder, civil rights attorney Morris Dees. He is seen here in 2016.

America’s most influential hate group has fired Morris Dees, its 82-year-old co-founder, but failed to provide a concrete reason for his termination.

“As a civil rights organization, the SPLC is committed to ensuring that the conduct of our staff reflects the mission of the organization and the values we hope to instill in the world,” Southern Poverty Law Center President Richard Cohen said in a statement.

“When one of our own fails to meet those standards, no matter his or her role in the organization, we take it seriously and must take appropriate action. Today we announced a number of immediate, concrete next steps we’re taking, including bringing in an outside organization to conduct a comprehensive assessment of our internal climate and workplace practices, to ensure that our talented staff is working in the environment that they deserve – one in which all voices are heard and all staff members are respected,” the statement continued.

Big League Politics spoke with someone who is in contact with several SPLC employees, whom the source described as “whistleblowers.” The source, who asked to remain anonymous, said that there is increasing tension between the SPLC’s employees and its management.

“There’s a lot of anger and resentment inside the company. Their black employees are paid less than their white ones,” the source said. “Dees feels that he’s being scapegoated because the SPLC was down a whole bunch of money. They didn’t raise that much money last year.”

Morris had previously been accused of discriminatory treatment of black employees.

When Big League Politics called the SPLC media center to ask why specifically Dees was fired, we were stonewalled.

Last year, Big League Politics exposed several alleged misdeeds of Dees from court documents obtained from his divorce proceedings. The bombshell revelation was that Dees was accused of attempting to molest his stepdaughter with a sex toy. He also allegedly had an affair with an SPLC employee.

The SPLC works with tech companies to label mainstream conservative organizations as “hate groups,” helping to facilitate the de-platforming of members of those organizations.


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