SPLC sued for defamation after labeling conservative group an 'anti-immigrant hate group'

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has recently come under fire for stamping a group with the “hate” status for allegedly being anti-immigrant, and now the accused group is taking legal action against the organization, per the Washington Times.

DA King, the founder of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society, has claimed that SPLC has defamed the group by referring to it as anti-immigrant. While the group does express opposition toward illegal immigration, King has made known that the group supports legal immigration, noting that there are legal immigrants on the board of the organization.

The report stated that SPLC had asked the judge to dismiss King’s defamation case against them, but US Judge W. Keith Watkins has refused to toss it out. The judge said that he would give King the opportunity to form a case against the SPLC.

“Plaintiffs have ‘nudged’ their defamation claims - premised on SPLC’s designation of DIS as an ‘anti-immigrant hate group’ - ‘across the line from conceivable to plausible,” Watkins said.

A report noted that it is going to be difficult for King to prove that the SPLC had deliberately acted with malice in labeling his society as a hate group, noting that the defamation case is going to be nearly impossible to win, per the Marietta Daily Journal.

However, Tyler O’Neil, author of “Making Hate Pay,” said that it is significant that a judge would even allow such a case to proceed, saying: “This is the very first defamation lawsuit specifically challenging the SPLC’s ‘hate group’ accusation to make it to discovery.”

“Conservatives who have faced routine defamation may finally get some justice, and the American people may finally see behind the curtain how the SPLC runs its ‘hate group’ scam.”