A high-ranking official at the Department of Education under President Joe Biden met with representatives of the Southern Poverty Law Center a year before the center put parental rights groups, including Moms for Liberty, on its “hate map” alongside chapters of the Ku Klux Klan, according to documents obtained by The Oversight Project.
The department also appears to have hosted training that described groups the SPLC has attacked as “our opposition.”
According to documents obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, Dietra Trent, executive director at the White House initiative on historically black colleges and universities (HBCU), met with Southern Poverty Law Center staff on July 5, 2022, one year before the SPLC put parental rights groups on its “hate map” June 6. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
“It is shocking to see in writing the evidence that innocent parents were harassed and targeted by their own federal government for exercising their right to free speech and for speaking out during the COVID school shutdowns,” Moms for Liberty co-founder Liberty Justice told The Daily Signal in a statement Monday.
“We have known for some time the Biden administration has made it their mission to attack parents who publicly advocate for their children’s education,” she added. “Attending public school board meetings and voicing concerns about our children’s education should not put a target on our backs to be silenced by the Federal Government.”
“Though the Biden administration would like to believe otherwise, parents are the only people that should get to make decisions on behalf of their children,” Justice said. “We are grateful for the Heritage Foundation for standing up on behalf of all parents. “
The Meeting
Taylor Emerson, then a confidential assistant to Miguel Cardona, the education secretary, organized the meeting.
As I wrote in my book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC has leveraged its track record of suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy to develop a “hate map” it uses to smear enemies. The SPLC has put conservative Christian groups, immigration-reform groups, parental rights groups, and other organizations that oppose its leftist agenda on the “hate map” alongside Klan chapters.
Last June, the SPLC added a new category to its map, “antigovernment extremist groups.” That new category includes groups in an “anti-student inclusion movement”; namely, parental rights groups including Moms for Liberty, Parents Defending Education, No Left Turn in Education, Courage is a Habit, and others.
Biden’s White House notoriously helped craft the National School Boards Association’s letter comparing concerned parents with domestic terrorists back in October 2021. That letter, later retracted, led to an FBI memo, also later retracted.
SPLC leaders and staff met with White House officials at least 11 times since January 2021, when Biden took office, and Biden nominated an SPLC attorney to a federal appeals court. The SPLC’s ties with the Biden administration raise troubling questions about whether the administration plans to target concerned parents again, and these new documents suggest the Department of Education considers the SPLC a credible partner.
Nina Patel, then a senior policy counsel at the SPLC, reached out to Trent on May 10, 2022. “The SPLC has tracked extremist groups for over 50 years and has offered institutions and government officials practical, evidence-based recommendations and resources to understand and deal with these types of threats,” Patel wrote. “If we can be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to reach out.”
She introduced Trent to her colleagues, LaShawn Warren, chief policy officer, and Michael Lieberman, senior policy counsel for hate and extremism. She said Lieberman “led the effort to enact federal hate crime legislation and continues to work on combatting radicalization upstream through education and prevention.” She also mentioned SPLC President Margaret Huang‘s testimony to a House committee “about the threats targeting HBCUs and discussed the need to ensure that students have digital literacy skills, taught in an inclusive educational environment, along with other recommendations.”
“I would be interested in learning more about the digital literacy skills you referenced below,” Trent responded. She said the Department of Education is “working with federal partners to host a series of campus emergency prevention, recovery and response trainings on several HBCU campuses.”
After scheduling back and forth, Patel ultimately organized a meeting between Warren, Lieberman, and Emerson, the confidential assistant to Education Secretary Cardona. The meeting took place on July 5, and that morning, Patel asked Emerson to include Kevin Myles, the deputy director of programs and strategy at the SPLC’s education arm, Learning for Justice.
A later follow-up email showed that Myles, the Learning for Justice staffer, was able to join the call on July 5.
Neither the Department of Justice nor the SPLC responded to a request for comment on the call as of press time.
‘Our Opposition’
The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project also turned up a document from the left-leaning group Equality Federation, which appears to be an employee training document.
The document, titled “The Legal Assault on Trans Youth & How to Fight Back,” describes conservative organizations as “our opposition.” The federation highlights Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization SPLC has branded an “anti-LGBTQ hate group”; Moms for Liberty; The Heritage Foundation; and the American Principles Project.
The Department of Education did not respond to a request to clarify the circumstances surrounding the slides in question. The SPLC did not respond to a request for comment about whether the SPLC worked with the Equality Federation to develop the “opposition” list.
Tyler O’Neil is managing editor of The Daily Signal and the author of “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center.”
Reprinted with permission from The Daily Signal – By Tyler O’Neil
This administration targets anyone who is for America!!! They have weponized three letter agencies against true Patriots!! God save America!
Does it bother “education” department that youth trans or not can’t read write or count?
Why do people keep fighting the Southern Poverty Law Center? They are a hard left-wing Marxist socialist hate group. They have settled so many lawsuits out of court for groups they’ve called out as being hate groups when in reality they are the domestic terrorists hate group they need to be outlawed. They have nothing to do with poverty or law. All they do is reach out and brand all they do is reach out and brand other groups at the Liberals hate as hate groups and try and get out of business
Is there a more hate filled group than the communist los splc? It’s a rhetorical question. I pray, literally, for their demise. Groups like that are pure evil.
all leftist organizations and all democrat run things should be on a hate map.
IF the educaiton department thinks parents are a hate group it is time to disband our public schools and hand every parent a voucher for $30000 a year to educate their child.
And they say that President Trump, if elected will be a dictator!! Everyday there is an article how some federal department does something similar. I guess you can’t call Joe a dictator because he probably doesn’t know what is being done. But it is the people he has put in these departments. Why must everyone who disagrees with democrats must be labeled an extremist or radical??
The education dept should be removed from the federal government and put back in the states. It has become politicized and weaponized. The teacher unions are running the rainbow groups and trans of our children. They are the front for the MAPS. And ole Joe is beholden to them for all the campaign money the union sends his way and the votes. Break up this mafia for it has nothing to do with educating our children. Dumbing down our kids. The head of the union saw no problem locking down the children for 2 years. Only many many suicides, drug overdoses PTSD among our children. The union with ole Joe have blood on their hands.
the average american
pro choice but not to an extreme, restrict late term abortions
ok with gay marriage and maybe transgenders, but not playing on womens sports teams or using the same bathrooms showing body parts
has no problems with diversity, but doesn’t need it forced on them everywhere with constant dei and such
has no problem with gun ownership and the second amendment but wants more thorough background checks to keep guns away from criminals
will pay their taxes but doesn’t their money thrown away
right now extremists of the left and the right have the power and those not on the extremes aren’t represented
The government knows that if parents have control over their children’s they could not be properly indoctrinated. The government is the only entity that knows what’s best for your children. And they believe that too these are the same people that believe in climate change global warming. Bigger government higher taxes and more regulations can change the climate of the planet. Unfortunately for them the truth is finally getting out
Vote all Demon-rats out of office.
The SPLC is probably the most malicious hate group in the country, maybe the world. The Biden administration ranks close behind them.
I will so glad when this idiot is gone. I despise him so much.
Yet another great reason to get rid of DPI.
The SPLC is the HATE group. They have some chutzpah to name anyone else as haters! They have NOTHING to do with either “poverty” or “law.” Not surprising that they are colluding with the fascist Biden officials!
No real surprise really. We aren’t a nation led by the elected and haven’t been for decades. It’s career unelected gov’t bureaucrats who run this country. The WH occupant is only a mouthpiece mantel decoration, at least at present. Not that for Trump though.
They show their true colors so often. Breaks my heart that they hate this beautiful country which has given them a voice but they won’t allow us to voice ours. No shame! ????????????
Individuals can’t successfully defeat the organized pressure to “change America” . It takes support from like minded people. More and more parents will turn to home school and private schools.
And this man is the President of our country?? Wake up people he has to go come November.
The radical racist anti Americans at the SPLC should never be allowed anywhere near our government.
Thank you Amac for these daily bulletins. I find them so informative.
This week, I nearly got into a car wreck on a highway because of a reckless driver… who, moments later, actually did collide with someone in front of her. She drove so incompetently that the episode gave me some additional perspective, and motivated me to start getting up much earlier, in order to drive to work amongst a “thinner herd”.
Of course, we don’t have the luxury of separating ourselves from our “democrat” counterparts, as we try to maintain viable leadership under whom we might live our lives in a caring, productive and effective manner. President Biden is verifiable evidence of the futility of trying to live in a way that avoids the hopelessly inept engagement of the dedicated Democrat voters. The difference between us is not so much about differing values, backgrounds, ethnicity, or nuance. Because the salient feature of “Democrat” policy is a predisposition to destroy our awareness of US history, our personal values, our personal freedoms, our personal safety, our personal choices, our childrens’ educations, and, generally, our prosperous and rewarding way of life, I am forced to conclude that the defining characteristics of most “Democrat” voters, sadly, and like the deadly-incompetent driver I mentioned, are abject stupidity and unearned esteem.
Gee, how did Joe find time to meet people with bags of containing the Big Guys 10%? SPLC is nothing more than a shill outfit for the DNC… who they’ve apparently forgotten used to be the ones fire-bombing their offices in the 60s!
the need to shut down the Department of Education an give control back to the states. Our schools went downhill after Carter created it taking control from the states.
DEFUND and ELIMINATE the Dept. of DUHMACATION.
Better yet, sue the Dept. of DUHMACATION for not giving you a proper education for the past 46 years thanks to Carters beginning of the DUMBING DOWN of LEGAL AMERICANS CITIZENS.
The left does not like traditional values.
Liberals are communist
WTF
Planned & Our kids suffer
Thanks SPLC
And it rolls downhill.. new Michigan Dept of Ed proposal thecentersquare.com/issues/education/article_d254818a-1a52-5145-875e-b09fc901c8da.html?a?utm_source=thecentersquare.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Flists%2Ft2%2Fmichigan%2F&utm_medium=email&utm_content=read%20more
why are 90 percent of americans miderate but most politicians are far left or far right extremists?
Biden and his administration ARE representing the ANTICHRIST. ONLY TWO GENDERS! PUBLIC Education should be defunded and the grooming pedophiles called educators should be imprisoned or committed to mental institutions at least.
The SPLC……an NGO dedicated to the destruction of everything once considered as being “normal”.
This NGO is always having public sessions where some purple haired spokes thing for the organization will give speeches spouting hatred against evil things such as, white people, males in general, heterosexuality and against those opposed to pedophilia which is todays “thing to do” among the elitists (ever wonder why Epsteins COMPLETE client list hasn’t been exposed?).
Well, attend a meeting held by the SPLC and after the speech, screech, whatever occurs, hang around and surreptitiously follow the speaker home. Chances are of course the creature is from a nearby chapter so there should be no worries about gas costs in following the thing. Find out where the social tyrant lives and then let EVERYONE know in the online community. It’s called “doxxing” and has long been a weapon of the perverse left. Time to use their weapons against them………..past time.
Why knows what might happen to “old purple hair”, and who cares? With any luck such doxxing may result in one less member of the SPLC.
the caucus system worsens the problem with mainly left wing activists determining the dem nominee and right wing activists determining the gop nominee
we get biden and trump again, the biden of 2024 is not the biden of 1984, the current biden being controlled more and more by the extremist squad, then there’s trump on the right who was chosen over far more qualified and reasonable candidates. two candidates close to 80 who both answer to the most extreme elements of their party and both claim to be healthy when they are not